Prologue

If you're reading this, then I suppose you've found my journal... or my dead body. Not sure which, but I guess I'm going to live, since I found my own journal before I got transported back here. I was foolish to ignore it... and now I'm trapped here, probably never to see my family again. Anyway... I beg of you... do not disturb the crystal formation. There is much to say and very little time to do it. As I am writing this, the elves, dwarves and humans are all readying to go to war. Yes, you heard me right, there really are elves and dwarves! It's quite magnificie- OW! Damn it, Josiah. My brother said I was rambling and punched my arm and told me to hurry it up... so I'll just get to the point. If you move the red dragon shaped crystal to where it rests on the headless dragon statue, then a portal will be opened up beneath your feet... and you'll fall for what seems like 80 million years... and then you'll end up where my brother and I did. That, I'm guessing, is around 800 A.D.



The water was a soft algae colored green, but smooth as glass. Just dipping a finger in the water seemed like a crime... a crime deserving of the death sentence. The lake was much more beautiful than the ocean, if you ask me... though the sand was much more grainy than the fine tuned soil of the ocean shore. The sky was a dark violet from the sun raising up from the eastern horizon. The scent of the freshwater body of water filled my nose, along with the smell of the trees, made a crooked grin appear on my face.

I hugged my bare torso and then brushed my sandy blond hair out of my sky blue eyes. Thankfully the sun didn't reflect off my light colored skin and blind me... I wasn't that pale.

I watched the sun rise higher in the air, casting a green glow on everything from the leaves of the woods. The path leading to the lake was tattooed with soft emerald shadows. I glanced back at the path towards the woods and frowned. I remembered seeing what looked like ancient ruins in the woods and I shook my head, looking up in time to see my half-witted, 16 year old brother leap into the lake.

Something didn't feel right about the water... the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I rolled my eyes and walked into the shimmering water and grabbed him by the back of his swimming trunks and pulled him out. He started kicking at me and trying to punch me, but I threw him all the way up to the shore and walked over to him. "Stay out of the water for right now... we still don't know what lives in there... for all you know, there could be a great sea serpent that could swallow you whole." I mumbled, my voice rang softly against the trees and echoed out back across the clearing.

Josiah rolled his eyes and then stared at me. "Leigh, you can't tell me you still believe in those fairy tales. Nessie doesn't exist and neither do any other sea serpents." He said, getting up. "And just because mum and dad died doesn't mean you're the boss of me."

I gritted my teeth and just closed my eyes. I hated him bringing up our parents deaths. It always made me feel so... angry. I couldn't stop the theif turned murderer, but I could still remember that day as clear as a bell.


Graduation day- 19 May, 2010- everything was going pretty much perfectly. The after party was in full swing. I stared down at the party from the top of the stairs and sighed. I could feel something was going to go wrong, but I just blew it off, thinking that my parent's bust of Shakespeare was going to be busted. But that happened so often, it didn't truely matter, but I always got the same feeling of dread before it happened. My feet willed me forward, with the promise of finding the right girl for me... though they were terribly wrong.

In fact, when I reached the bottom step, the fire alarm rang throughout the hotel. (Yeah, we owned and lived in a four-star hotel). The party guests in the ballroom darted this way and that, desperate to find an exit and then the worst of the party came. The automated sprinklers turned on, trying to eliminate the fire before it could spread... only there wasn't a fire. I wasn't sure how I knew that, but I knew it. Josiah helped my guests exit the building as everyone else was taking emergency exits. I ran to my parents room, behind the front desk and I froze, watching the scene in front of me unfold.

"You heard me, I want all of it. If not, then the woman dies." A sweet sounding soprano voice sprang from the front of the red head that was holding a knife to my mum's throat. The woman turned slightly, I suppose she had heard my heart start to race, which it wasn't surprising, when I saw her ears. They were pointed, like a cat's ears, and they were attatched to one of the most gorgeous faces I had ever seen. The woman had a heart shaped face, with alluring green eyes, a perfectly chiseled nose (like one that Michaelangelo might have sculpted), and a set of violet plump lips. Her skin was ivory and her red hair flowed to the middle of her back. The remainder of her body was covered in a black silk-like cloth, though one would still be able to see the curves of a supermodel behind the clothing.

I swallowed hard, frozen to the spot. My mouth had gone desert dry, it actually felt like there was sand spewing out of my mouth. I tried to make my body function, but it was though poison coursed through my veins, rather than blood, and it kept me paralyzed.

My mum's sapphire eyes widened when she saw me and tried to scream, but the sound was choked off by blood crawling like spiders from her mouth to her white dress. The next thing I noticed was the deep gash in her flesh at the base of her throat.

My eyes moved away and looked at my father cowering in a corner. I looked back to where then feline woman had been standing and I realized she was gone from that spot. I heard the frightened scream of my father, a sickening thud and then I felt the jolt of pain course through my body. I fell to my hands and knees, taking deep jagged breaths, but I couldn't remain conscious for long. I felt a warm sticky fluid trace it's way down my neck and into my shirt. My breathing got deeper. I looked up and watched the woman advance on my father. I heard him tell her the combination to the safe and where it was located, then all I heard was a gut wrenching crunch and I saw his head twisted at an odd angle. I had to force myself not to throw up, but it took every last ounce of willpower... then the next thing I remember... was the sweet oblivion of unconciousness.

