I watched, my still frozen state, as Santana moved towards me. Loose strands of brown hair floated around her face, defying gravity itself. She stopped right in front of me, will I stared back at her, unsure what to do.
"Violet," her voice was quiet, barely an octave above a whisper. Her breath hissed between her teeth after my name. "What's happening to me?" she asked, and I suddenly had the sensation that whatever pressure was keeping my body frozen had been lifted from my mouth.
"I don't know, but are you the one who is keeping everyone frozen?" I asked, not sure if I was hoping for a yes or no. All I knew was that my nose was getting kind of itchy, and I would really like to scratch it.
"Can you make the Griffins go away if you're doing this?" I asked because I hoped she could.
"I don't know, it hurts so much," she choked out, "What is happening to me?!" she asked again.
"You're using your elemental powers because you're half of something. That's why your sister was taken, and that's why you probably got sucked into this world. Whatever you're doing right now, can you make the griffins go away?
"I don't know how to do that!" she whimpered. "I just want it all to stop!"
"Well, how did you allow me to talk?" I asked, hoping that her answer had some clue her in on how to control her frighteningly strong, and unknown powers.
"I don't know, I just thought that I wanted you to answer me," she said, and I noticed that blood was beginning to drip from her nose and run from her eyes in two crimson red trickles. Her face had paled to the point that it had taken on an almost translucent quality. I could see her veins, spreading out like a blue spider web across her face.
"Well, maybe just think how you want the griffins to go away."
"That sounds too simple to work," she replied. "What if I let the free and they attack everyone while they are still frozen?"
She had a point.
"Well, does it need to be complicated?" I asked. "But that's a good idea to unfreeze everyone before trying anything with the griffins."
"What if I accidentally hurt them?"
Try unfreezing me first. I, I'm hard to."
Before I even finished my sentence, my body was relieved of the force holding me in place. I had to catch myself before I fell.
"It worked!" she exclaimed. "Your dumb idea worked!"
"And you weren't concerned about killing me at all," I muttered under my breath.
All around me, people let out gasps and cries of relief while they regained their abilities to finally move.
"Okay, I'm going to try to get the griffins to go away," Santana said. All around us, the griffins began moving, but they weren't moving to attack us, they were...leaving! I watched while, one by one, they took a flight to the air until they were gone.
I smiled wildly at the disappearing blue and gold specks in the sky, and turned towards Santana, "You did it! They're gone!" I yelled happily. I threw my arms around her, but instead of hugging her, I ended up half catching her, while she lost consciousness.
"Soon of a banshee, you're heavy!" I grunted.
I did my best to ease her to the ground, but found my arms didn't have the strength, and we both crashed to the ground, with me landing on top of her.
Then a wave of nausea hit me.
And I gagged and pivoted my neck so I didn't throw up directly onto Santana's face, although some of my vomit got onto her hair. I didn't feel too mad, though, she had called my idea on how to control her powers dumb, EvEn ThOuGH it had worked."
I pushed myself onto my hands and knees and pushed myself into sitting. I drew my legs to my chest and placed my head between them. Sweat ran down my face even though there was a chill in the air, while I fought the urge to throw up again.
Minutes ticked by, but their passing brought me no relief. Footsteps crunched through the grass towards me, and I felt someone poke my head. I weakly raised my head to see that the brown-haired boy with glasses, whom I was pretty sure I had remembered Santana calling Arnold.
He pointed to Santana, "Is she dead?" he asked, in a voice that lacked any kind of emotion.
"Ahhh....?"I trailed off. Actually, I didn't know for sure. I was too busy trying not to hurl and pass out, and I had almost completely forgotten about her. I hadn't felt her die, but I could have missed it in my weakened state. I slowly turned my head to look at her. I immediately regretted the movement when my head began to swim, and I felt a bit of bile come up in my throat.
I reached over and pressed to fingers on her neck, right under her chin. Her skin felt cold and clammy, but I could feel it, a pulse.
I sighed in relief, "Yeah, she is alive," I said, and turned my head back to its original position and rested it on my knees. I let out a long, shuddering breath.
"Boring," Arnold said, and I knitted my eyebrows together.
