Just as quick as it had begun, the incline leveled out and deposited us onto the floor of a large domed section of the cave. I lay on the ground, groaning. My whole body felt like it had been beaten. I rolled over onto my side and pushed myself up.
“Erin! Murphy! Lydia!” I heard John yelling from above.
“John, we’re okay!” Erin called back. She was getting up off the floor as well. She was holding her right arm. Murphy was behind me and was already standing and stretching each of him limbs. I started to do the same to make sure everything was still in working order.
“Can you all climb back up?” John asked.
We looked at one another and back up the steep incline. Erin put a boot on it and shook her head, confirming what I thought. It was way too slick to climb back up. I looked around the cavern we were in and realized the light was much brighter here.
“John,” Murphy called. “Just sit and scoot on down here. The light is brighter and there’s no way we would be able to get back up to you without a rope.”
We heard some grumbling and a few thuds and after a minute John came into view, scooting down the incline.
“That’s a much easier way to do that,” I said. “We should follow his example next time.”
Once we were all ready, we walked toward the back of the cavern. The light was coming from around a corner. Murphy went around first and stopped in his tracks, staring at something. I pushed around him to look.
“No way,” I whispered as I saw what had stunned Murphy. There, looking like it had been carved straight out of the rock wall of the cave was a huge wrought gateway. The sides met at the top in a point and there were carvings of strange symbols that hung above the doorway. There were green crystals built into it that were glowing faintly. Bright white light poured out of the gateway, almost blinding me after being in the dark for so long. I knew it was the gateway from my dreams.
“This can’t be real,” Erin said, coming to stand next to me and Murphy. John was standing next to her and looked completely stunned. Murphy slowly approached the gate.
“Murphy, stop,” Erin said. “We don’t know what this is.”
“What choice do we have Erin? There’s no getting back after falling like that,” Murphy replied. “It might take rescue people days or weeks to find us. We won’t be able to survive that long.”
“This can’t be real. I mean look at it. It’s glowing. It can’t be real,” Erin insisted.
“What do you want me to tell you?”
“We must’ve hit our heads or something.”
“All of us are imagining the same thing? What are we supposed to do? This is the only way out.”
I stood still, listening to brother and sister argue and stared at the gate. What was the gate from my dreams doing in this cave? How did that make any sense? I thought about telling them, but a niggling feeling in my stomach stopped me. This situation was crazy enough, what were they going to think if I told them I had just dreamed of this very gate?
“I think we should go through,” I finally said. Erin and Murphy stopped talking to turn and look at me.
“You, Miss Lydia play-it-safe wants to go through a magical gateway we found at the bottom of a cave?” Erin said sarcastically, staring wide-eyed at me.
“Yeah,” I said. “I can’t explain it, but I think we should go through. Besides, I think Murphy’s right too, where else are we going to go?” I didn’t mention it, but there was something inside me pulling me towards the gateway. I noticed my head had quit hurting too.
John, who had remained silent since catching sight of the gate, sighed and pushed his blonde hair back from his face. “Alright, then. Let’s do it.”
He held out his hand and Erin grabbed it, she held out her other hand for me. I took it and grabbed Murphy’s. Linked like a human wall, we walked forward and stopped once we were just shy of touching the light. We each took a deep breath.
“Here we go,” Murphy said.
Together we stepped through the light.
6
The light pooled around us everywhere. No matter where I looked all I could see was the white blinding light. The temperature had grown hot and intense. Just when I thought I wasn’t going to be able to take it anymore, a massive gust of wind hit us from behind, pushing us forward. We all stumbled forward onto our hands and knees, letting go of each other’s hands as we hit the ground.
As I waited for the bright light to fade and my vision to clear, I realized I could feel cool earth and grass beneath my hands and knees. That was good, it meant we were out of the cave, at least. As the light continued to fade bit by bit from my vision, I realized we were in a forest, next to a mountain. The forest looked much like the one we had just been in with one exception, all the grass and the leaves on the trees were gold. Instead of the lush green that grass was supposed to be, everything around us glowed with a golden hue. I lifted one of my hands and rubbed my eyes, certain this was some trick. No such luck. The bright golden forest stayed the same.
“Um, guys,” I heard Erin say behind me.
“Yeah. I see it too,” I answered.
For a moment no one said anything else as we each looked around in amazement.
“No!”
I spun around on my knees when I heard Murphy yell behind me. I turned in time to see Murphy sprinting away from us toward a cliff face. There behind us was the gateway we had come through, it looked like it was etched into the cliff itself. The only problem was, it was fading fast. By the time Murphy got to it there was nothing left. He pounded his fist hard against the rock to no avail. It stubbornly remained a cliff.
I stood up and helped pull Erin up from where she was still crouching on the ground. As Erin and John walked toward Murphy, I stayed back and turned toward the forest. I could hear my friends talking behind me about what we were going to do now, but the noise faded into the background. An odd sense of peace that I knew wasn’t exactly fit for this moment came over me. A rustle in the leaves to my left caused me to stare incredulously at the creature walking through the forest in front of me.
