A heroe's journey

A Story by kk

Ellia

The story behind my name(a school assignment by Ellia)

For those who think my name is unusual, here’s how I got it:

Once upon a time, there was a couple that was in love. They got married and decided to have a baby (me). They also decided that when I came, a good name would come to mind. Nine months later, I was born in the hospital of Chicago, and a disastrous event followed. My mom thought I looked like a Lia, and my dad thought I looked like an Ellie. As you probably guessed, this resulted in a fight. The fight wasn’t an angry one, but rather a playful one, kind of like a sibling fight. When the nurse finally grew tired of my parent’s bickering, she called out , “Ellia! Her name is Ellia,”. My mother rolled her eyes playfully and said, “Fine.” (personally, I think my mother should have chose my name, because she’s the one who had to go through childbirth).

Usually, a fight about a child’s name is bitter, and leaves the parents with anger toward each other, and sometimes leads to divorce. This is not the case with my parents. They always tell me, “Ellia, if you ever decide to have a child, be sure to decide it’s name as soon as possible.” and I always agree

Carol123: How’s your new puppy, is it Peter? IMU:(

I didn’t want to respond to this message that was typed by my old friend Carol. Without realizing it, she always made me long for the school that I went to previously. I reminded myself that I chose to go here, and I have great friends here too.

I figured it would be rude not to respond to Carol, because me missing my other school is not her fault, so I just came up with a decent lie.

ButterflyRainbow142:Sry, I can’t talk to u right now, it’s time for class, ILBL8. TTYL

I sighed. About two months ago, my friend Beatrice went to boarding school, and she always bragged to me about how “neat” it was. I wanted to go to what seems like heaven on earth too, so after a ten page persuasive essay, discussions, decision making, and a whole lot of paperwork, I finally got my wish. Boarding school was difficult, but at least I had Beatrice to keep me company!

It’s been about a month since I attended this school, so I figured it would be good to write home for the first time:

Dear Mom, Dad, and Peter,

I hope you have been doing okay without me in the house to feed Peter. I miss you a whole bunch, and I can’t wait until holiday break! Mom, you would be happy to know that I take a shower, brush my hair, and eat breakfast every morning. Dad, you would be happy to know that I turned in every single school assignment.

Love, Your daughter,

Ellia

I stamp the letter with one of the stamps I stole from the teacher’s desk (you get stamps for good behavior, which I can never achieve), put my letter in the box that gets taken to the post office every week, and walk back to my dorm, which is small because I don’t have a roommate, but because of my size, it’s just right. I climb into my tiny bed, which is big for me, doze off. Today was one of those days that are normal, yet exhausting. I dreamed about the surprises that could come the next day.

I awoke to the sight of Beatrice’s face so close to mine I could feel her breath. I tried to scream, but she covered my mouth, so no sound came out. She kept her hand there.

“Promise me you won’t scream.”

I tried again.

“Please Ellia, we don’t have time.”

I nodded my head and she took her hand away.

“How did you get here?! And why are you here?!” I whispered in complete shock.

“Uuuummmm…” She hesitated.

“Um what?”

“Oh gosh, how am I going to explain this to you?”

“How should I know?”

“Okay, so, do you know what day it is?”

“October 31st, AT ABOUT 2:30 IN THE MORNING!!!!”

“Shhhh”

“Sorry”, I whispered

“Anyway, when I was little, I met this fairy named Gabbie. For a long time, I didn’t know she was real. I always thought I was going insane, but then, one day, a week after my ninth birthday, she told me about this prison called TIPEF, which stands for The Inescapable Prison for Evil Fairies. She also told me that this prison is only for the most evil, human-hating fairies, and that on this date and on this year, the fairies would escape. Then, she disappeared that night and I never saw her again. I thought is was all a sham at the time, but I got scared and needed someone to come with me to the TIPEF”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

“Beatrice,” I said, “That was four years ago, Gabbie probably isn’t real, and neither are fairies, plus, how would we get there?”

“I don’t know if fairies are real, but Gabbie did give me some instructions on how to get to there.” she replied.

