The Opening

7 - Vines

Something wet and slimy keeps brushing my face in fast movements. I stretch my out to push it away, it feels furry. Probably one of my brothers, namely Max. "Max you better stop it." I mumble as I stir in my sleep. Seriously if he continues this he is losing his favourite brother title. Should he not be in university or in his apartment right now? And how did he get into my room? I always sleep with the door locked for these kind of situations. And when did my bed get so hard and my room so cold? Did he also take my blanket? This will be end of him.

I jerk up when I hear a bark close to my ear. Slowly I open my eyes and feel some drool on the side of my lips, quickly I wipe it away. When I finally regain myself I see a dog beside me. Looking around me I see that I am in a dungeon of some sort. Suddenly everything starts coming back to me. The dog beside me is Jewels! I found him, or well he found me.

The dungeon walls look like they have been made from ancient stone by old builders. Some of the most scariest movies have these kinds of settings. It sends a shiver down my spine. Hopefully nothing bad happens down here.

I start to wonder where Lupus is. Did he fall down behind me? The last thing I remember is saving him from that enormous bird, but what happened afterwards? Looking up I see a small very good looking potted plant, it is surrounded by a bubble that looks magical and electric. It is a flower with pink petals, it has leaves that look very well nourished. Nothing like the ones of the trees back where Lupus, the gorillas and I were.

Looking around I see Lupus in a corner held arm and foot by vines. He still looks very unconscious. I stand up, Jewels beside me jumps up in excitement, I and starts walking to Lupus. Before I could reach him, thick, leafy vines appear before me blocking me from moving any farther. Some appear from both sides and wrap around my waist and some pain sparks up my back.

I hiss and try to wiggle out of its hold. That does not seem like a good idea though because the pain only becomes worse so I chose to stop and stay still. The vines move me away from Lupus and bring me to the flower.

The flower started glowing with so much light it is nearly blinding. The light started to draw me in more and more. Could this be the Ivy? It cannot be. It way to beautiful to be. But then Lupus' words came back. Looks can and are deceiving. Shaking my head, this is the Ivy. I rise my hand to try and strike it down but more vines appear and hold my both my hands down.

Trying to fight them would only bring me more pain so I don't do anything that would hurt me. Jewels starts barking at the flower, strategically jumping away from some vines that would capture and hold him.

"Jewels!" I call for him to stop what he is doing. This may end terribly for him. I wonder if this is where he has been all this time. It does not look like an animal friendly place. I shudder at that thought. If my dad found this out, he will take him away from me. As usual Jewels does not listen to me. He continues barking until he suddenly stopped. I look at him trying to figure out why. But atleast he is not endangering himself.

The flower continued glowing brightly. Its petals changing from pink to purple then back to pink again. I feel a squeeze around my waist that makes me hiss in pain. Jewels quickly approaches the flower and shakes the bubble around it. Suddenly the glow of the flower died out and the vines released me. I fell to the floor with a thumph! I'm grateful to be released but it really hurts.

Lupus stirs and starts to gain some consciousness. "Zoey?" He says.

I try and get up to walk to him and hopefully release him. But the pain in my back became slightly worse, but I could make it though. Walking to him feels like mission impossible. When I finally get to him I start to try and free him.

From the corner of my eyes I see a glow. "Zoey, run...The Ivy...go!" Lupus practically pushes me away with his words.

Jewels starts tugging my leg. I pick him up and start running when I see the vines from before coming closer. "I'll be back, Lupus!" I shout not sure if he heard me. Jewels jumps out of my hands and runs in front of me, leading us out.

We exit the dungeon through a sizeable hole in the ground. I don't fall as I had accepted. Instead Jewels and I slide down and this causes some pain in my back. When I touch the ground I see a maze in front of me. This must be the only way out.

When I look to the sides I see my blue bag on the floor at the left side. Quickly I stand and run over to it, when I pick it up I look inside. It had a flashlight installed in it, it should come in handy. Joy plummets my heart when I find it, atleast something is going alright. Flicking the switch I turn the flashlight on and nearly stumble and fall back when I see what is on the wall. A loud gasp leaves my throat through my mouth.

