Faeries of Delusia

Chapter Five

I blinked my eyes, was I dreaming? Was I crazy? I would answer no to the first question and yes to the second. I can tell you this; I wasn’t in any Vampire Forest anymore, not even a forest, not even anything close to being a forest.

In front of me was a desert. The climate was suddenly too hot to handle. The path I followed came to an abrupt stop. Sand stretched out for miles and miles ahead, as far as the eye could see. There was no way I was going to find anyone to help me now! Had I gone too far?

I suddenly heard a faint mumbling; I didn’t know where it was coming from. Not behind, not on either side. It was coming from in front of me but there was absolutely nothing there. I fell backwards when a figure dug out from under the sand.

“Darn sand monsters!” he shouted in rage spinning around to get the sand off of him. “WHO do they THINK they ARE?!” As he continued on a rampage of arguing to himself, I watched and waited to see if he would see me sitting there. “I was minding my own business waiting for some brat to get here and BAM!” As he shouted I flinched. Sand kept flying at me the more he flew in the air. He had wings, was he a Faerie? “They just had to swallow me whole! Well am I very tasty, huh?! AM I!” That’s when he spun around and saw me. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh—um, hi?”

I waved.

“So . . . how long were you, uh, sitting there?”

“I heard quite enough. I got to my feet and held out my hand for him to shake. “I’m Jamie, the brat you have been waiting for. Who are you and what are you?”

He was hesitant to shake my hand. He looked at it funny at first but then decided to go along with it.

“Well hello there Jamie, I’m Mitsoki, a sand Faerie.”

Sand Faerie? Were they good or bad? It was rude to ask. “How many different types of Faeries are there?” I just wanted to know.

He laughed hysterically like I just told the world’s funniest joke. Trust me, I was no comedian.

“Hundreds, thousands, ha!” He clutched his stomach to calm his laughing.

“Well, I didn’t know.” I mumbled under my breath.

“Oh put a smile on, sheesh.” Mitsoki scoffed. “Anyways, we’re off to see the wizard!”

He began to skip through the sand. As he picked his feet up the sand flew back at me and got me in the mouth and eyes. I coughed but Mitsoki didn’t seem to notice, and if he did he obviously didn’t care.

I jogged after him. “There’s a wizard?”

“No! But we can pretend, can’t we?” He skipped farther ahead of me and I struggled to catch up. This guy was totally losing it. No, he already lost it.

“Skip with me!” he shouted from ahead.

I raised an eyebrow. I found myself double guessing the simplest of things in this land. I had a right to though, right? Nothing was what it seemed. Was it a trick? A trap? Was it not? You never knew for sure.

I gave up and decided to play along. I skipped, catching up to him at a fast rate. Maybe that’s what I was supposed to do in this desert. Maybe it makes you go faster.

“Is this the Skipping Desert?” I asked sarcastically. Every place had a name so far, why not this one? It couldn’t be a regular desert. There was bound to be something strange about it.

“No, silly. Why would it be called that?” he asked and then laughed.

I rolled my eyes.

“STOP!” Mitsoki screeched, making an abrupt halt in front of me. I ran into his back and nearly tumbled over. I regained myself and looked at what was right in front of us. It was a red pole sticking up from the sand. What?

“Here we are.” he announced, folding his arms across his chest.

I began to shake my head in confusion. “Uh—what? Where? I don’t see anything different than what I saw for the past, like, mile!”

“Hah! I forgot. You can’t see anything yet because well, you’re a—a human.”

I sighed out melodramatically. This was ridiculous.

“See what?!” I demanded impatiently. I was becoming rather annoyed. I looked out across the vast desert. It still stretched out as far as the eye could see; nothing different.

“You will have to make it on your own from here.”

“WHAT!” I stomped around in a temper tantrum. Childish, but everyone kept leaving me! “You were absolutely no help to me whatsoever! All we did was SKIP!”

He giggled. “Yep. Yep we did.”

I was furious, more angry than ever. “What the heck is this pole doing here, huh?” I went over to touch it but Mitsoki caught my arm.

“No! Don’t touch that.” he warned.

“And why not?” I asked, irritated.

“You’ll explode into a million pieces.” He said it so calmly like it was a natural, every day thing.

“Oh so it’s another ‘human’ thing again, isn’t it?”

“No. I can’t touch it either. Does that make you feel any better?” he teased.

I shrugged. “Whatever. What do I have to do from here?”

No use arguing with the guy. Obviously he wasn’t coming with me, for whatever reason that may be.

“Walk.” he replied plain and simple. “You’ll know you’ve arrived at your destination when you see it. Trust me.”

I was about to ask him what I was supposed to see, and where I was supposed to be, but he would probably just give me some lame riddle that made no sense, like everyone else here.

I began to walk past the pole slowly, hoping nothing crazy would happen, like me falling off the edge of the earth or something.

“And if you get to the ocean,-“—I turned around to see what he was saying.—“Then you’ve gone too far.” He smiled politely and stood there, grasping his hands behind his back. His sand colored wings flapped behind him. Why hadn’t he flown to this point? No, instead we just had to skip. Marvelous.

“Okay, then.” I was worried suddenly. The ocean? I definitely didn’t see any water in the distance, or even hear the sound of the waves crashing against shore. I couldn’t point out any seagulls either!

Then I thought, maybe this was a mirage. Maybe the ocean is right in front of me but I can’t see it. Maybe humans can’t. Obviously humans have a disadvantage in this land.

