“Black magic, black magic bring me alive, but to a deathly sleep.” She slowly began to sink back into her pillow and her eyes drooped closed. She drifted off into a dream yet to be a nightmare. The vines from the book crept out and crawled across her bed. They reached up the walls and around her lone nightstand. She sat up in the soft grass and watched as bright sapphire-colored butterflies passed her. Her flowing red hair hung just above her waist as she stood up to explore the foreign lands. Carmel-colored deer skipped away as she got closer to the forest. The trees looked as if they could touch the sky. She looked back at the sun setting on the horizon.

He ran passed the trees, tossing his head back every so often. He looked back as he stumbled down a muddy hill and into a small cylinder ditch that surrounded him. He had just enough room to stretch out his legs and look up at the warlock that gave him a disturbed smile and vanished. Suddenly the light shining through the ditch began to close off into a small crevice of light that instantly became pitch black.

She continued into the forest as the sun went down. Strangely, she saw a lantern with the last beam of sunlight. She picked it up, lit it and raised it to see a zigzag trail leading downhill. She paused and took a second to look back and went on into the dark forest…

He felt the bricks walls and assumed traps like this were all around. He figured he could climb the walls up to the top. He dug his fingernails into the bricks along with his toenails and began to creep up the walls.

As she walked down the trail the trees began to move and sway into different ways as if to lead her into an illusion. She halted and glanced to the right and left of her. She heard crackling sticks and tumbling rocks, ‘Someone’s following me,’ she thought to herself. She began to pick up her pace.

He reached his hand out to push the stone out of the way. It took all the strength in his body, just to get a small crack of the night sky. His hand began to slip as he stuck his fingers in the crack and slid the stone to one side. He climbed out of the dark hole, and scale up a tree to the very top and watched everything from a bird’s eye view. He smelled the air, “A storm’s coming,” he whispered to himself.

The crack of thunder startled her as she began to sprint for coverage from the rain that began to pour all over her. She huddled underneath a tree and shivered at another bang. She rested her head on the bark of the tree as the sound of thunder and rain drowned out and her vision blurred.

The next morning, he walked the trail to the end of the forest to where field of grass reached his knees. He saw a redheaded girl walking toward the warlock’s home. He sneaked up on her and reached for her hair…

She heard something from behind and pretended to run her fingers in the grass and picked up a stick.

He slowly crept up on her and grabbed her shoulder.

She swung the stick violently at him; missing every strike.

Finally, he took the stick from her and pulled her down below the grass.

The dew glistened in the dawn of the morning. She felt the water drops soak into her hair as she lied against a stranger.

“Stay quiet, “he murmured crouching. He poked his head up from the grass. He saw a shadow in the rusted windows of the cabin; fungus grew on the outside of it. He grabbed her by the arm nearly dragging her back into the forest.

She struggled to keep up with him as he pulled her along. She began to run to barely meet his pace. She fell down into the cylinder trap and landed on her fee, almost twisting her ankle. She bit her lip as she held it tightly. Tears streamed down her cheeks quietly forming puddles in her white gown.

He ran for a tree and ripped off a vine swirled up and around it. “Grab on,” he yelled tossing it down.

She slowly let go of her ankle and grabbed a hold of the vine and put one hand after another to help herself up.

He pulled her up to the top and tugged her in close and wrapped his arm around her hips.

She puts her arm around his shoulders and he helped her limped their way to safety.

When he thought they were far enough from the warlocks, he sat her down gently against a tree. “Are you all right?” he said.

“Yes,” she responded nodding her head.

“You know you shouldn’t be wandering around in the warlock’s territory,” he said with a frown, “you could get a lot hurt a lot worse than this.”

“You got any water?” she asked rubbing her ankle.

“No, not on me, but don’t mess with your ankle let it heal for now. Did you come here by a book and a spell?” he asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“Then you’re probably stuck here, the portal only opens every few days.”

“What portal?”

“The portal that brings you back to the real world. I’ve never been back, sometimes I wish I would never have found that stupid book,” he sighs, “It’s not so bad here though.”

“You know, I had this old friend who loved magical books and spells, he would have loved this place,” she looked down, “When is this portal open again?”

“Maybe in a day or two, but it only lets out so many people, they started a line about a week ago we’ll never get out,“ he lied his head back and slouched on the tree.

“Oh, then I guess were stuck together…I mean if that’s fine with you?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Well, my friend had this book I found when I was unpacking; it was black and didn’t have a title. He loved that book to death; he had it everywhere he went. Until one day he said, ‘I hated this book all the spells bring misery.” And he burned it; surprisingly it turns up in one of my boxes. I always wondered why he started to hate that book,” She wiped her eyes, “Then he goes missing and, and…”

He looks up at the sky where clouds are nowhere to be seen. But trees blocked the sun only leaving bits of light to shine through.


“There was a, uh…spell that stuck out from the rest. ‘Black magic, black magic bring me alive-“ She smiles, “Yeah, that’s it, but he was my best friend; his name was-“

“Travis,” they said at the same time.

She jumped, “Di-did you know him?”

He looked at her and grinned.

“Travis!” She hugged him, “What happened to you?”

“The book was too powerful; I got trapped inside of it,” said Travis.

Suddenly, he heard small whispers, “Stay here, Erika,” He ordered as he tip-toed off.

“What’s wrong?” She muttered trying to stand up.

“Nothing, you just stay here.” He sat his hand on her shoulder.

Abruptly, an arrow was shot right above Erika’s head.

Travis grabbed her up and threw her over his shoulder and ran at full speed.

She grasped the bow and arrows on his back and shot the warlocks down one by one; some even took two or three arrows to take down.

Travis immediately stopped at a cliff that looked to be about a hundred feet below them, “We’re going to have to jump.”

“What?! Are you CRAZY?!” She screamed.

He sat her down and pushed her off the cliff; he leaped off, too. His shirt flew up while her gown blew up like an umbrella. They burst into the water as bubbles rose up above them. They propelled themselves to swim over to a beach shore.

She coughed as she dragged herself out of the water while her dress pulled her in the opposite direction.

“That wasn’t so bad,” he said pouring the water out of his boot.

“Wasn’t that bad, we could have DIED!”