She was pleading with her eyes, and I could see it even though it was dark. We can’t leave, I thought It’s too dangerous, we could lose track of where we are. Then what? I looked at Beatrice. But, I probably should help her, because she’s my friend.

“You really going to make me do this?” I ask.

She nods. I’m going to regret this

“Let’s do it”.

I start to reach for my flashlight, but Beatrice stops me.

“We’ll have to go without it,” she said, “It would make it easier for someone to see us.”

I nod. She was right, but my night vision is terrible. When we stepped outside, I realized that I forgot my coat, and it was freezing outside. I could see my breath come out of my mouth, the same color a the snowflake that just fell on my nose. Then, much to my surprise, Beatrice began to casually take off her coat.

“Beatrice, please don’t give me your coat, I don’t-”, Then I realized that she was wearing two coats. I took a closer look and then noticed that one of them wasn’t her’s, in fact, it was mine!

“Here,” She said, as she tossed me my coat, “I knew you were going to forget it.”

Annoyed but grateful, I threw on the coat. Then, a question popped into my mind that I should have asked long time ago, so I asked it now,

“Where are these so called instructions that you said Gabbie gave you?”

“Here,” She pulled out a huge, complicated map from her back pocket, and one of the routes is highlighted. I would be impressed if it hadn’t had all of these illustrations that looked like they were drawn by a five year old.

“Gabbie drew it for me,” She said,

“This is insane,”

“I know,”

We walked in silence for a while, until I sensed this little voice in my head that was quiet, barely loud enough to be heard, but I could still hear it. Go back. It said, I stopped in my tracks.

“What?” Beatrice asked. She sounded annoyed.

“Nothing,” I replied. Maybe a bit too quickly.

She shrugged her shoulders and we kept walking. But that little voice in my head wouldn’t shut up. Go back, Go back It said. I tried to get it out of my head, but it still wouldn’t stop. Suddenly, it seemed as if the voice was more of a sound than a thought, like someone was whispering in my ear. And then, it seemed like the voice wasn’t even mine anymore. I looked over at Beatrice to see if she was messing with me, but she was unaware, walking next to me as we left the campus.

Then, the voice started to get louder. Go back, Go back. I gave Beatrice a panicked look. Was she hearing this too? She obviously wasn’t. She was just walking along, checking her map every once in awhile. I started to panic. Was I just imaging things? Beatrice was trying to say something to me, but I couldn’t hear her over the sounds shrieking to me.

Then, the voice turned into multiple voices, and they started to say different things like: Stop, if you wish to live or Obey us, stupid girl.

At that point, I was willing to do anything to get rid of these voices. I tried to think, but I couldn’t, not with all of these people screaming in my head. I started to cry. I just didn’t know what else to do.

The best thing I could think to do was to stop moving forward. Beatrice was probably very frustrated by then, as she tries to coax me to move forward, but I stayed put. Then, my vision started to disappear and before I know it, it’s gone.

I started screaming, but a hand covered my mouth. I couldn’t see, so I tried to run, even though I didn’t know where I would go, but someone is keeping me in place. Then, I started floating. I tried to struggle toward the ground, but it was useless. I knew this was too real to be a dream, but it had to be. No, I managed to tell myself. It’s not.

Behind all of the spooky, cruel sounding voices, I could hear one, gentle, familiar voice. It’s Beatrice, but it’s even harder to hear her now that the voices were even louder, so I could hear her voice, but I couldn’t quite tell what she was saying. I tried to call for her, but there was still a hand covering my mouth. I needed to hear what she was saying. It had to be useful to me, most things she says are useful.

I tried my best to concentrate on her voice, and only her voice, but the other voices were too loud. Eventually, I was able to make out one sentence.

“Gee, you're so tiny, why do you have to be so heavy?” she mumbled.

Wait a minute. I wasn’t floating? This was a good thing, except for the fact that BEATRICE WAS CARRYING ME AGAINST MY WILL TO SOME FAIRY PRISON. Frustration replaced fear as I was carried for what seemed like hours.