I walked slowly and carefully, watching my feet the whole time. I was waiting for something drastic to occur. Like I’d look up and literally be in the ocean or something. So far so good, I saw no water. I kept walking straight. I looked behind me and I couldn’t see the pole anymore and Mitsoki wasn’t in sight either. Had I walked so far that they were too far away now to see? Or maybe they just disappeared. Either way, I wouldn’t be too surprised.

I suddenly wished Raiden were here. He couldn’t be out protecting me now, there were no longer any trees. I couldn’t even see Vampire Forest behind me at all, and that was a big forest, let me tell you.

I walked for more than one hour, I knew it, I could feel it. The longer I walked the more thirsty I became. My stomach rumbled in anger for food. I wasn’t about to find any food around here. Why couldn’t I have been hungry earlier when there was vegetation around?! I suddenly stopped in my place when I thought I heard a sound. All around me had been deathly silent since I got to the desert, that is, after I left Mitsoki. So even the tiniest of noises caught my attention.

I looked up and down and all around. I saw nothing. But then I could recognize the sound. Oh no! It was the ocean. I heard waves, I heard seagulls. It all came so fast. The sound become gradually louder and I wasn’t even moving anymore.

I decided to take my chances and walk forward, VERY slowly.

It only took a second until I was under water. I splashed into the freezing coldness and it felt like one hundred knives sticking into my body. I couldn’t think, all I could feel was the pain. Suddenly I realized I would need air, you know, to breathe and all. I opened my eyes, even though it hurt like heck. I looked up and attempted to swim to the opening. It was hard to hold my breath any longer. I didn’t have time to suck in a real deep one, and the sudden shock of the cold made me gasp out all of my air.

I actually made it to the surface alive.

I breathed in deep breaths, ignoring the water in my throat that I was choking on. I splashed around to find the shore and get out of this water before I got hypothermia. I didn’t know the ocean was this cold!

I found the shore but I could barely see with all the water blurring my vision. I managed to pull myself out and sit on my knees, frantically rubbing my eyes, hoping my vision would come back. It did eventually, and when it did, I almost fell back into the water from the shock of what was in front of me.

It was a full blown village. There were creatures walking around, minding their own business. The roads were dirt and the buildings looked old. Gradually colorful lights began to flicker on because the sun was setting. Before I fell into the water the sun was high in the sky though. What was going on with my brain!

I did I double take, no, more like a twelve take. I couldn’t believe this was all right in front of me, had I walked right through the village just a few minutes ago? What were these creatures and what did they think of me?

I got to my feet, soaked and wet. Luckily there was only a slight breeze and the weather was warm so I wasn’t freezing anymore. I was actually afraid to enter the village. What would they think of me? Would I cause a commotion? I didn’t have any idea what to do but stand there and look. Wait for someone to offer me help. I assumed this was the destination Mitsoki told me about but what was I supposed to do here?

I sat down Indian style and simply waited. Waited for what? I don’t know. Waited for some sort of solution to come my way.

And guess what? It did.

Heads started to turn in my direction, Horrified faces. People began to gather in the street. Obviously they weren’t people, though, I knew that. Things that looked like humans and things from out of this world. All shapes and sizes. All I could do was sit and observe. But then I realized they weren’t even looking at me. There was something bigger causing a stir. What could be bigger than me?

Gasps and shrieks let out from the crowd and I spun around to see what everyone was staring at in pure horror. When I saw the creature I wasn’t sure how to react. It was big, it was huge. Taller than the Empire State Building if you asked me. It was blue and looked like a dragon. Obviously it was bad or these things would be screaming all around me.

I got to my feet to get a better look. Was it looking at me? Now was the time to run.

I screamed and ran towards the crowd which made everyone panic and separate. Everyone ran in separate directions, screeching and crying. What were they more afraid of? Me or that dragon-like beast in the water? I didn’t know where I was running to. I wasn’t sure if the monster could even come out of the water. I realized it couldn’t but found out the hard way it could spit a water fall of water all over the little town. I ran for cover, trying to get into any building I could. No one would open their doors for me!

I began to yell. “Let me in! I’m not gonna hurt you!” Whoever I yelled it to just shook their heads and closed their blinds.

I heard the rumbling of the tidal wave behind me and I almost passed out with fear. I was dizzy but kept it together and continued to search desperately for a place to hide.

Suddenly I ran straight into another beast. It had to weigh over five hundred pounds. I couldn’t even see where its face was, that’s how large it was. I would have been afraid but I had bigger problems at the moment. The beast was sticky and gooey. It was brown and almost looked like chocolate icing. I took another glance at it to see if it even was a creature. It then smiled at me, revealing two rows of jagged teeth. I screamed in terror and ran around it as fast as I could. It was big but I wasn’t sure if it could run fast.

“Hah! You made it here alive!” I heard a too-familiar voice. I searched for who it belonged to. Mitsoki was standing on a balcony of a nearby building. He jumped down and landed in front of me.

I gasped, suddenly furious with him again. “You lied to me! You said you couldn’t come any further!”

He laughed loudly. “It was a joke, don’t you have a sense of humor?”

The water began to spit down on us and without warning Mitsoky grabbed me by the shirt and we were suddenly flying in the air. When we were a good thirty feet up he held me by my waist. The pressure on my stomach hurt but we were far away from the water so I didn’t complain.

“Ha ha! You sure made the Ocean Dragon mad!”

Ocean Dragon? Of course . . .

“I told you if you came to the ocean you’ve gone too far! Sheesh, don’t you listen?”

He rambled on some more, obviously not noticing I wasn’t listening at the least.

“Such a stubborn brat . . .”

The Ocean Dragon pummeled back into the water. The village below was soaked, and it was all my fault.