Chapter 10. Antarians and Auriae

Alpha, queen of hearts, g-clef, eighth note, delta.

The frame glowed orange and all the images vanished. For a moment, Allison wondered if she had did something wrong. But how? She had been so sure...

There was a soft click and the handle turned from platinum to copper, then back.

Allison opened up the portrait easily.

Amazing. The vision was right.

A set of foldaway stairs tumbled down. Beyond that...gloom. A dark, foreboding hallway which turned left and sloped down.

The clock read 10:55. She had to hurry. It was hard to believe that her visions didn't even take ten minutes.

Allison stepped into the hallway, then considered what would happen once Mulan, Red, or, even worse, Merlin would come knocking. The door couldn't lock. Allison decided to stack the bookshelf by the door, then realized it was too heavy to move.

The nightstand and chair would have to do--for now. Allison inserted them into place, willing them to stay as a blockade.

Then she entered the room.

It was pitch black in there. There was not a single light behind the portrait.

"Curtain down?" Allison asked. The curtain did not go down. Allison groaned, then continued down the passageway, tracing her right hand along the concrete wall.

The wall was smooth, but had a few bumps every inch or so. Allison paced her breathing with her steps: in, out, in, out. It calmed her down a little. If she got lost, she could simply turn around and trace the left wall back to the entrance. She hoped.

As Allison walked, she pondered about her visions. The ones which troubled her most were her first and third ones. Emilia...that seemed like an...evil twin. Evil twins couldn't be real. That was fantasy, of course. Fantasy wasn't real in this world.

Emilia had said that she controlled all visions. Allison hoped that that didn't mean she would be having dreams of evil twins and evil wolves from now on.

In the third one, each of the seven people were carrying an orb. Blood red, gold, silver, crystal blue, dark green, black, and, most troubling, white. What had the Wolf called the white one? The Master Auria. What were the Auriae, anyways? The White one had summoned lightning. Maybe they were props for magic tricks. That seemed likely, though Allison was pretty sure that they were much more than just props.

The lady she had been in the third vision was named Irya Tariesh. The man had been Hugo something. Another woman was Thalia. Those names sounded strangely familiar to her. Irya Tariesh. Irya Tariesh...again, Allison felt a great sense of frustration. It wasn't fair to be born a second time and have no memory of your first--whoa, whoa, whoa. She was not born a second time. She had no memory of her first life because this was her first life. Allison had to convince herself that fairy tales weren't real. Sadly, that seemed to be getting harder and harder.

There was a sudden knock outside the passage, and Allison froze. She turned around slowly and heard the faint voice of Mulan.

"Allison? Your training's about to begin."

Allison stifled a yelp and hurtled out of the tunnel. She faced the portrait. "Don't lock the door." She wasn't sure is the lady heard her or not, but Allison started working on the chair and the nightstand, dragging them back to their places.

"Allison! You there?"

"Curtain down!" Allison shouted at the portrait.

"What?" Mulan responded.

The curtain beeped and reappeared over the hopefully unlocked portrait.

"Coming!" Allison yelped.

Mulan opened the door. "You okay? You sounded panicky."

She seemed genuinely concerned, and Allison felt guilty about lying to her. "Yeah. I'm fine."

"Come on, then. It's eleven."

The clock read 11:01.

"I was a bit late," Mulan explained. "You know, business and all that. Come on."

They started down the hall, Allison's heart hammering in her chest. Right before they turned the corner, she caught sight of a person creeping into her room.

Jason.

Allison nearly shouted for Mulan to stop. But then Jason would be in trouble. And Mulan would be suspicious and might discover the curtain.

"Is there anything wrong?" Mulan asked.

Jason had vanished into her room. Allison bit her lip and turned away. "No. Nothing's wrong."

"Good. It's okay, I felt nervous when I first came here. I understand."

No, you don't.

Then Allison immediately felt guilty for thinking that.

"You know," Mulan began slowly, "I have something to tell you."

"Really? What is that?"

"Well--"

Then the alarms started blaring.

A dozen princesses raced down the hall, waving their arms and screaming. Allison flattened herself against the wall. "What's wrong?!"