When I came to, I felt the weight of my brother on my back. I rolled out from underneath him, wincing as the pain started back up. I felt the back of my head and furrowed my eyebrows. The gash was gone... but I still felt the pain, so I knew it had to be there. When I pulled my hand back and looked at it, there wasn't a single bit of blood on it. I looked up at the clock over the bed and frowned slightly. It was 4 in the morning. I looked around the room, but only my brother was there... I looked out the window and saw that we were in the Imperial Suite on the 23rd floor.

I walked over to the tv and turned it on, my eyes widened at the news. Someone had found my parents' dead bodies and the police were here. The reporters said that the police believed that my parents' murderers were my brother and me. I quickly picked up my brother's limp body, listening as he started murmuring about the pain in his sleep. I just shook it off, turned off the tv and headed towards the emergency exit. I listened at the door and heard not only the sounds of our guests, angry that they'd been out there for 7 hours and they couldn't get there belongings, but also I heard the sounds of a police patrol.

I turned around and grabbed a hold of the small silver ring imbedded in the wall and I pulled on it. A small tunnel that led downward opened up and I entered, careful not to miss one of the steps and fall with my brother in my arms. When I got to the last step, I turned towards the wall next to me and pulled on the other ring, closing the door back. The lights immediately flickered on and I took off running, not turning around ever. I ended up at one of the 12 exits my dad had put on the tunnel and we ened up out in the woods. I laid my brother down and forced the tunnel that we had taken from the main tunnel to cave-in.


I had regained my bearings and I stared at my younger brother, clenching my fist. "I'm 18, you're 16. You're still a minor. I'm not. And I'm your last living adult relative, which would mean that I am the boss of you." I said, slightly aggressively. And then I realized how harshley I had said it and then I looked at Josiah, my voice getting a lot softer. "Look, I'm sorry. It's just... we've been running for weeks. I'm tired of this. We could turn around... but we'd go straight to jail. And I'm not going to let you go to prison because of what those baffoons think. It wasn't us that killed our parents... I'm not even sure what did. Let's just head back to those ruins and go to sleep. We're gonna need our rest and I think we can stay here for a few days... this is pretty deep in the woods and most people are afraid to venture this far."

Josiah nodded, his dirty blond falling into his cerulean eyes. He brushed it out of his face and then frowned slightly. "I'm sorry too. I know I shouldn't have said what I said, but... I think it's rediculous that you believe in sea serpents, dragons, elves, dwarves... and all that ****." He said, scratching his chin. His pale skin matched mine perfectly, along with his shiny white teeth that were set perfectly in his mouth. He followed me to one of the ruins and smiled slightly. "But I'm... glad that you're here, Leigh. I'm not sure I would know what to do."

I turned around and looked at him and frowned slightly. "Because I saw an elf, I guess, murder our mum and dad. Trust me... I don't want to believe, but the fact of the matter is that I've seen it and so I have to." I whispered and looked at his brother when he said that he was glad that I was with him. A small crooked smile appeared on my face and I nodded. "I'm glad you're here too, bro."

We made our way to one of the biggest of the ruins, it was a temple, I suppose. We brushed some dust off of the walls and frowned slightly. There was some weird writing on it that we couldn't decipher. We looked at each other and grimaced. Something weird was going on, and I was starting to think that Josiah was beginning to believe me about the "mythical" creatures that he didn't believe in. We looked around and saw the huge statue of some elder god. It looked like a dragon, only... it had the head of a stone... or maybe the alabaster rock had just been eroded. I furrowed my eyebrows and then realized the head had been cleaved completely off. I looked closer at the statue and my eyes widened. It wasn't a pearl white stone it was a spiderweb covered ruby. I didn't dare touch the web, for fear of something coming to hurt my brother, but I looked at him and grimaced.

"Something is going to happen in the next few minutes... I can feel it." I whispered softly and looked at a small fragment of a tome and when I pulled on it, I realized that it wasn't destroyed at all... it was just buried beneath the floor. Josiah walked over and helped me pull it out and I opened the rust-colored leather book and I nearly dropped it from surprise. It was written in my handwritting. I wasn't really sure what to think about it. When I read the top paragraph, I immeadiately sat the journal down and started looking for the head of the dragon, completely ignoring the warning. Josiah and I found it by the dragon statue and gently set it on the broken neck of it's original owner. We stepped back when we saw the emerald eyes of the ruby dragon head light up. We looked at each other and down at our feet. The circle alter beneath our feet lifted up a few feet and he grabbed onto my hand and I nodded at him. We were both frightened, but it wouldn't do any good to scream. In a matter of a few seconds we looked down into a black void with what looked like stars twinkling in the dark pool. A vaccum sucked us in as we tried to jump off of the alter. I watched as the dragon's neck cracked again and it broke off, it's eyes returning to their dim state... and the next thing I remember is pitch black, my brother's sweaty hand grasped onto mine as I heard him call my name. "Shhh. It's alright, Josiah... I'm here." I whispered to him.

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