Chapter Four: Sensation
Only two things will happen when you're about to die, ether you survive and continue writing your story, or you end the book short and take a break... forever, the voice lingered in Jace's mind.
Alex woke up with a jolt. Her head hurt, a lot. She pushed Jace off of her and stood up; clutching the side of her head like it was a pile of diamonds. She stood like that for a couple of minutes before she started to take in her surroundings. Alex was in what appeared to be a study with the exits being blocked off, leaving her to sit and wonder what exactly happened... and what was going to happen to Jace and herself.
"Jace, get up," Alex said kicking him in his gut and immediate felt bad afterwards even though she didn't use a lot of force.
"Give me 5 more minutes," Jace mumbled. Alex just sighed and kicked him again, not feeling as bad, "uh, wha..."
"Get up moron, what happened, where are we," Alex said looking around once more.
"What? Alex can you repeat that," Jace said rubbing his eyes.
"I said what happened and where are we, it looks like we are still in this castle of some sort."
"Ya that's what I thought you said."
"Then why did you ask me to repeat myself if you heard me in the first place."
"Well... umm, everything is... glowing, sort of and I have no idea what's going on."
Alex looked around and then back to Jace, "no it's not, what is wrong with you man," she said slapping him across the face to try and help him wake up.
Jace just sat there, not talking or reacting at all. He blinked, rubbed his eyes and blinked a couple of more times. What he saw both confused and amazed him. Everything had an aura of light around it, each object seemed to have a color that represented it. The wood had a brownish tint around it, while the old couch had a dark maroon color around it. Alex herself, had a white aura around her. Alex slapped him again.
"Hello, Alex to moron. Are to there," she said as Jace just sat there with a look only a child would have.
Jace shook his head and rubbed his eyes again, the auras around everything still remained, lingering in the air, shimmering ever so slightly when something came into contact with it like the dust and floating rock.
Wait, floating rock... No, that's defiantly real, Jace thought standing up quickly and grabbing Alex's hand.
"Alex, we need to move now," Jace said bring her to the door that led outside and started tearing the barricade down. He heard noises coming from the other side of the door that led back into the castle
"What, oh," Alex said turning around to see the other barricade slowly being taken apart, piece by piece by some unseen force, "Jace, why are the floating objects glowing purple," she asked frozen in fear. The sounds on the other side of the door returned once again.
"I don't fucking know, just help me get this door open," Jace replied frantically, taking the risk of glancing back seeing the objects slowly moving out of the way. The purple aura seemed thicker in a sense, opposed to the other glowing auras around the room. He had no idea what was on the other side of that door and frankly, he didn't care. Jace just wanted out and away from whatever could make objects float; and when Jace wanted something, he didn't stop until he got it.
-----(•)) -{ Searching...
Twilight was trying to remove the objects blocking their path when she heard noises on the other side, and then the sound of things being thrown on the floor.
"Rarity, help me move these things blocking the door, there's something on the other side," she said not breaking her concentration.
Rarity meanwhile, was talking to Fluttershy inside the shield spell she threw up around the two.
“My dear Fluttershy, you must calm down. This simple shield spell will keep us safe from all of the filthy dust and dirt, along with that big old dragon. Rainbow, quit flying around like that, you're getting dust everywhere. Hmm, did you say something Twilight," Rarity said.
Twilight face hooved and sighed, all the guards were pegasus ponies and they were almost asleep because they were nocturnal, hence the name night guards. Apple Jack approached and with a nod to Twilight, bucked the remaining debris away. The group walked into the room. It was destroyed like the rest of the castle but this one had blood on the floor and the objects in the room seemed to be misplaced. The one thing that stood out was the door that was open and shutting with the wind. Items laid scattered around it as light seeped through the door like water. Fluttershy fainted at the sight of the blood and glass shards on the floor. What seemed to catch Twilights attention was not the odd arrangements of items or what seemed to be a struggle at the door. What caught Twilights attention was the blood on the floor. The blood seemed pulse, with a light glow coming from it. Her thoughts were interrupted by Apple Jack who was standing by the door.
"Ummm Twi, are them plants suppose' ta be snarling at me?"
(• 3•)
Jace ran alongside Alex through the hedge maze making lefts and rights, with no idea where they were heading. They dodged the giant carnivorous plants that occupied the garden. Jace still saw glowing colors around each plant, but the ones trying to kill them had a thicker aura than the rest. What used to be a place of beauty and peace, was now a struggle of survival and horror.
The plants that were very much alive and trying to kill them, had snake like stems and a giant pods that were all shades of different colors for their head. The sharp thorns at the tip fused with the pod and served as teeth. The anther of the plant dangled out the side of the plant, looking like a tongue. Although the plants had no eyes, they were very well aware of Jace and Alex's position. The stems stretched outwards allowing the plants extra reach as they snapped at them.
In all honestly the killer plants were a nightmare. They bobbed back and forth waiting for pray to get close enough for it to attack. They had saliva dripping from what appeared to be their mouth which Jace didn't know how was even possible. He didn't care though. All happy emotions the garden gave him before were not present. That's when Jace realized something, where the hell is that dragon.
"Alex, not trying to scare you or anything but I forgot to mention that there was a dragon out here before, and now... well... it's not here anymore," Jace said panting as he dogged the plant that lunged at him.
"Scare me, we are running from some unknown creature and trying to be eaten by giant carnivorous plants. How could I possibly be scared. Wait, a dragon? How the hell could you forget about a dragon" Alex replied swing her short sword through one of the plants stems, decapitating it. The pod like head bounced around a bit before it dissolved into a blue like dust that vanished into the air.
"Plants are trying to eat us Alex, give me a break."
The two made it to the center of the hedge maze with only a few scratches here and there, well except for Jace. One of the plants managed to bite his arm and slowly drag him back towards it's roots. Alex just cut its head off while it was distracted. The center of the maze was circular and fairly free of man eating plants. A few quick swings with Alex's sword fixed that. Both collapsed on the ground from exhaustion.
"Ugh, I swear we need to get me a weapon, maybe go back and get my sword," Jace said looking at his arm. The wound seemed fairly healed, which was weird because of how recently it happened.
"Go back, we don't even know how we got here, plus the fact that there are those plant things," Alex responded looking at the sky.
"Simple, follow the dead plants that should be easy," Jace said matter-of-factly.
"They disappeared when we killed them Jace, remember."
"Oh yeah... well follow the lack of giant man eating plants."
The two sat there for a moment in silence, just thinking and staring at the sky.
"It feels good, doesn't it? The warmth of the sun on your skin. The breeze flowing against your body. I don't understand why we live in that damn cave if all of this is up here," Jace said suddenly, breaking the silence.
"Yea," was all Jace heard as Alex mumbled back.
After a while Jace stood up and looked around. The colors he saw were amazing and overwhelming at the same time. He didn't know why he was seeing all these different colors around things. Maybe it's an effect of the sunlight, he thought. He did a 360 and stopped on the castle. It was completely destroyed. He didn't even know how it was still standing. He moved his glaze to the tower, it too was crumbling to pieces. It was missing a roof and part of the walls. Then Jace froze, filled with fear. What filled his body with fear again was when he saw the dragon, rising from the other side of the side of the castle. It flapped its giant wings, the force causing some of the rubble in the walls fall apart. It circled the tower a couple of times before heading straight towards them.
Too bad both Alex and Jace were too focused on the dragon to notice the vines slivering out from under the hedge, curling a bit with every motion and reaching out to grab them.