Petra's POV

It was a cold, rainy night. I woke up on the side of a street with a painful stinging in my arm.

It almost felt like...

...oh, no.

I turned my head to look at it, and low and behold was a creepy purple rash spread across it.

"No," I said," Not again."

I tried to sit up straight, but it felt like my back was glued to the floor. Pain shot through me as I was pressed by an invisible force back against the ground.

I looked back at my arm and saw that the Wither Sickness was slowly creeping across the rest of my arm, onto my body. It crawled up my neck like a thousand silverfish underneath my skin. As it wrapped itself around me, I started suffocating. It simply squeezed tighter and tighter.

"HELP!" I cried with all the rest of my strength.

"Petra?" someone responded, "Is that really you?"

I choked some more and tried to answer, but the Wither quickly crawled into and around my mouth. It stung much worse than on my skin. I could taste blood start circulating around my teeth, along with the unpleasantness of the Wither Sickness.

"Who is that?" the voice asked. It was closer up, and I could tell that it was female.

"Wait, I think that's Petra!" said another voice, this one more masculine.

"No, that can't be her, she's not purple," said another male voice.

"Yeah, but what about when she had Wither?" said a fourth female.

I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, but I couldn't move at all without feeling bursts of agonizing pain. Well, more agonizing pain than I already felt.

"I think it's dead," said one of the male voices, the deeper one.

A shock of pain erupted from my side as I felt someone's foot hit me. I couldn't move, breath, or scream. I could feel it, though. Hard.

"Yeah, she's dead," said the first female voice.

"We don't need her anyway."

I could hear their footsteps through the rain as I laid helpless on the ground, wanting to scream and cry with all my might, but not even able to breathe.

I did my best to open my eyes and look at who was saying they didn't need me anymore. I strained my eyes into the distance and saw Jesse, Axel, Olivia, and Lukas. Eerie music began playing behind me.

"Stings, being abandoned, left alone," sang a beautiful, airy voice. She continued the verse, but my ears became blocked off by Wither and her voice slowly faded away.

The last thing I saw was something dark in front of me. 

My vision became too blurry to see anything. 

The Wither Sickness covered my eyes and consumed my body. 

My chest started being squeezed uncontrollably. I tried to gasp, but only received a mouthful of Wither.

SNAP!

I felt a snapping coming from my rib cage, probably one of my ribs smashing. 

Tears stained my eyes, but I couldn't scream. 

Tension filled my body as my head started spinning. Random flashes of images began dancing in front of my eyes. 

My heart rate picked up, then slowed down, until I could feel it completely stop.

Lukas's POV

I was in the middle of the woods with a scorching sun in the sky, running as fast as I could with sweat dripping from my temples.

"You won't get away!" someone shouted from behind me.

POW!

A sharp, stinging pain went into my back as I collapsed onto a bunch of sticks and leaves.

"You fool," said the voice coming closer to me. I grunted as I tried to lift myself back up. Something pressed me back to the ground, right on the spot that got hurt.

"Argh!" I cried as I collapsed back to the ground.

Someone stepped in front of me. I lifted my head to see who it was. A man stood there, casually spinning a gun in his hand.

"Miss me?" he asked with a smirk. It took me a moment for my eyes to adjust and for me to catch my breath.

"J-Jeb?" I sputtered.

"Of course, you idiot!" he said as he kicked my mouth. I yelped a little. Blood seeped into it from my lip.

"Don't you remember what you did to me?" he asked, getting right in my face, "you took EVERYTHING from me. Now, I'm going to make your life miserable."

"Jeb!" I cried, "I'm so sorry! It was a mistake! Please don't do this to me!"

"You MURDERED me!" he yelled, "Why shouldn't I do the same to you?"

"NO!" I exclaimed.

"Too late, sunshine," Jeb said.

He began floating away and I knew that this is where the nightmare would begin.

The sky turned pitch-black. Raindrops began to fall, but I quickly figured out it wasn't really raining.

"AHH!" I screamed in pain as each raindrop hit me like a bunch of sewing needles were being pressed into my body. I looked down at my hands and saw drops of blood forming on them as each raindrop hit. Tears filled my eyes, but they felt like needles as well.

"How do you like it, TRAITOR?" Jed called, "Water here stings, doesn't it?"

I did my best to hold back my crying, but my tears seemed to erupt out of my eyes, hurting me even more. It felt like someone was gouging my eyes out over and over again.

"Hmm..." said Jeb, "Not that this isn't fun, but I'm getting bored. I need to up the game. Seeing that you're already crying at round one, this should be quite easy."

"STOP!" I cried.

"You know, hopefully, it's not too weird for a guy to say this, but red really suits you, Lukas. You should wear it more."

The rain poured harder as it continued to rip my skin open with every drop. A few strips of flesh fell off my hands.

"I'M SORRY!" I screamed, "PLEASE STOP!!"

A heavy weight fell onto my back. I screamed again.

"You really are a crybaby, aren't you," sang whoever just fell onto my back with a soft but alluring voice. Creepy G major music started playing along with it.

"You know what they do to crybabies like you?"  the verse continued as she sang it whispering into my ear.

A sharp pain was thrust into my neck as I screamed again.

My entire body started feeling weaker... 

...my eyes felt droopier...

...until I couldn't feel anything anymore.

Aiden's POV

After what felt like hours of torment, the sun finally came up. I was practically clinging onto the tree branch for dear life when I woke up. My body was either drenched in rain, dew, or sweat. Or all three.

"Aiden?" asked Maya quietly, "You awake?"

"Yeah," I said, sitting up.

"Have I ever told you how much I care and appreciate you as a person?" she asked.

"What do you need this time?" I asked.

