Faerie Wings III: The Nightmare of Dreamland: Part Five

      ”See? You were always fully awake, faerie,” said Aiken.

      This is impossible! How can I still be awake? Kira wondered. She was feeling quite fanatic about Aiken’s claim. The last memory she had prior to waking up in Dreamland was falling asleep on her bed in the real world. Now she was in a flower-filled meadow in a place she had never heard of before, talking to a Kougra she had never met before! None of this made sense to Kira, who was now puzzling how she had arrived in Dreamland…and if there was any way she could escape.

      “Are you okay, faerie?” Aiken asked briskly.

      “I don’t know,” Kia admitted. “When I first woke up, I thought this place was just a dream and that I would be woken up in an hour and a half.” She stretched her arms wide. “This place is so dreamy and relaxing, and yet it can change its scenery and create tornadoes that can rip trees off the ground.”

      Aiken nodded. “This place was designed to appear as a paradise. But the longer you stay, the more deadly Dreamland appears to you. Soon you would attempt to escape the dreamy-atmosphere, only to understand that escaping is impossible from the inside.”

      “From the inside?” asked Kira. “What do you mean?”

      “When I told you that you were wide awake,” Aiken began, “I was only telling part of the truth. The reality of the situation is that only your subconscious mind is awake, while your body is lying around somewhere, asleep.”

      “So I am asleep,” Kira realized. “I knew it!”

      “Only your body is asleep,” Aiken pressed. “Your subconscious mind is still awake, and it will remain awake for as long as the spell is cast upon you. However, it will only be a matter of time before the spell devours your entire body…and your subconscious mind is the only thing remaining.”

      “You can’t be serious!” Kira gasped. “Please tell me this is some kind of joke! You’re just trying to scare me, right?”

      “I’m afraid I’m dead serious,” Aiken confessed, “and it will happen to you as well if you continue to stay here.”

      “Is there a way for me to escape?” asked Kira.

      “Only if you have somebody in the outside world working on a way to free you from Dreamland,” Aiken explained. “For once you are awakened; your mind will be freed from this virtual prison for good.”

      Kira felt a bit skeptical. “Wait, how could you possibly know all this, Aiken? Were you poofed off to an imaginary library or something?”

      Aiken shook his head. “There is a certain time when your body vanishes because of the spell, like I’ve just told you. As soon as it happened to me, I saw this odd screen appear in the sky that showed my body dissolving into a pile of bright pink dust. Since then I have stopped feeling the physical effects of Dreamland, and my mind has been wandering this place ever since. Now I am trapped here forever.”

      Kira rubbed her chin. “So what you’re saying is that as long as my body is still asleep, I would continue to feel tired?”

      “Yes,” said Aiken, “and you’ll also continue to lose your every levels.”

      “But there must be a way for us to escape,” Kira insisted. “I understand that your body has dissolved, Aiken, and yet I have faith that you could still be brought out of this place somebody!” She reached over and clutched Aiken’s paws. “We’ll leave this place together, I promise.”

      “You’re not so bad, faerie,” said Aiken with the faintest smile. “After all, I can feel the purity of your heart and intentions. Yet I must also remind you that it’s physically impossible for my subconscious mind to be removed from Dreamland without my body, as I was never able to wake up. There’s still hope for you, though, so at least your rescue is still possible.”

      Kira wiped her eyes. “Don’t worry. I’m positive we’ll find a way to save you, Aiken. I’m sure somebody in Faerieland will save both of us from Dreamland…someday.”

      “Here we are, girls,” said Brillare as she opened the double doors of the Faeriewood Academy library. The library was two stories tall, filled with bookshelves made of glossed wood, and patted with dark purple and pink swirled carpeting. At individual desks and tables spread around the library, faeries of all types were reading and studying quietly. “I’ll go up to the second floor while you two stay on the main floor,” Brillare directed.

      “So many books,” Sirena gasped as she craned her neck up towards the second story shelves. “I wonder how many picture books the librarian keeps here...”

      Illere led Sirena to the back of the main floor, where they quickly scanned the shelves for any books about Dreamland and dream-related spells. Every book Illere picked up held no helpful information about Dreamland. “This is going to be like finding a needle in a grassy hill,” she grumbled.

      Sirena scanned the shelves westward from Illere and reported, “I don’t see any dream-related books here.”