Now it was me turn to say, “Um, guys.”
I heard my friends stop talking and heard Erin whisper a breathy, “Wow.”
Picking its way through the trees in front of us was a unicorn. It looked just like a white horse with a mane and tail that shimmered golden. The only difference was, a long golden horn protruded from its forehead and glittered in the sunlight.
All four of us watched in stunned silence as the unicorn passed before us. For a moment it stopped and stared directly at us. I felt Erin come up behind me as we stared into its ice-blue eyes. It felt like the whole forest was holding its breath as we humans and the unicorn regarded each other. I couldn’t get over the sense of overwhelming peace that filled me as I watched it. In that place and moment nothing else in the universe mattered.
After what could have been seconds or days, the unicorn turned and continued on its way through the trees and disappeared as silently as it had come. Once it was gone from sight, the peace faded away and I felt a heaviness grow deep within me and the feeling of panic about our current situation overtook me again. I looked around at my friends and could tell from their faces they were just as much in shock as I was.
“Was that a—” Erin started.
“Yeah,” I said, “It was—” I swallowed, not sure I could even say the words. “It was a unicorn.”
“‘Walk through the magical gateway’ they said, ‘it’ll be fine’ they said,” Erin mocked from where she was standing. I could hear panic creeping into her voice. “Now what are we supposed to do, Lydia? This was your idea.”
Before I could answer Murphy broke in, “This is not Lydia's fault, Erin, we all decided to come through. We can't panic now. We will figure out where we are and what we're going to do.”
I started to say something but stayed silent when I saw tears brimming in Erin’s eyes. She turned and buried her head in John’s shirt. I realized she was scared.
Then I realized I was scared, too.
“Where on earth are we?” I asked no one in particular.
“Are we even on Earth at all?” I heard John say.
“Are we on Earth at all?!” Erin half yelled, half cried. “Do you hear yourselves? Please, someone, tell me this is a crazy dream and any minute now I’m going to wake up at home in my bed.”
We all just stared at her. After a moment Erin walked to a nearby tree and sat down against it. She pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. John followed and sat down next to her, rubbing her back. With nothing else to do, Murphy and I followed as well. Both of us sat down near Erin and John. As I sat down, I realized I was absolutely exhausted. My headache hadn’t returned, but in a rush the day caught up with my mind and my body. Before I could say anything about the tiredness that was overwhelming me, the trees around me began to spin and everything went black.
I felt like I was falling through an infinity of darkness. Out of the darkness a strand of light appeared. It looked so far away. I tried reaching for it but found my hands wouldn’t move. Instead, something inside me reached out to the light. I could feel that something touch the light and brightness exploded around me.
“Lydia. Lydia Catherine. Lydia! You need to wake up now.”
The voice vibrated inside me. It seemed to be coming from all around. A distant part of me felt like I recognized it but for some reason the name just wouldn’t come to me. I didn’t know who they were calling for, either. Lydia? Who was she? It wasn’t important. All I wanted to do was sleep. I just wanted to fall into the darkness and rest. It felt so comforting and peaceful. I could feel the darkness creeping up again and welcomed it, but the light that was around me—no, inside me—lifted me up and out of the darkness. I tried to fight it, but it just kept pulling me away.
Imperceptibly I regained consciousness. I could smell something burning. It felt like it was burning the inside of my nose. I tried to scratch it, but my arms felt like dead weight next to me. I could hear the sound of running water. But that wasn’t right, the pond in the cave wasn’t running water, it was still. Was I hearing splashing? When was I in a cave?
I felt something cool press against my forehead. It felt nice. I tried to say as much but found I couldn’t quite remember how to talk. Panic suddenly began to rumble up inside of me. The light inside me swelled with heat as I felt myself begin to panic. The feeling was so much stronger than before. It felt like the blood rushing through my veins was a thousand times hotter and amazing. If I didn’t control it, I was certain I would explode. It coursed from within me and tried to reach outside of my body.
With a yell, I sat straight up and opened my eyes. I saw a flash of someone move out of the way and I felt something wet hit my lap as the rag fell off my head. My senses were flooded with information. Cool air filled my lungs. The colors around me assaulted my eyes and blurred together. My skin felt dangerously hot and tingly. The burning smell was still in my nose. I sneezed three times and jumped to my feet. The energy that was coursing through me was overwhelming. I wanted to try to run away as fast I could, but my legs wouldn’t move. I knew I had to find a release somehow, but I didn’t know what to do. The sounds of my heart beating furiously filled my ears. I needed to release it, but I didn’t know how.
I felt someone grab my right hand and press something into it. A coolness filtered through me. The coolness eased the heat in my skin and calmed my nerves. As I calmed, exhaustion rushed back to me. I was tired. So tired. I could feel myself swaying on my feet. Arms grabbed me around the shoulders and helped lower me back to the ground. I tried to resist, but I could feel the darkness overtaking me again.
“Lydia? Lydia, are you okay?” I heard someone whisper into my ear.
“Who’s Lydia?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if they understood because the words sounded jumbled and foreign to my ears. Then it hit me. Lydia was me. I was Lydia. That thought comforted me as the darkness claimed me once more.