Then, Beatrice started running and then, she tossed me, but I landed on something soft. Slowly, my vision started to come back, at the same speed as it disappeared. Then, the voices start to only say Go back, and nothing else. And then, the voices slowly disappeared until there was only one voice left, and that voice slowly became softer and softer until it was gone.

I became more relieved than I have ever been in my entire life, but I was exhausted. I decided to let myself fall asleep, knowing that I would be woken soon.

“Ellia,” I heard a voice say. “Wake up, we don’t have much time!”

Oh few! I thought. It was all a dream. It’s very nice of Beatrice to wake me up so that I can get to class on time, and I can’t wait to tell her about my crazy dream.--Wait a minute… Something was poking me all over. I opened my eyes to sticks that were centimeters away from my face. I couldn’t believe it! I was in a bush! Bushes don’t have leaves these days, because it is winter, so they are just sticks. I stood up as soon as I realized it, and brushed myself off. I stared at Beatrice, and we were silent for the next few seconds. Finally, I broke the silence.

“What just happened? What’s going on?” I said impatiently.

There was another awkward moment of silence.

“You have to tell me if you want me to go any further!” I was getting more and more angry.

Finally, she answered me, “I can carry you again.”

I could tell that she was also getting angry, which was making me even more angry.

I am very strong. I am easily the strongest girl my age at school, but no one would know unless I showed them because of my small size. When Beatrice carried me, I was very frightened and confused, so I lost all my strength.

“What!?” I say. I was officially losing my cool.

She said slowly, “I can carry you… again”.

I really didn’t know how to convince Beatrice to take me back, or to get her to tell me what just happened to me, so I decided threatened her.

“If you don’t tell me,” I paused, thinking of a good threat. “I’m going back!”

This was possibly the worst threat for me to come up with right now because I had no idea where I was, so someone needed to show me how to get back to the campus. Plus, what would I tell the principal? He’s probably not worried about me. If anything, he’s glad that I’m not there.

I was startled by Beatrice’s chuckling. And for some reason, that filled my body with rage, and I remembered my strength, so I picked her up in one swift motion, and held her above my head. She screamed, but it was cut off when she realized that if someone heard her, we would both be in big trouble. But she soon forgot about that.

“PUT ME DOWN! PUT ME DOWN!” she yelled.

“When you tell me what just happened to me I will put you down!”

I guess I felt a little bit guilty for torturing my friend, but not guilty enough to stop me from continuing. I will find out if I’m crazy, and I will go back.

Beatrice

I felt a combination of many different emotions right then. Guilt and fear and regret were all mixed together inside of me, and I hated it.

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll tell you.”

Tears welled up in my eyes, and I started sweating. I couldn’t believe what I just did to Ellia. I put her through this terrible experience and forced her to go onward. And I threatened to do it again.

“When the fairies notice that you are crossing the border between a place where fairies live and a place where we live-” I swallowed.

“Will you just stop saying fairies?! It just makes this whole situation even more ridiculous,” She interrupts. I continue.

“They make you hear voices that aren’t real. A normal person would run back to their home immediately, but a person who knows how to avoid them can do so.”

“How can you do that?”, there's a hint of doubt in her voice.

“You have to not try to make the voices go away.”

She puts me down and then explodes into a fit of laughter.

“Do you think this is funny?!” I say through gritted teeth.

She didn’t hesitate to answer, “Yes!” she laughed some more, but she was starting to calm down,

“I’m just thinking about how I believed your story, and you repay me by dragging me to …” She looked around “I don’t know, Timbuktu?!”

I remembered in fourth grade, I was going about my day and eating my lunch when suddenly, this girl named Miranda walked up to me. She was tall (I considered myself tall until I saw her) and muscular and her face was not visible under all of her make-up (in fourth grade!), I smiled and said hi. I always heard people whispering about how horrible she was. I always told myself that those are all just lies that are told to make her feel bad, but something didn’t feel right when she approached me.

“Don’t ‘hi’ me!” She said with a higher voice than I expected.

“Oh,” I said, “I-I’m sorry”

She laughed and shook her head, “You can’t fool me,” She stepped closer to me. “You’re a liar, and you cause nothing but trouble, I can see it in your eyes.”

