The Chains That Bind Ch 19

Chapter 19: The Garden of the Forever Flower
“I found the entrance!” Erika shouted as the tree seemed to come to life. Several of the long branches started flailing around and destroying many of the remaining soldiers. Abrams looked up at Erika and I took the chance to grab my hammer and run. The trunk of the tree started to open up and a staircase appeared. I ran up and grabbed Kat’s arm and pulled her to Erika who then took her from me as I looked around to make sure we wouldn’t be followed. This plan went out the window as the ghouls I had destroyed had reformed in the fog and started slowly moving toward the entrance. Knowing I couldn’t do anything but stall them, I followed Kat and Erika down the stairs.

“We better find whatever it is we’re looking for soon because we are about to have a lot of company,” I said as I reached the bottom of the staircase. As I turned to face forward I was amazed at the beauty of it all. Flowers were blooming all across the walls with butterflies and ladybugs flying around. Rays of sunshine seemed to be glowing from a place I couldn’t see and because we were underground I didn’t know where it was coming from. And in the middle of the room on a simple wooden table was a flower I had never seen before encased in a small glass container that reminded me of the magic rose in Beauty and the Beast. It almost made me forget about the horde of monsters about to come down here and destroy us all.

“It’s the Forever Flower,” Erika said in a state of shock.

“What does it do?” I asked her not knowing that much about flowers.

“It is a flower that I had only heard about in old stories. None of us knew it actually existed,” she said before she started to explain what it did. “It is said that if you just touch it, you will never age, never get sick, and you will pretty much live forever in happiness.”

“Live forever in happiness?” I asked. It sounded kind of odd that happiness came with the everything else.

“Yes,” Erika said. “I don’t know how it works but that is what it works.”

I thought about living forever in happiness for a second, but I didn’t like the idea very much in my mind, even if there was only happiness in my future. As she walked up to the glass I wondered when the trap would be sprung, when a giant venus fly trap would appear above our heads, or the very flowers started emitting some kind of poison gas. But so far everything seemed to be fine. Maybe the ghouls upstairs were what we were suppose to defeat. I thought about this until Erika touched the glass and in an instant she fell asleep. I ran over in an instant and tried to shake her awake but I couldn’t get any kind of response.

“Erika, Erika!” I yelled to her but she didn’t wake up. “Kat, help!”

Kat ran over to me and looked over Erika before putting her hand to her head and closing her eyes.

“Oh this is not good,” Kat said as her eyes kept shifting behind her eye lids as if looking through Erika’s mind like she was reading a book. “This is powerful sleep magic, she could be asleep for the rest of her life if I don’t find a way to wake her up soon. “ I looked at the glass and wondered what kind of magic was placed on it. I pulled out my hammer and thought about smashing the glass. Just as I was about to smash it open, Kat yelled at me.

“Don’t, if it smashes and even a small piece of glass was to touch us, we would be in the same state as Erika,” she explained. I just looked at the glass and thought about what I could do. The base of the table was surrounded by rock so even if I tried to tip it over, the flower could fall with the case and it would break all over the flower making it impossible to touch. What could I do?

Darkcloud1111 ~Fastest Hero Alive  02:09, June 25, 2011 (UTC)