7
When I came to it was completely dark. I blinked my eyes a few times as they tried to adjust. For a minute I thought I was still unconscious, but then I could hear voices rumbling somewhere near me. I groaned as I tried to sit up. My body protested, though, so I laid back again.
“Lydia! You’re up.” I heard a rustle behind me before Erin came into view.
“What happened?”
“We don’t know, really. You just started talking about how tired you were and passed out. We couldn’t wake you up.”
“Let me see her,” a strange voice said.
The sound of it made me start. I turned my head to see an unknown woman stand up from stoking a small fire. John and Murphy were both sitting on the opposite side of the fire. The woman dropped another stick onto the fire and walked over to Erin and me. I gave Erin a bewildered glance, but she didn’t say anything, just raised her eyebrows as the other woman approached. She squatted down next to me and then helped me sit up slowly. Once I was sitting up and leaning back against a tree, she felt my forehead, grabbed both sides of my head, and stared into my eyes.
This close I could see the woman was much older than we all were. She was easily in her late thirties or early forties. She had long brown hair that hung almost to her waist. It was pulled back in the front away from a pretty, but severe face. Her eyes were dark brown and matched her hair perfectly. As the woman stared at me, I started to feel something weird. I could feel seriousness, knowledge, and a deeply rooted sense of pain that made me want to sob, yet felt familiar all the same. It took me a moment to understand the feelings were coming from the woman in front of me. My eyes widened as I realized I was feeling what she was feeling. The woman pulled her hands back from my head like she had been burned. The emotions disappeared, leaving me feeling empty and hollow for a moment before my own emotions rushed in to fill the void. The woman continued to stare at me, but I couldn’t feel anything except what was going on inside of me now. I shook my head and broke the weird staring contest. “I’m sorry, but who are you?”
“That’s not important.”
I peered over the woman’s shoulder at Erin, she merely shrugged her shoulders.
“How are you feeling?” the woman asked me.
“Okay, I guess. Really tired and sore somehow.”
“What did you feel before you passed out?”
“I don’t know. We had just come through the gateway archway thing and then all of a sudden I was just so tired I felt like I couldn’t stand up anymore.”
“Hmm.” I waited a moment for the woman to elaborate but she remained quiet. She stood and walked back to the fire. As she stood up, I realized the woman was wearing strange clothes. She had on straight brown pants that were tucked into knee high brown leather boots. Her shirt was long-sleeved and looked like it was made out of a rough material. It was a cream or taupe color. She wore a brown leather belt around her waist that that had various pockets hanging off of it. She also had something tied around her neck. As she turned, I realized it was a dark green hooded cloak. It hung almost to the ground. All the clothing she had on looked homemade and worn.
I looked over at Erin and was surprised to see she was wearing a similar outfit with a dark blue cloak. I turned to stare at John and Murphy. They both were dressed the same. Murphy’s cloak was black, and John’s was dark brown. I glanced down and realized that what I thought was a blanket covering me was another cloak. This one was a deep purple color. Then it dawned on me that I wasn’t wearing the same clothes I had on when I lost consciousness. I pulled myself out from under the cloak and stood up. I was wearing an outfit that looked just like what everyone else had on. Sitting beside of me was a pair of boots.
“What’s going on?” I asked Erin as she helped me stand.
She opened her mouth to say something, but the woman jumped in first.
“Your friends will explain in a minute. You’ve been out for hours and I need to say some things first.” I was unnerved by the urgency of the
woman and the fact that it seemed like all my friends were listening to her.
“Where’s the outfit I had on?” I asked. The fact that someone had changed my clothes while I was asleep felt strange and confusing to me. Part of me thought there might have been a good reason, but right now I didn’t want to listen to that part.
“In the fire with everyone else’s,” the woman replied.
“What?” my voice cracked as I yelled. My throat was sore and parched. “But that was a brand-new outfit,” I protested.
“It had to be done. Your clothes clearly didn’t belong here, and we had to get rid of the evidence.”
“That was my favorite outfit.”
“Lydia, is that really the most important thing right now?” Murphy asked me.
I bit my tongue to stop myself from saying anything and looked away. Hurt and embarrassment washed over me, and I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. I was still addled from having slept so long and I didn’t have a clue what was going on. No one seemed to care about that at the moment, though. Erin pressed something into my hand, and I looked down to see it was a leather container of sorts.
“It’s a water skin. Drink some,” Erin said. “We got it from a stream nearby.”
I nodded my thanks and took a couple of drinks. The cool water helped my dry throat and drinking it gave me a few moments to compose myself.
“Lydia,” Erin whispered to me. “You were getting cold and we couldn’t wake you up, so I changed your clothes for you. I didn’t want you to get sick or anything. I had no idea she was going to burn everything like that. I’m sorry.” I shook my head at Erin and smiled. She didn’t need to apologize. Her explanation made sense and made me feel some better, at least. Once I felt like I had some sort of control over my voice again, I looked back at the woman.
Gatebreaker: Book One Page 3