Before I could say anything, she walked away. She was whispering to her friends, and pointing at me.

The next day at lunch, everyone was surrounding me and teasing me. Except for one girl that I could see out of the corner of my eye. Then, a short boy pushed my lunch tray off the table, and everyone laughed. The girl helped me clean up my lunch and she gave me some of hers and we talked about how rude the other kids were being. She told me that her name was Ellia, and we had been friends ever since.

As I was on my way home that day, I was trying to figure out how to not be bullied anymore, so I thought about what Miranda said. You’re a liar, and you cause nothing but trouble, I can see it in your eyes. That’s probably what she told everyone else to make them hate me. She probably meant my eyes. My eyes are so brown, that they’re almost black. But they’re my eyes I thought I can’t change them.

But at that moment, I passed the man on the street who is always asking me if I want free contact lenses. I always knew that he was crazy, and that I probably shouldn’t buy them, but if I bought ones that cost money, my mom would find out.

I took a pair of blue contact lenses, thanked the man, and walked home.

The next day at school, things were not that much different from the other ones. I still had to share Ellia’s lunch, but a couple of people complimented my contact lenses, but it made me upset how most people liked my contacts better than my real eyes.

That day, I decided to sit next to Ellia again.

“Your eyes are ugly,” She remarked.

I don't know why that made me so happy.

“Really?! Thank you,”
I went to the bathroom and took my contact lenses off and threw them in the trash.

As I was walking home that day, I realized something. Maybe, it was my hair that the kids were teasing me about. My hair was a bright shade of red, and it went all the way down to my hips. It was also as straight as sticks.
As time went on, I became more and more sure that it was my hair that the kids were teasing me about.
Two days later, I stole my moms hair dye and bleached my hair. I knew that I was going to get in trouble, but it was worth it.
I was grounded, but I of course didn't care because now everyone was complimenting me on my hair, instead of teasing me, and I got to eat my own lunch.
I went home and cried, and that's when I saw a Gabbie for the first time.

From that point on, I admired Ellia. She is strong, beautiful, and she doesn't care what other people think. She's everything that I am not.

I thought about how she was the only person who would be friends with me, and how she had done everything for me. I tried to think of what I’d done for her. I couldn't think of anything. I've done nothing for her and she's done everything for me, and now I'm forcing her into this unknown place where she doesn't want to be. I need to take her back to the campus. At this point I was officially losing it. We stared in silence for a long time.
Suddenly, I told Ellia “Ellia,” I swallowed “You can go,”
“What?” Ellia seemed very surprised.

“I'm taking you back,”
“No you can't! You can't do this alone.”
“Yes I can .”
“You're insane.”
“You already said that.”

“I know, but you can get hurt,”
“Elia, I'll be fine, I know how to do this,”

“Ok,” Ellia doesn't argue after that.

We were starting to walk back when a very tall man approached us. When I said tall earlier, I meant it. This man was possibly the tallest man I had ever seen.

“Go away stupid children,” he grumbled. “Didn’t you get my warning?”

I ignored his comment.
“We were sent here,” I say quietly.
“Yeah right, who sent you?”

“Gabbie.”

“Are you supposed to be a fairy?” Ellia interrupts, rudely “Because if you are then you’re missing two very important things. Fairies have wings and they’re tiny.”

My cheeks turned red. “Ellia, let me do the talking.”

The tall man answers her, “It’s just a myth that fairies are tiny,” he said in between laughs, “And for the wings, do these satisfy you?”

Then, out from behind him, as if it were out of nowhere, an enormous pair of wings appeared behind him. Ellia was speechless. I couldn't blame her. It was the first time that she had ever seen actual evidence that fairies exist. Suddenly, his wings started vibrating, and he gracefully launched himself into the air, and he landed right behind us. Ellia stared in shock. This was not new to me through.

“Can we go past now?” I asked politely.

“Let me think about that,” he paused for a second, “No,”

“Why not?”

“I am the guard of this place, and I don’t trust your friend over there.”

“Ellia? Oh, don’t worry about her, she just thought you were trying to fool her earlier and she hates it when people try to do that. Plus, I’m taking her home anyway.”

