Grand Testing Tale -- page 4250

Journey Through Nightmareland

Dreamland is still the same enchanting place it has always been. Fairies and elves still roam the forests and meadows. But a dark, foreboding evil passed over Dreamland one fateful day. It’s the Hero’s time again to save the peaceful world that is home to all these magical creatures. And this time, it will require a trip to the horrible Nightmareland…

A year has passed since your last adventure in Dreamland. You have almost forgotten about the small, white, crystalline stone that you have stashed in your sock drawer. One morning, as you are looking for a clean pair of socks, the stone begins to glow, blinking on and off uncontrollably. You then hear a soft, almost whispery voice say, “Hero! We need you to save us! Please, wish upon the stone and return here!” You think about this for a little while, and then bravely rub the shining stone and wish to be back in Dreamland. At once, you are transported through a rainbow colored portal, appearing in front of the Dreamland Castle. King Galeideth greets you. And he tells you this: “Hero, it has been a year since you saved us from the evil King Alagian of Nightmareland. He was banished back to Nightmareland and we haven’t had trouble with him since. But a new evil is threatening to destroy our land of enchantment. A dragon named Zagamite came here one day and declared that if he could not have the White Crystal, then he would scorch this land till it was nothing but burning embers and ashes. I told him that he would never have the White Crystal, and he replied that in ten days he would be back, for either the White Crystal, or to burn the land. It has been five days since then. I had pondered on whether on not to drag you into this, but the last time you performed bravely and wonderfully, and you are a fit enough Hero to conquer Zagamite! Now, I will tell you something interesting. Zagamite used to be a good dragon, who lived in the Dragonwood Forest here in Dreamland. He and other good dragons protected the land from intruders, until one day, a long time ago, Alagian came and turned him into an evil manifest of the peaceful creature he used to be. Now since you have banished Alagian to Nightmareland for good, he has sent Zagamite to do his dirty work. You must turn Zagamite good again with the White Crystal and bring him back here. You will ride over to Nightmareland on a good fairy dragon named Colossus. I warn you, Nightmareland is a very dangerous place, and you will meet many a peril along the way. But I know that you can handle this. And remember, you only have five days! Good luck, oh brave Hero! And farewell!”

You tell King Galeideth that you will try your best. He hands you the White Crystal. All of a sudden, there is a huge gust of wind, and a dragon lands close by. You wonder why King Galeideth called him a fairy dragon. He is the size of a schoolbus! The dragon is all white, with shining red eyes, and a big, toothy grin. Little puffs of smoke come from his huge nostrils. He speaks to you. “Hey! I am Colossus! Come on Hero. We had better get a move on!” And then he laughs. A huge, bellowing laugh. You run over to Colossus and climb onto his back, using his tail as a ladder. You wave goodbye to King Galeideth as you are swept up into the sky, racing at a quick pace. You ride over some thick woods, and Colossus tells you Dreamland ends at the edge of this forest. Dragonwood Forest. After the forest, you see that Dreamland is really just a huge piece of flat land, and all that is underneath you now is just empty space. Far off in the distance, you see another piece of land just like Dreamland. But as you get closer, you realize that this land is much darker, and you know you have reached Nightmareland. As you near the land, you ask Colossus why Galeideth referred to him as a fairy dragon, considering his huge size. He replies, “I am called a fairy dragon because I can shrink down to the size of a nanoFairy. I will do this when we get to Nightmareland, so you won’t be as noticeable as you would be with a huge dragon tagging along! This way, I can follow you around and help you out!”

Now, you are getting ready to land. With one graceful movement, Colossus lands and you hop off. Almost instantly, you hear a loud pop and there is a puff of smoke around the dragon! When the smoke clears, there is Colossus, now about the size of your hand, flying around! He flies close to you and tells you to start moving. Now as you begin to take notice of your surroundings, you get a chill down your spine as you see that the trees around you have faces and are murmuring things at you! You quickly run in the direction that Colossus tells you, and you are soon out of the whispering forest of demon trees! You are walking along a dirt path, littered with bones of all shapes and sizes. You look up at the sky. It is a bloody crimson color, and a purple mist is beginning to settle on the land. All around you, you hear the sounds of dying souls and screams of mercy. Although they are subtle and off in the distance, you are afraid for your own life.