Mulan seemed half-terrified, half-disbelieving. "I can't believe it. I thought this place--not for the second time--"

"Mulan! What's going on?"

"Follow me, Allison. Whatever you do, do not, I repeat, do not stop following me!"

Mulan took Allison's hand and raced off in the direction of the princesses, her hair flying behind her. Allison could barely feel her own feet. "Mulan! Slow down!"

"The Antarians are here!" Mulan yelled back. "Come on!" If possible, the girl tugged even harder.

The Antarians. Hadn't Red said something about them? Then she remembered. The bad guys. Led by the Big Bad Wolf.

Allison remembered the hallway with golden water. Mulan was pulling her through that very same hallway. "Don't let go! I'll take you down the stairs!"

They sped around the steps, the alarms ascending in volume. Allison had to resist the temptation to block her ears. But if she did block them, she would fall forward.

The stairs had been empty when Allison had went down. Now they were swarming with people.

"Where're we going?" Allison gasped. Mulan didn't answer, instead pulling Allison off the stairs and onto a balcony, following the flow of the crowd.

"Don't speak," Mulan commanded roughly. She pulled Allison through a set of black metal doors. "Let me focus."

The room beyond the doors was a mosaic of bright colors. The roof wasn't stained glass, but was painted red, green, brown, and blue. The walls were a hasty splatter of bright yellow and orange. Several doors, colored different shades of purple, stood out among the bright shades of yellow and orange.

Mulan ran over to a lavender door on the far wall, placing her palms onto the splintery wood.

"Allison," Mulan shouted over the din, "watch. You'll need to do this someday."

The room was packed with people, each one of them finding his or her own door. Mulan closed her eyes, removed her right palm, traced three invisible circles towards the right, and repeated the same with her left palm.

"Hang on," Mulan said. She gripped Allison's arm.

Allison staggered as the doors spun around her. She braced herself, then realized that it was the walls--not the floor--that was spinning.

"What're we doing?" Allison asked, half in panic and half in bewilderment. She gripped Mulan's arm. "What's happening?"

Mulan scowled at the doors. "Safety precautions. So the Wolf won't find us."

The doors were shifting from purple to blue to green.

"Yellow's emergency rooms and stuff. Purple is the door back to the stairway."

The green lightened, then glowed faintly, morphing slowly to yellow.

Mulan let go of Allison and cupped her hands. "Stop!" She yelled.

The spinning walls slowed and came to a halt. Allison staggered a bit, dizzy. There was nobody. "Mulan, what are we doing?"

"Evacuating," Mulan replied grimly. "Come on."

She took Allison's wrist and led her through an egg-yolk colored door.

There was a large, metal-walled room through the doorway. Wooden planks served as patchy roof. Ropes, chains, and even yarn hung from the boards. There were benches along the walls, and the floor was rubber, like the ones the basketball courts used.

But what amazed Allison was the people, no, not people, inside. What did Red call them? Fairians.

Yes, Fairians.

The noise was deafening. Allison yelped and jumped back as a group of ducklings scurried past, following their mother. A swan groomed itself atop the beams. A group of princesses huddled in the corner, whispering urgently. Several men clumped together in a corner, and Prince William was running in circles, yelling. Three bears lumbered in through a door opposite to Mulan and Allison, one slightly smaller than the others. The small bear immediately charged towards the group of princesses.

The Gingerbread Man paced around the opposite wall, nibbling his wrist. Goldilocks yelped and sprinted out from the group of princesses, pursued by all three bears. A princess with dark chestnut hair in a flowing purple gown was chasing after a monstrous beast which abruptly transformed into a handsome man--another prince. The old lady who lived in the shoe was screaming at the turtle and the hare, who were yelling at the top of their lungs. A princess in a tight emerald dress screamed and jumped back from the Three Little Pigs, who were elbowing their way through the crowd, yelling for Jason--

Jason. With a start, Allison remembered him sneaking into her room. 

"Mulan!" 

The girl whipped around. "What?"

"Do you see Jason?"

Mulan's eyes widened. "Jason--" she stood up on her toes, scanning the crowd. "Oh, gosh. Jason's gone."

Mulan glanced back. "Allison--"

But she was gone, too.