“How am I supposed to know that she won’t tell anyone? Just to keep things safe, we are going to put he into the TIPEF,”

“Not if she has anything to say about it,”

“Ha! She can try, but she can never talk me out of this one,”

Ellia is good at lots of things, but ranting is what she’s best at. I remember at elementary school, when we had to do juggling in PE, she almost spent the whole class time talking about how we shouldn’t do juggling, without letting out teacher say a word. I nodded to her. She knew what she had to do.

“What?!” she started, “You can’t just put me in here! This prison is for fairies, not humans you imbecile…”.

As she distracted the guard, I picked up a heavy stone. For a second, I felt a bit guilty about what I was about to do. But then I realized, a real guard wouldn’t just stand there, and wait for Ellia to stop talking, they would just drag her into the cold dark, prison, a place that Ellia doesn’t belong. This fairy was too stupid and too cruel to be a guard. This fairy was no guard at all.

My guilt instantly disappeared in thin air, and I through the rock at the evil fairy's head. Then, his eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he collapsed to the ground.

Ellia and I ran toward each other and embraced each other tightly.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her.

“I’m sorry to,” she says.

No more words needed to be said. I knew that she forgave me, and she knew that I forgave her.

Ellia

I didn’t really want to go back anymore. I still don’t know why, but I felt like I needed to continue on our journey.

Before I could tell her she faced me and whispered, “I’m sorry,”

“I know”, I said.

“No, you don’t know. We’re too late, we don’t have time to take you back,”

“It’s okay, I’ll gladly come with you,”

“Really?”

“Really,”

“Yes!”

“Yes please,” I corrected

She bumped me lightly with her elbow and we both smiled.

In fifth grade, Beatrice had this strange obsession with manners. Whenever I said “yes”, she would always correct it to “yes please”, and whenever I said “no”, she would always correct it to “no thank you”, even if the context didn’t allow it.

Beatrice interrupted my thought, “There’s no time for joking around, we have to hurry.”

I am not fast, and neither is Beatrice, but we ran anyways. I had a feeling that we would have to do some running later, so maybe it would be best not to waste all of our energy right now, but I decided not to say anything about it. I felt like everything I’ve said in the past few days was wrong, and that everything in the past few days that Beatrice said was right.

After about twenty minutes of running, I finally laid eyes on an enormous building in the distance. The building was a repulsing shade of gray, and it had no doors or windows. Ivy choked it, and it looked like it could fall down at any second.

We both drop down to our knees and struggle for breath.

“Is this it?” I said in between gasps.

“Yes,” she said, “We’re almost there”.

I smiled, and suddenly, I felt like I should go back to my old ways and tell her everything I was thinking.

“I think we should hold off on the running,” I told her.

“Why?” she looked confused.

“We shouldn’t waste our energy, we’ll need to run later.”

“You’re probably right, let’s just jog the rest of the way.”

We jogged for the next ten minutes or so, until we reached the TIPEF. It was even bigger up close. The word that I used earlier, enormous, was an understatement. Beatrice also seemed shocked.

“What do these ‘evil fairies’ want anyway?” I whispered. I didn’t want anyone to hear me.

“Um…”

“Come on Beatrice. I’ve already been mad about this, so I can’t get mad again.”

“It’s a long story, we don’t have enough time.”

“A story?”

“Well, a fairy’s number one job is to protect children of every species,”

This, I had never heard before.

She continues, “And they can’t afford to lose even one fairy, because since most but not all of them are small, they tend to get swatted at, stepped on, drowned, and worse. Therefore, they live in a number of remote areas that you can’t get to unless you know how to avoid the very scary voices that scare a normal person out of their pants. Also, just to ensure the fairy’s safety, they are not allowed to go outside these areas.”

I nod my head. This is a lot of information that I didn’t know before.

“Every fairy gets the same amount of work for the world.” She points to a large purple sculpture in the distance. “This is The Jar. It contains all of of the magic. Most of the large fairies guard the jar. Every day, all of the fairies eat a handful of those tiny crystals, and the magic allows them to do anything they would like that is not against the rules. Their are too many rules to discuss right now, so I’ll tell you later. Anyway, if you eat too much of the sugar, you’ll have so much magic that you could disobey the rules, and that’s what the evil fairies want.”