"Anyways, some pregnant lady with curly blonde hair and really big boobs wanted me to find you, and tell you that she's in labor, and that guy we were with in the forest isn't waking up. Actually, she just wanted me to say she was in labor, but I was in the medical tent looking at all the people that were half-eaten, and I saw them bring in that guy. I heard one of them say that he wasn't responding. Oh, and they brought some older guy in there, too. He looked kind of like you, and his arm was missing; it was really cool. The blonde-haired pregnant lady seemed to be pretty upset about that guy, though."
At first, my mind didn't process anything, partly because it had been delivered to me in such a strange way. My mother was in labor... boy from the forest... guy who looked like me... All of a sudden, I processed it all at once, and it was like someone had replaced my blood with ice. I shot to my feet in straight into blackness.
When I came to, the first thing I saw, though through my hazy and clouded vision, was a pale blue color. I mistakenly thought for a second that I was still outside under the sky, but then my vision focused a bit more, and I realized that I was under a blue tarp, not the sky. It was then that I became aware of the fact that I was lying on a bed of sorts, and not on the grass. My eyes floated to my right, where I saw that an IV on a shiny metal stand stood there. Its clear plastic bag was filled with a purple, shimmering liquid, and the liquid slowly dripped into a plastic tube that was connected to my upper arm.
I reached towards the tube with the hand whose arm was connected to it, when a hand shot out of the blurriness and grabbed it before I could graze it with my fingers.
"Miss Violet, you mustn't do that," a kind male voice said. My eyes followed the voice up to a blurry face hovering above me. The only feature I could make out was that this person was wearing thick-rimmed glasses.
"Who are you?" I asked groggily, and suddenly I became very fearful, and my eyes widened, and I looked wildly around the blurry room. "Where was I!? What was going on!? And why did I have such an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach!!?" I yelled.
The man shushed me. "Violet, you know me. It's Dr. Nightingale," the voice said, "You're in the medical tent, we are trying to make you better."
I relaxed a bit at the familiar name. Dr. Nightingale had been my doctor since I was just five years old. He was the local doctor for our area, and he was also the one who treated Danny that fateful night. Looking at him made me suddenly homesick, and I began to sniffle a little.
"I must thank you, it seems wherever you go, I get new patients," he said jokingly and chuckled softly. He gently positioned my arm at my side and let it go.
I was silent for a couple of seconds, "Yeah, it does seem like the people around me get hurt all the time," I said bitterly.
It was his turn to be silent, "I'm sorry, my dear, that was a terrible joke. I'm afraid I've made lots of them over the years, and it's gotten me into a lot of trouble," he said, but I was barely comprehending him.
I groaned, "What's wrong with me, doc?" I asked, "Why do I feel so weird?" In addition to my blurry vision, my mind felt kind of fuzzy, and both my tongue and lips were numb.
"It's just the effects of the herbs we're treating you with. We just have you on some fairy queen, wolf furs, and green roses. You're suffering from magic exhaustion. You collapsed on the battlefield," he told me. "You should be fine in another day or so. You just need to rest," he said, "I'm going to put some mermaid song into your IV to help you get back to sleep. Okay?"
"Okay," I replied and went to close my eyes again.
"Move!" a familiar female voice commanded, and instantly Dr. Nightingale was replaced by a blurry image of a blond woman, "I told you to come to get me as soon as she woke up!" she barked to someone I couldn't see, "Violet baby!" she said, touching my face, "Thank god you're alright! If you weren't alright too....Well, I wouldn't be able to take it."
Hearing her voice reminded me of something, "You're in labor," I told her.
She laughed and leaned down and kissed my forehead, "Yes, I was yesterday, you have a baby sister, Violet! You're a big sister!"
"A big sister!" I said, repeating her words back to her.
"I just gave her some mermaid song to help her go back to sleep. That's why I didn't go get you, Miss Silver," I heard Dr. Nightingale say.
"I don't care, I would've still liked to of known immediately!" my mother snapped.
"Okay, Violet, I gave you some mermaid song, it should take effect immediately," he said, and I bobbed my head in response as if I actually got what he was saying.
I closed my eyes again, and I slowly began to sink into the realm of sleep, but before I crossed the threshold, I had one of my conscious thoughts, "Guy, we were within the forest isn't waking up...Henry.