The wall had writings and drawings of animals on it. Jewels jumps and barks next to me. "Shh, Jewels." I shush him. There could be a dangerous animal down here with us, and I do not want to alert it that we are here. I skim over the words, reading everything and taking in each piece of information. I may need it when I come back for Lupus.

These are directions around the maze! Five paces in the turn left. Ten paces forward then turn right. Twenty five paces then turn right, again. Five paces then turn right for an exit. I read and reread this over and over again. After I am sure I have crammed it, I rip out the flashlight so I could hold it with my hand easily.

I pick Jewels up and put him in my bag, with his front paws and head out. It will be easier to make it through with him in here. I hold the bag in front of me because I'm pretty sure my back is hurt. Then I enter the maze -with a fearful heart. Please do not get lost, please do not get lost I chant to myself mentally.

Five paces in then I turn left. Ten paces forward then I take a right. The walls of the maze are taller than me, making it impossible to see where I entered. I follow the instructions that I remember until I reached the exit. I saw some light but felt something climb up my leg. I shine my flashlight down only to see the vines coming out the walls of the maze. This makes me run out because I know I'll be taken back to the flower/Ivy.

Outside the maze it was dimly lit. Sun rays penetrating the wall of grass above. It left me amazed at how it could grow like that, but I do not spend much time on it. I switch my flashlight off and throw it in my bag. Jewels licks my hand when I do this.

The path from here is steep, and I have three options to pick from. All of these paths have footsteps that indicate that people have walked up here before. I choose the one with the most flattened grass as it has been most recently stepped on -hopefully safe.

There are vines that do not look deadly and I use them to climb. Walking up the path feels like a struggle with Jewels' weight pulling me down. I make it through pulling myself up when I get to the top. I push the grass aside and I'm nearly blinded by the light. After being in the darkness for so long, it feels harsh to my eyes.

Jewels jumps out of my bag and goes running somewhere, I don't stop him because I my throat feels dry. I pulled myself up and I can finally see the familiar surroundings. When I look back down where I came from it is completely dark. Something bad most definitely happened down there. I stand up and try to formulate a plan to save Lupus, how is he drifting in and out of consciousness?

Jewels comes back to me running with some monkeys behind him. His tail is up and wiggling, telling me that he has not found himself more trouble, yet. One of the the monkeys takes my hand and start pulling me. I follow them but feel pain striking up my back again, I bite my lip to stop me from crying because it hurts so bad. The monkey let's go of my hand when it is certain I'm following them.

These monkeys aren't as the ones I've seen before, but I do remember seeing them in vague pictures before. They have very long tails, brown and black fur. There are about six of them here.

I follow the monkeys to a some-what short tree with my bag in tow, on the way here they constantly kept sneaking glances to make sure I'm still following them. I smiled each time and they seemed to communicate with each other about it.

I look up at the tree then at the monkeys then back to the tree and the monkeys one more time. If they think I'm going to be able to climb it, then they have another thing coming. My back aches terribly. Sweat trickles down my painful back.

As if understandings what I'm saying telepathically, one of them runs and climbs up the tree in a haste. It makes some noise and I see some grass in a flat bundle come down from the tree. Slowly it comes down and it like a tree swing chair. With some not so scary looking vines holding it up. Could the monkeys have made this?

The monkeys push me to it but before I could sit, Jewels jumps on it and they start pulling him up. He disappears in the tree above. I hear him bark and I silently pray that he does not fall. The chair comes down again and this time I sit. I choose to leave my bag.

When it starts moving, it does not feel steady so I hold on tightly to the vines. The rest of the monkeys stayed and watched as I was pulled up and consumed by the thick leaves of the tree. I wonder who is pulling me up, I hope I'm not too heavy if it was the monkeys doing it.

At the top was more of the monkeys. When the chair stopped I try to move and sit on one of the branches, the monkeys pushed me back down on it. The chair is moved to the center so I wouldn't fall. The rest of the monkeys climbed up with my bag that I had left at the bottom. In total I could count nineteen monkeys, but there could be more than what I can see.

When I reach to get it, I feel an unbearable pain, like a hot knife is being ran up my back. My neck starts becoming sore like I had just lifted something heavy on my head, like a bucket of water. My legs went numb and my head started pounding painfully. I started seeing blackdots. Jewels runs up to me but I see double of him. My vision was going again. Soon everything went black again.