      As Illere was going to respond, a Light faerie with long, curly blonde hair approached her. “May I help you find anything?” asked the faerie. “My name’s Melina and I would gladly assist you with finding textbooks so you can study properly for the upcoming midterms.”

      “No thank you,” said Illere. “I have every textbook I need for the midterms. But I am looking for a specific book, though.”

      “What’s the topic of the book?” asked Melina.

      “Dreamland,” said Illere.

      Melina shrugged her shoulders. “I’m afraid I’ve never heard about this ‘Dreamland’ place before. Nonetheless, I would gladly look in our catalog and see if we have any books about this Dreamland place.”

      Illere nodded and walked over to where Sirena was carelessly flipping through an illustrated magazine. “Did you find anything?” she asked her friend.

      “I found this great magazine,” said Sirena. “Its chalk full of great ideas for homemade beauty products, like rose scented soap bars!”

      “So I’m guessing you found no books about Dreamland, then?” Illere wondered.

      “Nope…” Sirena began.

      Bang! A sudden explosion erupted from the middle of the library, and the entire premises were being filled with thick grey smoke. Illere immediately poofed up a green dome to protect herself and Sirena, and Sirena was now using her aqua-vision to see what was going on past the smoke. “Do you see anything?” asked Illere.

      “I see no fires, and everybody else have been evacuated from the library,” Sirena reported. She waited a moment and then said, “Illere, I can see Brillare flying above a…who is that?”

      “What do you see?” asked Illere as the smoke cleared up.

      “A strange faerie wearing a dark purple cloak,” said Sirena. “Her hood is very snug on her head, so I can’t see her face.”

      As soon as the remaining smoke had vanished, the two faeries saw a mysterious faerie throw dark red orbs towards Brillare, who was protecting herself with a yellow shield. “Girls! Go to Melina and see if she’s okay!” Brillare commanded.

      Illere ran over to where Melina was laying. Her eyes were shut and her dress was covered with soot. Before she could form a dome to protect the Light faerie, lllere was bombarded by a shower of red orbs that were apparently coming from the ceiling above her. “Dome of oak!” Illere shouted, and a bunch of oak branches appeared from the ground and wrapped themselves around the two faeries.

      “Sun orb!” Brillare chanted as she raised her arms over her head. Once a medium-sized orb appeared in her hands, she threw it towards the cloaked faerie, who then used her cloak to reflect it back towards its sender. Quickly, Brillare poofed up a yellow dome shield around her and watched as the bright white orb bounced off of her shield’s surface and explode like a set of firecrackers.

      Muttering something under her breath, the cloaked faerie turned to look up at Brillare, who noticed the attacker’s blood-red eyes and shivered. “You haven’t seen the last of me,” the mysterious faerie grumbled as she poofed herself out of the library.

      Sirena ran over to Brillare as she landed herself towards the ground. “Brillare, who was that and what did they do?” asked Sirena.

      “I saw her, whoever that was, enter the library and approach Melina,” Brillare said, her eyes flashing with worry. “The faerie then attacked her with this blue orb as soon as Melina had her back turned, and I immediately sprang into action to help her. It was strange because as soon as Melina was hit by the orb, she closed her eyes and…well, she fell asleep. I don’t think she was injured, though.”

      By now Illere had collapsed her dome and walked over towards her friends. “Melina seems to be fine, Brillare,” she reported. “She’s still sleeping.”

      “So was this intruder attacking Melina or just lulling her to sleep?” asked Sirena.

      Illere shook her head. “I don’t think she was simply helping Melina take a nap. It seems she was using a type of sleeping spell, like the Sweet Dreams Potion from the Hidden Tower?”

      “But that potion comes in a perfume bottle,” said Brillare, “and it doesn’t have the ability to form any type of orbs.”

      Sirena stomped her foot. “Now I really wish we can talk to Queen Fyora! Surely she would know exactly what we should do about Miss Cloaked Creature.”

      Brillare nodded. “I’m afraid, for now, we must rely on ourselves in order to discover what’s going on around us.” She paused. “There was something about that faerie I confronted…I can’t put my finger on why it's bothering me.”

      “Something wrong, Brillare?” asked Illere.

      “That faerie with the cloak,” said Brillare, “had these eyes that were almost a shade of deep scarlet. They were red and fiery, yet they gave me these strange chills. I don’t know why, but I feel that our newest foe is not just an ordinary faerie we have seen before. There was something about her aura that made me afraid that something really catastrophic was going to happen.”

      To be continued…