“How does that even work?” It was so, so hard to believe her.

“Oh,” she shrugged “I don’t know, magic?”

We both laughed.

“After Gabbie told me about this, my mom called me in for dinner, and then she disappeared. I still don’t know where she is, or how she got that information, or what to do now, or what to expect, or why the evil fairies want to disobey the rules.”

I wanted to suggest an answer, but before I could say anything, I giant cloud of what seemed like bugs of all different sizes appeared before me. I knew it was time.

Beatrice

Ellia looked around franticly, trying to figure out what to do. I said the first thing that came to mind.

“RUN!” I almost screamed. “I’ll go left, you go right,”

I see her bolt over to the left, and I do the same thing to the right. I never thought that either of us could run this fast, and my legs burned. My heart was pounding, and sweat beaded up on my forehead. But I did not stop. At this point I hurt, my whole body hurt. I needed to stop, but I could. Just keep running. I told myself.

I dared not look back. I did not need to know how close they were. But it was so tempting. They’re probably right behind me. I thought. The fluttering noise got louder. Now I knew they were right behind me. I tried to pick up speed, but I couldn’t go any faster. The fluttering noise gets louder and louder, and I knew I couldn’t outrun them, but I had to keep going.

All in one motion, someone lifted me by the wrist, and I was going higher and higher. I looked at the ground. I just might have survived a fall from this height, even though I would be too injured to take off running again. I had no time to lose. I struggled as hard as I could, but it was useless. Whoever was grabbing me was too strong.

At this point, I would not survive a fall from this height. I had nothing else to do besides hold on to whoever was grabbing me as hard as I could.

I couldn’t see the ground then, and I was light headed. We must have been pretty high up by then. Suddenly, we started soaring toward the ground. I can’t quite recall what happened for a little while after that.

Ellia

I had been running for so long. Finally, I couldn’t run anymore. I collapse onto the ground and try to catch my breath. Once my lungs stop burning, I look up at the sky and see that it was night time.

I ran into a forest earlier, and my coat was now in tatters from running through so many snags. Strangely, it was easy to outrun the fairies, because they didn’t seem to be flying in my direction. I hopped that Beatrice was as lucky as I was, actually, not really. I was cold wet, and miserable. I needed to find Beatrice, before it was too late.

Slowly and cautiously, I took a long walk to observe the prison, where the fairies probably took Beatrice.

When I finally got there, there was no one guarding the outside, which was a good thing. I noticed a huge hole in the wall of the prison.

Perfect. That’s probably how the evil fairies escaped I climbed into the hole that I could barely fit into. How could thousands of fairies get into that hole? I guess they used magic to get out? Probably not. Fairies at the TIPFE probably don’t get their ‘daily supplement of magic’. I forgot all of my stupid questions and decided to get to work.

“Beatrice?” I called. I got no answer. I didn’t even know why I expected one. “BEATRICE!” I screamed. Maybe now she heard me?

I kept on calling her name, but the only answer I got was my own echoing back to me.

Eventually, when I reached one area of the prison, I heard someone say,

“Are you Ellia?”

The voice did not belong to Beatrice. I froze. I did not reply. Suddenly, a small child peeked around the corner.

“Where’s Beatrice?” she asked.

When she walked all of the way around the corner, I could see her wings. They were see-through and red. Keys and swirls and sparkles covered them, and they were the prettiest things I’ve ever seen.

“Hey you!” I looked her straight in her eyes. “Where did you take my friend?”

“What are you talking about, if anyone is ‘taking her’ anywhere, it’s you.”

“Who are you?”

“You know who I am, which is why I’m asking, who are you?”

“I’m Gabbie,”

“What? Gabbie? Why are you here?”

“I’ll tell you when I think you’re ready,”

She stood up and walked toward me.

“You don’t know where she is, do you?” she says softly.

I swallowed. “No, I don’t.”

“Then we’ll just have to find her together,”

“We have no time to lose, let’s go!”