The dirt path comes abruptly to an end about ten yards down. All that you can see after that is a barren, stretch of sand. Colossus tells you this is called the Desert of The Red Sand. You continue into the desert, already weary and terrified, and you are regretting telling Galeideth you would do this for him. As the excruciatingly hot sun bakes the reddish sand, you wish you had a drink of water. You see some ancient pyramid type things all around, and wonder what lies within them. Just as you are about to lay down and croak from lack of water, you see an oasis! Ugh…those bloody mirages! But as you come closer, you think it might be worth a try to see if it is really water. You kneel down and scoop up a handful of cool, clear water. You drink it all up. As you are about to take another handful, Colossus yells, “Turn around!” You quickly turn and see…yourself! But that is impossible! The “you” is a spitting image but, darker, with piercing eyes and an evil grin. The mirror image of you takes out a dagger and prepares for a fight. You don’t have a weapon, but you do have the White Crystal. You whip out the crystal just as the evil you lunges at your throat! You say, “Evil manifestation, go away from here!” With a flash of white light, it is gone. Well, it worked! How about that? You figure this crystal is really going to come in handy. You turn around to get some more water from the oasis. Right when you are going to scoop up another handful, you realize the water has turned to blood! With a groan, you get up and continue your quest, thirstier than before.

You walk for another ten minutes, and finally, your journey through the desert is over. Another path is just ahead, so you begin to jog onto it. You are jogging down the path at a good pace, when all of a sudden, you hear a huffing and puffing behind you. You turn around, and there is a giant saber-tooth tiger ready to pounce on you! You try to run, but you are stuck in place! You are going nowhere really fast! As you begin to give up, you start to fall at lightening speed! You keep dropping and dropping, through a void that seems to have no end. Well, at least you got rid of the cat. He is nowhere to be seen. As you keep falling, you get slower and slower, until you are almost like a feather, just wafting towards the ground. If this thing even has a ground. After another five minutes, you look down hoping to see the ground. Finally, you are approaching an end! You land on your feet.

Looking around, you notice you are in some sort of a cavern. You can hear terrifying voices echoing through the tunnels. You hear a voice say, “Hey, we’re alive! We are now in the Caverns of Blood, if I am correct. Take the tunnel on the left!” It’s Colossus! He is alive and well, just as you are. You take the left tunnel as Colossus said you should and begin to walk. It is very dark. Along the walls, there are unlit torches. You wonder if the White Crystal will provide some light. So you say, “White Crystal, light these torches so I can find my way out.” And with a flash, all the torches become lit. If the crystal can do this, maybe it can make you a drink! So you ask it for a drink, there is a flash of light, and a small pool of water appears. You and Colossus drink from the pool and then continue down the tunnel.

At the end of the tunnel, there is a long hall of doors. You pick one of the doors on the right. When you enter, you begin to feel sleepy and you fall to the ground. When you awake, you are in some kind of nightmare, and it somehow feels familiar to you. In the nightmare, you are in your house, calling for your parents. You realize that you are a small child! This was a nightmare you had often when you were a child. Alone in the house, and locked in. Every door is locked. You try all the doors, and none will open. You begin to cry, calling for your mother and father. A few moments later, you are back in the hall of doors, outside the nightmare room you just came out of. Colossus says to you, “This is the Hall of Nightmares. All of the nightmares you ever had are on the other sides of these doors. You must pick the right one to leave the Hall.” So you begin opening doors, trying not to fall asleep but it is inevitable. Each door you open brings back a familiar nightmare you have had in the past. Ones about death, about murder, and some that are just plain weird and unexplainable. Each time you wake up from one of these horrible nightmares, you become more and more sure that you will never find your way out. As you open the next door, though, you do not fall asleep and you step into the now-familiar evil climate of Nightmareland. Colossus now says to you, “Up ahead is Fire Mountain. This is where Zagamite is living. You must scale the mountain and avoid the perils along the way. You have done well so far!”

You run quickly up to the path leading up Fire Mountain. At the top of it, there is a violent, circulating ring of fire. You walk up the path, fearing whatever lies ahead. It is now nighttime, pitch black, with no moon, but glistening red stars shine in the blackened night sky. You continue up the path, and about a half-hour later, you approach a large ornate gate, with someone- or something -standing next to it. As you get closer, you wonder if he is the Grim Reaper, with his sharp sickle and dark robe. You cannot see his face, but you figure that it is better all the same, because you really don’t want to see what his face looks like. In a booming voice, he says, “You cannot enter the Cemetery of Lost Souls without some sort of token.” You think hard about what you could give. Then you feel around your neck at the pendant that Phinea, a little mintaur, gave you in your past adventure. You hand it to the Grim Reaper and he says, “Very well, you may now enter, but beware, you may never exit!”

