Wings - Chapter 9

Read Chapter 8 here!

Read Chapter 10 here!

    “Cass. Cass! Come on, wake up!”

    I was startled awake as someone prodded me roughly, almost yelling into my ears. I gasped for air and rolled onto my side, coughing up what seemed like an entire gallon of water.

    “Thank Mira. I thought you were dead, Cass…”

    I gave a final weak cough and glanced up to find Dean standing over me, his eyes filled with worry. If it weren't for the fact that he was soaking wet, I would have thought that he had been crying.

    Giving a weak grin, I pulled myself to my feet. “I'm not gonna be killed by some dumb water molecules.”

    I glanced around, having no idea where we were. There was a pool of water in front of us with a small waterfall feeding into it, presumably the same stream of water that had brought us here in the first place. There was a pile of boulders against one wall of the cave, but besides that there was nothing else, not even an exit.

    Shivering, I immediately pined for my cloak. Surprisingly, my backpack was still on my back, but its contents were soaking wet. My flashlight and food provisions were completely ruined, but luckily the Mira feather was fine. My cloak was soaking through as well, but for some reason my Guardian book was perfectly dry. I chalked that up to some sort of Guardian charm.

    Throwing my soaked bag over my shoulder, I began to march across the cave in search of an exit. The walls, upon further inspection, showed no signs of any cracks or crevices, but the pile of boulders seemed promising. Making my way over to them, I soon noticed a small tunnel hidden behind one of the rocks.

    “Dean, gimme a hand over here,” I called out over my shoulder. My companion soon ed me, and together we moved the boulder out of the way and edged into the tunnel, which was barely large enough to fit Dean. We walked single file down the tunnel, brushing old cobwebs out of our faces as we went.

     Suddenly, the tunnel opened up into a larger cave, this one with lit torches lining the walls to illuminate the space. Surprisingly, this room didn't have any sentient statues or perilous bridges. All that this room contained was two beautiful stone doors with hundred of ancient carvings set into them. On the wall above the doors was a stone plaque that read the following:

    “Ugh, not again with the vague instructions. At least last time it was actually in English,” Dean growled in annoyance. I ignored his salty remark and stepped closer to the plaque, inspecting the lines and grooves carefully as if they contained some hidden secret. The language seemed familiar, though I couldn't quite place it…

    “That's it!” I cried out, ripping my bag off of my back and throwing it to the ground as I rifled through its contents.

    “What are you doing..?” Dean asked slowly. I continued to ignore him until I found what I was looking for.

    “I've seen this dialect before! It was here, in this book!” I exclaimed, throwing open my Guardian book and beginning to flip through the pages until I came to a page containing the same markings as those on the plaque. I struggled to read the title of the page, which was written in Enochian.

    “It says this language is called… Tigerscript. It must be a forgotten dialect. Says it was used by the very first Jamaasians, back in the beginning when society and civility were new concepts.”

    Dean nodded and plopped down on the floor next to me, peering down at the book. “Can you decode it?” he asked, and he didn't receive a reply. I was already hard at work.

Stop reading here if you'd like to decode the message yourself!

    “Open for the descendants of Mira!” I yelled, my voice echoing through the small cave. The doors stayed firmly shut, not moving an inch.

    “Are you sure you have the right translation?” Dean asked, his nose hovering over the page as he squinted at the markings.

    “Yes, I'm sure!” I snapped. “There must be more to it.”

    Pulling myself to my feet, I walked over to the doors and ran a paw over the carvings. They seemed significant, surely, so maybe they had something to do with the magic of getting the doors to open…

    Placing my paw on the crack between the two doors, I spoke again. “Open for the descendants of Mira.”

    A soft blue light began to seep from under my paw and seemed to flow through the carvings, lighting up the doors as it spread through the grooves. I turned to grin at Dean, not noticing as his eyes widened and he stepped back. The doors swung away from me, revealing a staircase lit by daylight from above.

    I quickly raced back to grab my book and bag, shoving the former into my bag as I threw it over my shoulders and headed for the open door. As I stepped through the doorway, I realized that Dean wasn't following.

    “What is it?” I huffed, turning around and glaring at him.

    “You, uh… you weren't speaking English back there, Cass. And your eyes kinda… glowed.”

    Recognizing the wariness that bordered on fear in his eyes, I felt my ears involuntarily begin to droop.

     “What happened to not being afraid of me?” I asked quietly before turning and fleeing up the stairs.

    The stairs led up to a small, circular pavilion set on the top of a very tall peak. I could see all of Coral Canyons stretching out around me, with Crystal Sands and Sarepia Forest off in the distance. In the center of the pavilion was another pedestal, this one containing a silver statue of Mira that was identical to the bronze one.

    Walking over and plucking a feather from Mira’s wing, I held the feather in the flat of my paw and watched as it slowly turned to point toward a snowy peak that rose on the edge of the horizon: Mt. Shiveer.

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    Hi everyone! I hope you've enjoyed this chapter of my new story, Wings. I wanted to add a bit of interactivity to this chapter, so hopefully it was a bit interesting! If you'd like to read the other parts of this story, be sure to check the official wiki entry that is linked down below. I'll be posting links to any chapter updates in there. Also, feel free to comment down below on what you thought of this chapter, I'd love to hear from you! Thanks for reading!

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