“I think that the prisoners put Beatrice in the basement, they want information from her.”

“Great, now all we have to do is figure out how to get there,”

Beatrice

It was pitch dark in here, and I couldn’t see. And why was it so cold? I think I also feel myself swaying a little, but maybe that’s just my mind. I remembered some of what happened yesterday, or at least, I think it was yesterday. I had to get out of there, I just had to. But how?

For hours, I paced the room and tried to find some secret passage or something, until I heard a voice.

“Hello, Beatrice,” It said

I couldn’t help but laugh to myself. That was a line from my favorite book. I stopped “laughing” when I realized what was going on.

He rolled his eyes. “GUYS! YOU HAVE TO TURN ON THE LIGHTS SO THAT SHE GETS SCARED! IT WON’T WORK IF THE LIGHTS ARE OFF!”

I then saw the brightest light I’ve ever seen. I thought I might go blind. Then, I looked away from the light. I am in a cage. I look up. I am in a cage that is suspended in the air by a long chain.

I try to make this look like this is no big deal, so I laugh,

“What’s so funny,” the man said

I sighed, “You’re seriously going to put me in one of those cliché suspended cages?”

He snickered mischievously, “Look down, it’s cold by the way”

I looked down. There was water below me. And I didn’t know how to swim. I knew that a cage suspended high above water was overused and almost always escapable, but that was just in movies. This was real life, and I knew that there was probably no possible escape, but I had to try. I had to.

Ellia

We spent hours staring at Beatrice’s map that she dropped and Gabbie explained it to me.

“The basement is a scary and unknown place. I haven’t been down there before,” Gabbie was concentrating hard.

“Do you know where the basement is?” I asked Gabbie. Now we were getting places.

“No,” She sounded disappointed.

I thought about it for a moment, and then I finally thought of something.

“The basement has to be at the bottom of the building,” I said.

“Why didn’t I think of that? Get on my back!” I think that Gabbie and I could be friends .

Quietly, I climbed onto her back and she flew me to the bottom floor. I was enjoying this.

When we finally got to the bottom floor, we found a small hole with a trapdoor covering it.

“I don’t think we should try to get Beatrice just yet, we need to see our competition.” I whispered.

I opened the door and we both went in, knowing that disaster would find us inside.

Beatrice

Beatrice, I wanted to scream, What do you think you’re doing. Part of me was happy that she came to find me, part of me wanted her to leave. There are other people here, and she could get hurt. And she brought Gabbie with her, I was going to need an explanation for that later. The best thing I could do was not look in their direction. Then, I remembered that the door closed automatically. No one comes in here unnoticed. I needed to-

Slam! My thought was interrupted. The guards looked up from their ledges and of course, sprung into action. Ellia closed the door and locked it, so the guards couldn’t get to her and Gabbie.

She’ll come back, I told myself, They’re my best friends. But honestly, I wasn’t so sure. But for now, I had to figure out how to get out of this mess, and finish my mission myself. I turned away from the guards and sifted through the front pouch of my backpack, the pouch with all of the souvenirs Gabbie gave me. I found some interesting Items. A blow torch (I guess I could melt the metal with it, but the guards would notice) , a knife(Gabbie said I should only use this if I absolutely had to), a sponge (It could hold water which could rust metal, but there is only one place her where I can get water, and I’m not going there), a flashlight, and (ah ha) a hypnotizer. I grabbed the hypnotizer and blow torch, hid them behind my back, and put everything else in my backpack.

Just as I expected, a guard swiped my backpack out of my hand and yelled, “No supplies allowed,” In an unkind tone.

I tried to look disappointed, and I guess it worked because there wasn’t even a hint of suspicion in her face. I smiled. I had a plan, and so far, it was working.

Ellia

I shook my head, “I can’t believe they put her in one of those suspended cages.”

Gabbie smiled and said, “I can’t believe the cage is over water, so if we cut the rope, then she will land in water, and be safe,” she was so happy, it scared me.

“Yes,” I said, “But she would still be in a cage and she can’t swim. Plus, it’s a metal chain, not a rope.”

“Hmm…”

For a while, we sat there and thought. Then, we started to hear voices coming from the basement.