You step through the huge gates, Colossus flitting to and fro nervously. You wish he were a giant dragon rather than his smaller size right now, to protect you. There is a giant, ancient, knotted willow tree blocking out the faint light from the red stars. You ask the White Crystal to make some light, and the cemetery gets a little brighter. Now you can see the cracked, weathered graves. There is a mist all over the whole cemetery, and you think you hear bats flying overhead. At the end of the rows of graves, there is just a fence. No opening for a gate, seemingly no way out. There is something next to the fence, however. A large billowing shape, it must be a ghost. You approach the ghost and ask it how you can leave the cemetery. It says in a soft voice, “You cannot leave. This is the Cemetery of Lost Souls. Once you are dead, you can never leave here!” You tell the ghost that you are not dead, and it says, “Ah, but you will soon be, look!” You look down at yourself and you seem to be fading away! You must get out quickly or you will die in this place, left to wander around aimlessly for the rest of eternity! You reach for the White Crystal, and wish to be alive, but it does not work! Why?! Then Colossus says, “If I hurry, maybe I can melt the metal of the fence!” And he goes to work at it. But he is too little. All of a sudden there is a loud pop and a puff of smoke. As the smoke clears, there stands Colossus, his original size! As he is melting away the fence, you are fading faster than ever. Just as there is a space large enough for Colossus to fit through, you collapse on the cold earth, dead, or so you think.

When you come to, you are riding on the back of Colossus. You look at yourself, and you are not fading anymore! You are back to your solid self. As Colossus is flying, there is a huge cave opening. Colossus says, “This is the Cave of Size. Zagamite resides in here. You must avoid his fiery breath and use the White Crystal to turn him back to a good dragon!” You fly into the cave and Colossus lands. You hear a roar, and a black dragon with silvery eyes, the same size as Colossus, breathes liquid fire into the air in your direction! This must be Zagamite! You take out the White Crystal, and get ready to turn him back to good, thinking this will be easy, when a hot blast startles you and knocks the crystal away from you! You go to pick it up but Zagamite is chasing you, trying to burn you to a crisp! He then speaks. “Ah, the Hero! You have come to turn me back to a goody-goody dragon like Colossus! Well, you will not succeed! I will burn you till you are cinders, and then I will destroy Dreamland! Farewell, Hero! Hehehe…” He is still chasing you, blasting his fiery breath at you, just missing by an inch. And you think he is missing on purpose, like this is just a game to him. A game of cat and mouse. And he knows that he will ultimately win! As you are running, you trip over something. The White Crystal! You pick it up and say, “Zagamite! I turn you good again! Return to Dreamland and live in peace!” But it is too late, you think. He blows a fiery breath at you. As you close your eyes to wait for your harsh death sentence, a dark shadow clouds your mind, and you fall to the ground.

You awake slowly. You are in a comfortable bed, and your charred clothes are replaced with clean garments. You are alive! You must be back in Dreamland, because bright sunlight is shining through the windows. King Galeideth appears at your doorway, smiling. He says, “Hero! You have succeeded! Zagamite is back to normal. He and Colossus are in the Dragonwood Forest right now, planning a party in your honor! Get dressed, and we will ride over there for a feast, and then you can return home!” You get washed up and dressed, and you meet King Galeideth outside. What you see there puts a smile on your face. It is Camelot, the majestic white horse you rode on in your last quest! You get up on Camelot and ride with the king into Dragonwood Forest, a bright place with birds singing. You arrive at a large clearing, with dragons of all sizes, shapes and colors. Also, there are old friends from your last adventure! You talk with Princess Naliah, Goldeen, Solomon: the Wizard of Time, the Dreamland Diner lady, the old witch that gave you the potion that made you a hero, and Terris the mintaur and his daughter Phinea! You all have a grand feast, with music and dancing, and when it is time to say goodbye, there are hugs all around. You wave goodbye and take out your small crystalline stone and wish to be home.

You appear in your own room, in bed. You wonder if it was really all just a dream, but then you feel a sharp pain on your arm. There is a bandage there, and you unwrap it to find a burn. A burn from Zagamite’s fiery breath. You know now you were really there in Dreamland, and in Nightmareland. You have saved Dreamland once again! You rest your head on the pillow now, with a smile on your face, and you go back to sleep, only dreaming happy dreams. You will return again someday to Dreamland for another adventure, but you hope that it will be a long time from now. You’ve had enough adventures for one day. Even a Hero needs rest!