"No, I'm dead serious. I'm just so glad that you're still alive."

I sighed, "Did I die in your nightmare?"

"Yes, everybody did. It was terrible," she said as she shook her head, "and something weird happened too. I saw this— "

"Dark figure that sang creepy songs?" Petra broke in.

"Yes! You dreamt of it too?"

"I did too," said Lukas as he sat up as he rubbed the back of his neck, "Man, everything was just so... real. Almost realer than real."

"Well," said Jesse, "on the bright side, we have the flint and steel, we know where the portal is, so we can plan on hopefully going home today!"

We all had phony smiles plastered on our faces. Sure, I was excited to leave the walker apocalypse, but something just wasn't resolved. I guess with the nightmare curse. Or that we all knew that we would probably just get lost in the portal hallway again.

"So... how do we get down?" asked Petra, leaning over the edge of the branch.

"We could just jump off," Lukas suggested, "the water below can break the fall."

"And get extremely cold and wet! But fine. If that's the plan," said Maya with a huff.

"You okay?" asked Petra.

"Yeah, she's always like this," I said.

"I'll go first to make sure it's safe," said Lukas as he dangled his legs off the side of the branch.

"Whoa!"

SPLASH!

"How is it?" called Jesse as she leaned her head over the side.

"It's safe. You can jump!" Lukas called back up.

Jesse swung herself over the edge. The rest of us followed.

THUMP!

"Why... does this... keep happening?" I heard Lukas's muffled voice speak.

"Oops, I seriously didn't mean to do that!" said Jesse. I stood out of the water and looked over. I couldn't help but laugh at the fact that Jesse was awkwardly climbing off of Lukas. Petra joined in.

Not to make this cheesy, but Petra has the sweetest laugh ever. I could listen to it all day.

"Tough luck, Lukas," she said between giggles. Lukas irritably stood and brushed himself off.

"Yeah, no kidding," he said.

"Where did you find the portal, anyway?" asked Maya.

"It's this way," said Petra as she stopped laughing and pointed away from Eva's house, still on fire.

As we continued to trudge through the water, I replayed the whole time we were here up until now in disbelief that we would finally be able to leave. I could still remember when Maya, Gill, and I first came here from Sky City...

"Aiden! Aiden!" Maya exclaimed happily as she banged on my door. I sighed and scooted away from my journal to answer it.

"Aiden!" she said once more as she continued to bang.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" I said. When I opened the door, Maya looked like if she jumped even just a little she would shoot away to the moon. There were practically rainbows spilling out of her ears as she beamed.

"Hey, Maya," I began, "What is i— "

"Hey, Aiden!" she interrupted, "I HAVE to show you something!" She walked straight passed me right in my house. I chuckled and shut the door.

"What on Notch's great earth could be this exciting?" I asked her.

"I finally reached enough levels of experience to enchant this!" she reached into her inventory and pulled out an enchanted flint and steel, "You would not believe how much coal I have at my house!"

"Whoa," I said as I gazed at it, "that's so cool! Wait... isn't that the flint and steel that The New Order found in the old builder temple?"

"Yes!"  Maya happily explained, "Not only will I have the coolest campfires ever, I get to use it to travel to other dimensions! Can you imagine the possibilities?! This is the best thing ever!"

"BLAZE RODS!" someone exclaimed as they burst through the door.

"Hey, Gill, check this out!" I said, not even needing to turn around to see who it was.

"Aww, how did you know it was me?" he asked as he walked into my living room where Maya and I were.

"Lucky guess," I said.

"Gill! You HAVE to see this!" said Maya as she held her flint and steel in front of her, "I made it myself!"

"Where did you even get the experience orbs to enchant something like that?" he asked.

"Oh, I have my ways," said Maya with a grin, "And lots of coal. We should go exploring with it today!"

"How are we gonna do that, anyway?" asked Gill, "Where's the portal?"

"Hey," I said, "remember when The Order was here? Didn't they use a portal somewhere around here to get home?"

"Yeah," said Maya, "You're right! It's just right outside of town! Let's go right now!"

She happily bounced away and flew out the door. Gill and I ran after her.

"Look! Over here!" She called. I followed the sound of her voice.

I found her standing inside a ditch with a golden rimmed portal before her. Right before she lit it I asked,

"Wait, you mean right now, right now?"

"What other 'right now' did you think I was talking about, Aiden?"

"Yeah, but don't you think this is a bit spontaneous?" I asked.

"It's not just a bit spontaneous, it's REALLY spontaneous! Come on, Aiden. You need to be a little more open-minded. We can start slowly: going dimension traveling with a sweet, super rare, enchanted flint and steel all before lunch time. We're the next Order of the Stone, baby!"

Maya lit the portal and jumped through it before I could argue. I had to chuckle at her enthusiasm.

"So, are we doing this?" asked Gill me.

"So, are we doing this?" asked Petra as I snapped out of memory land.

"Yeah... Wait a minute... oh no! No, no, no!" Jesse exclaimed as she frantically patted her pockets,

"This can't be happen... "

"Ahem," said Petra as she held out the flint and steel for Jesse to take.

"...ing," Jesse finished as she took it from her hand, "Thank you."

She struck it against the portal as a teal color filled its frame.

"Okay, on the count of three," she said," One...

...two...

...three!"

And we were off, onto our next adventure.

THE END

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STOP! NOPE! Just kidding!

It's not actually over. If it ended here, then it wouldn't be called Portals! Our blockheaded heroes have way more adventures ahead of them! Like death, fight scenes, more death, nightmares, new characters, kissing, other dimensions, DRAMA, and some other stuff you'll have to keep reading to find out about!

Come back next Wednesday to find out what other words are in store.