“I know what you want. And I’m not going to tell you anything until you tell me why you want to steal all of the magic.” the voice belonged to Beatrice. Gabbie and I put our ear to the small trapdoor and listened in.

Beatrice

“Okay, just so you know, you’re not getting any food or water in here, and we won’t let you go until you tell us where The Jar is.” The main guard, then one who ordered the lights to be turned on said.

“Okay fine”, I shrugged my shoulders, “Then I’ll starve and you won’t ever know how to get to The Jar.”
“You don’t want to talk to me like that, little girl,” He curled his hand into a fist.

I slowly began to slip the hypnotizer out from behind my back, but luckily, before I could, the guard interrupted me.

“Fine. I’ll tell you why they are helping me steal all of the magic and break the rules.” My heart was pounding and blood was rushing into my face, “It’s because we are sick of protecting you. We want to protect ourselves. You see, the fairy population is small and it’s all because of the other creatures. Most of us fairies are foolish and they want to keep you guys safe.” He pouted, “But some of us know better, we know that we need to get rid of you non-fairy like creatures, but the only way we could do that is if we get so much magic that we can break the rules, and unfortunately, getting rid of all non-fairy like creatures is against the rules.”

“You horrible beast!” I shouted, and before he could do anything, I pulled out my hypnotizer.

Let me tell you, hypnotizing people is hard when the person doesn’t want to be hypnotized and you’ve never hypnotized a person before. I try to point it at the guard but he is flying around in circles, avoiding it.

Then suddenly, Ellia and Gabbie entered the room. Perfect. If the guard tries to stop us, he’ll get hypnotized. I waved the blow torch at Gabbie and Ellia and Ellia rides Gabbie under my cage. Keeping the hypnotizer pointed at the guard, I passed the blow torch to Ellia.

Suddenly, the guard swoops down and steals the blow torch, too quickly for me to hypnotize him. But it was too late.

The hole that Ellia burned was big enough for me to fit through. I hesitated. You need to be brave I told myself. So. I. Closed. My. Eyes. And. Jumped.

I wanted to scream, but I knew that I couldn’t. When I reached the water, I suddenly couldn’t breathe. I want to breath, but I just couldn’t do it. What is happening to me?

Ellia

I pulled Beatrice out of the water. I forgot that she can’t swim. She gasps.

“Why do people like to swim in pools of this stuff?!” She said.

We all laughed and we rode on Gabbie to get out of the building.

After we were out, we all high fived each other and laughed and hugged. Suddenly, we hear a crack. Each each of us wips our heads around. A tree had fallen on the prison. There was a huge storm that we didn’t notice when we were in there.

I didn’t really know what to feel about that. Judging by the way the tree fell and the size of it, there were no survivors. I guess I should be happy, since we were safe now, but I am kind of sad, too.

Gabbie, Beatrice and I have a moment of silence before heading home.

When we came back to school, Gabbie made everyone forget that we went missing with her magic. I think now that this has happened to me and Beatrice, I have recognized my flaws and I am a better person, and so is she.

Beatrice

7 years later

Even now, seven years after my big adventure, I will never look at myself the same as I did before. When I came back to school, I liked my new self and I feared that after a while, I would go back to my old ways. This never happened. My friends didn’t like my new self at all. But this was okay, because I made new ones. I thought Ellia was the only friend that stilled liked me for who I was, but there were others too. Ellia was very happy the following year when I stopped dying my hair and pieces of red appeared in it. She and I are both at the same college, studying chemistry.

Gabbie stuck around for a few years, but there were so many unanswered questions that she said ‘would all be explained later’. Then, one day, she left again. I got to say goodbye this time, at least.

I sat on the bed in my dorm and sighed. Then I herd some rustling and stood up. I was sitting on an envelope. It read:

To Beatrice and Ellia

From Gabbie

It was extremely difficult, but I decided not to read it without Ellia. The wait was painful.

The next day at lunch, I told Ellia about the letter, and she was more happy than I’ve seen her in days.

We scarfed down our disgusting college food, and then sat under the tree, and read the letter together.

By Kayla Orloff