Jake turned back to the surrounding flora. “I think there’s...” His voice trailed off and he surged forward through the underbrush.
“Jake? Jake! Where are you going?” I tripped over branches that lashed out at me in his wake. I scrambled to my feet and followed him again.
“Come on Sara! I KNOW this place! I KNOW it!” Jake called out excitedly to me. I grunted in reply as I struggled to keep up with him. Jake turned a corner and I lost sight of him.
“Jake? Jake?”
A hand shot out from under me and pulled me into the earth. Another hand wrapped it’s bony self around my mouth before I could make any sound that might give me away. I twisted around till I could see the face of my captor. As soon as I had, I wished I hadn’t, for it was one of the dreaded Arouthgrots. Two evil red eyes stared at me from their abyss of a face. I knew that I was as good as dead now. Once an Arouthgrot has captured its prey, in this case, me, it won’t let go for anything. Fortunately, the Arouthgrots also knock their prey out quickly, so that’s what happened to me next. It seemed hours that I wallowed in the murky darkness of unconsciousness, waiting for death. The next waking thing I knew, I was staring into Jake’s face.
“Where am I?” I asked him.
“Sara! You’re alive!” Jake said, mountains of relief in his voice and what looked like tears in his eyes. Wait. Tears? JAKE?
“Why wouldn’t I be alive?” I asked, then remembered what had happened before falling unconscious. “Wait, stupid question. A better one would be *how* am I alive?”
Jake was silent for a minute before starting his side of the tale.
“After a minute, I realized you weren’t following me anymore. In fact, I couldn’t hear any noise from you. So I followed my trail until I found where yours ended. It was so strange. Half of one of your footprints was gone. I felt around that spot until I found a trapdoor. It covered half of one of your prints. Before I entered, I looked around for some sort of weapon. I found you knife.”
Here Jake paused and handed my knife back to me. I took it by the emerald green hilt and turned it over as he continued.
“I also grabbed a dry branch and made a torch out of it and the bottom of my shirt. I lit it using your knife and a stone. Then I was ready to find you. I pried up the trapdoor and dropped myself in. The door closed with an ominous thud behind me.”
I could see Jake was beginning to enter story telling mode. Now I suspected that he would go into more detail and such.
“I shuddered at the sudden chill that blew towards me, fouled with smells from the deep pit of the world. But I could not stay there. I had a princess to find. The tunnel led me onwards and with your knife and the torch, I wasn’t afraid of much, though I was certainly wary of any noise. Then, my torch blew out. And of course, I hadn’t thought to bring a rock with me to use to light it again.”
He play bowed.
“Jake the Unorganized, at your service.”
I laughed of course. It was so typical of him.
“Anyways, without my light, panic threatened to take control. I must have stood there for five minutes trying to regain my control of myself. After I found that I could breath, I continued my way up the tunnel, feeling the sides since my light was gone. That’s when I ran smack dab into some sort of furry critter. It squealed and raced back the direction it had come from. I figured that if such a critter was running that way, there must be a way out in that direction. So I sprinted after. Needless to say, it was much faster than me and I soon lost it. Then I realized that I was lost as well. Whatever it was had careened through the tunnels and preformed so many switchbacks and darted off into so many tunnels that I had absolutely no clue where I was or even what direction I had come from. The music reached me then; wild, haunting music. It seemed to reach into the very depths of my soul and grasp at my feelings. It pulled me to a large room where it abruptly stopped. Then I realized my mistake. It was an enchantment. It had pulled me into the center of the Arouthgrot tunnel network. I ducked into the shadows before they could see me. I felt a hand on my shoulder and whirled around, your knife in hand, to see who it was. No one was there. A voice that I instantly knew I could trust whispered in my ear, 'All will be well, This, I can tell, that you will be alright. Follow the glow, You must need go slow, Never stray from the light.' Of course, after this cryptic message, my nerves were all on end. Then the strangest thing happened. Your knife hilt began to glow. A pure, white glow. It flowed out from the blade tip and onto the floor, following what seemed to be a set course. I thought that if the Arouthgrots hadn't seen me before, they would now. Amazingly, they paid no attention to me in the least. I figured that I might as well follow the voice's directions, so I stepped into the path of light. Instantly, the glow shot upward to cover me. I figured that this must be some sort of invisibility device. I was right. I followed the path until I came to a mirror. It have no clue what a mirror was doing underground. But the glow seemed to enter the mirror and continue on down a path inside. Logic told me that it was just a reflection, but my heart urged me to step inside anyways. I did. The mirror absorbed me like a dry rag absorbs washwater. It was the second most strange feeling I've felt in my life, being sucked in like that. The *first* most strange feeling was what went on inside the mirror. Scenes of my life began to play before my eyes in perfect detail, from the exact perspective I had viewed them when I lived them. They started from me entering the mirror and rapidly progressed backwards through my life. Arguments I had tried to forget, mistakes that cost me a lot, times of laughter I never want to forget all moved past me at blinding speed. Then I saw my first year. Sara, I've NEVER known where I came from... not till that moment. Sara, you were right. I am the high king of Lathlialta. Every detail of my first year is so vivid! I remember the Rantorgans destroying my father's palace. I remember watching from my cradle as they killed my mother, who as desperately trying to protect me, in front of."
All the tears I had seen in Jake's eyes were now falling out at these awful memories.
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