The Chains That Bind Ch 21

Chapter 21: I Dream of Deadly Flowers
As soon as we exited the trunk of the Angle Oak, the tree began to twist itself back around and the doorway closed up. The fog that surrounded us was no longer there and the sounds of all those dead warriors were replaced by the sound of crickets.

“Hurry, we need to get back to the car,” Kat said to me now pulling at my arm with Erika still slumped on my back. We reached the car in a short amount of time and Kat motioned for me to lay her down. As I laid her down, Kat placed her hands right back on Erika’s head and tried to look into her dreams. I wasn’t sure what I could do so I went to give Kat a reassuring pat on the shoulder. This act of kindness seemed to backfire because as soon as I placed my hand on her shoulder, I was sucked into the dreamscape of Erika’s mind.

“Swift, what are you doing here?!” Kat called to me. I looked over at her a bit confused but saw that she was in trouble. She stood halfway up a hill full of the forever flower and at the very top stood Erika completely consumed in them. They had wrapped themselves around her entire body with only her head remaining visible, but not for long. Kat was in no better shape as the flowers had already wrapped around her ankles and prevented her from moving.

“I came to help, I think,” I called back to her. “I’m not really sure how I got here though.”

“No, you have to get out of here know. It is too dangerous,” she tried to warn me but I wasn’t sure what was so bad. If something happened then I would wake up with my hand still on her shoulder. “If we get trapped here we will never wake up!”

That thought scared me, trapped forever in a field of flowers didn’t strike me as the best dream I could ever have. I reached around my neck to discover that my weapon was still there as I wasn’t sure if it could follow me into a dream but it was worth a shot. I turned my hammer into its true form and gripped the handle trying to see if I could once again summon the fire of Hephaestus. I imagined the flame inside my mind and it appeared coating the head of my weapon. I slammed it into the field and a small portion of the field turned to burnt ashes including the flowers that had Kat in their clutches.

“Be careful,” she told me. “We don’t know how the flowers will react.”

“They’re flowers,” I responded. “What are they going to do, prick me with their thorns?”

As if on cue, the flowers grew around Erika and seemed to form the shape of a huge monster. Several vines went straight at me and I managed to knock them away with a flaming hit, but the plants simply re-grew at record speed.

“This is a dream, physical might won’t work here,” Kat said as she seemed to be trying to manipulate the world around her. I thought about this for a second. This was a dream, but not just anyone’s dream, this was Erika’s dream. If anything could get Erika to fight off these flowers then I knew what it was.

“Malcolm,” I yelled to Kat. She looked confused but then her eyes went wide and she started to focus. Then moments later I was covered in smoke and just as suddenly it was gone. I wondered what Kat had done until I looked at my reflection in a small pool of water and I looked just like him.

“Hurry up and save her Malcolm,” she said as she raised her hands into the air and made quotation marks with her fingers. I was glad she thought this was funny because at that moment I didn’t like her very much. All the flowers that once covered the hill were now focused all at the top where Erika was. I started walking up the hill and several vines headed at me which I dodged easily enough.

“Erika!” I called as the sound of Malcolm’s voice came out of my mouth. More vines headed at me and started moving faster. I managed to dodge these as well but it was becoming more difficult as I got closer. “Erika, you have to fight it, wake up. Come back to me!” I cried trying to think of something Malcolm would say. He was so much better with words than I was. As I ran up the hill calling her name, more and more vines came after me until I was locked in place a mere three feet from Erika. Then, a group of vines moved around and formed a sharp spike that slowly raised in the air to most likely strike me down. However, the group of vines moved enough for me to be able to see Erika’s face and I knew this was my last chance to reach her. But what would Malcolm say in this kind of situation? I didn’t know so I said what I was thinking.

“I need you,” were the words that came out in Malcolm’s voice and Erika’s eyes shot open and the entire dreamscape evaporated. I opened my eyes to see my hand still on Kat’s shoulder and her hands still on Erika’s head. Erika luckily had her eyes open now and looked around, most likely wondering what was going on. Kat removed her hands and looked down at the thankfully awake girl.

“What do you remember?” she asked Erika. Erika stopped for a second to think about the dream when all of a sudden I saw her face turn bright red and she ran into the back seat of the car and tossed a blanket over herself, hiding her blushing face from us. “You made quite an impression on her Swift, wait until I tell Megan.”

The thought of Megan hearing about this made me wish I had taken that voice up on its offer and fallen asleep forever.

Darkcloud1111 ~Fastest Hero Alive  03:36, June 30, 2011 (UTC)