Chapter 6:

        Willow heard voices in the distance. She had her eyes opened one minute, and the next, darkness took over. She knew she was in a different place and not her living room, and her body felt like jelly. She didn't know where her eyelids were, nor her legs or arms. She almost felt...trapped.

            "You guys!" She heard Chelsea say. "Look, I think I saw her eyes flutter, she's waking up!"

            What seemed like a lifetime later, Willow was able to find her eyelids, and slowly she opened her eyes. Her eyes automatically squinted at the bright lights overhead, but they weren't LED lights...she swore they looked like torched. The second thing she saw was the brick ceiling--although the bricks used were much darker than what she was used to seeing. Strong arms helped her sit up, and Willow looked around, the room spinning around her dizzily.

            She was in just a regular room, almost looked like a medieval living room; with a chandelier, fur carpet, fire place, and open windows which showed a bit of the mountain landscape outside. It was dark in the room, definitely night time. Other than the people standing next to her, it was an empty room. There were lots of doors here and there, so Willow guessed it was a large place. Her eyes then focused on the people standing in front of her. It was the same people from the alley: Michael, Alicia, Chelsea and Chris. They didn't look worried, more expectant.

            "Can you stand?" Chelsea asked, without the slightest concern in her voice. Michael held a hand out to her, she grabbed it and he pulled her up as if she were the weight of a rag doll. Without thinking, grabbed Michael's arm for balance, but seeing his amused facial expression as he glanced down at her hand she let go, finding her balance on her own.

            Once the room wasn't spinning, Michael smiled and said, "Welcome to Ganash Headquarters of RiverPlain. I don't look so stupid now, do I?"

            Willow didn't respond, just looked at him for a moment. Even though she wasn't in the living room, he still looked pretty ridiculous to her--they all did.

            "Well, you already know me, but I'm Michael." Michael held out his hand, Willow took it and shook it. "The attractive one of this group."

            "Excuse me?" Alicia pushed him out of the way roughly. "I'm Alicia. Ignore him"-she jerked a finger towards Michael-"I'm the attractive one."

            "Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Alicia." Michael said, clearly with a teasing tone.

            "Uh, I will. Because it is true. You've got all the appeal of a chimpanzee!" Alicia said. Willow didn't know why they were arguing; they were all insanely gorgeous. Gorgeous enough that your self-esteem drops fifty points by just looking at them.

            They continued to argue as Chris stepped in front of Willow. Willow noticed he had blue eyes. But it was a different blue. All the blue-eyed people Willow had encountered had light blue eyes. Chris had violet blue ones. Like a dark night at sea. "I'm Chris. The muscle of the group."

            Alicia and Michael both stopped automatically and turned towards Chris. "Muscle of the group?" Alicia asked.

            "You just past the limit," Michael said. "We all know very well that　I'm　the muscle of the group."

            "No you're not!" Alicia exclaimed. "I work out forty times more than you do!"

            "You guys," Chris said. "I'd bet you fifty clashes that when Ms. Glasspiers-"

            "Willow." Michael interrupted.

            "Yes," Willow said. "Please, call me Willow, not Ms. Glasspiers."

            Alicia wasn't looking at Willow, though, she was looking at Michael with a curious puzzlement -and amazement-　in her facial expression. They looked as if they were sending each other secret messages. Michael just shrugged, and Chris continued, "Willow　first saw me she thought, 'Wow! Look at all that muscle!'"

            Michael snorted and said, "Then she looked at the beautiful blond haired boy and thought, 'He must be an angel from heaven with those good looks! But, who's that fat groundhog? Oh wait! That's a girl!'"

            Alicia lightly pushed him, but Willow could see she was laughing. They were all laughing as a matter of fact.

            "Uh," Alicia said, still laughing. "You got it all wrong, this is how it went, 'Look at that gorgeous browned haired girl, I wish I looked like that! But what is she doing with those slimy lamas who call themselves men?'"

            Chelsea stepped in front of Willow, "My name's Chelsea. I am the mature one of this group." Chelsea gave a pointed look at her three comrades, who were still arguing and laughing. Willow found herself laughing quietly, too.

            "I'm taking her to Cirestain. If you want to come..." Chelsea said, grabbing Willow's arm gently and walking her towards one of the hallways.

            As quickly as they got into the argument, they were out of it. And all five of them walked one of the doors. Chelsea pushed the door open and gestured for Willow to go, but then slammed the door right in Chris's face, laughing slightly. Willow could hear Michael's and Alicia's laughter before Chris opened the door and pushed Chelsea--who was laughing.

            They started walking down a brick-from-head-to-toe hallway. There were candles attached on the side walls, illuminating the place slightly.    

               "Who's Cirestain?" Willow asked, unable to help herself.

            "Our group leader." Chelsea replied, not even bothering to look over at her. Chelsea turned right and opened a door which led to two wooden staircases, one going up, one going down. She led them the one going down. Willow felt uneasy on the steps that creaked and cracked every step she took and were very steep. It didn't help that Michael, Alicia and Chris were arguing in the background.

            "Is he nice?" Willow asked, referring to Cirestain. Trying to look cool and not grab the rail while her head was screaming, "Grab the rail!"

            "Yes." Chelsea said. The others were still arguing over a pointless cause, but Willow couldn't help but to be entertained by their bickering.

            They finally made it to the end of the steps and to another, large wooden door. Chelsea went through it and Willow followed, they entered a massive, dark room. Very dark room, almost pitch black.

            "Don't get scared, Willow." Michael said, his voice appearing right next to Willow, making her jump and him laugh. "Just don't be too loud or the Bolesgire; they can get aggressive."

            "Oh, Michael, quit scaring her." Chelsea scoffed.

            "She isn't scared." Michael replied, completely confident as if he knew her.

            Chelsea led through the dark room, Willow stayed right at her heels. She could feel Michael's warmth radiating from his body next to her, making her shiver.

            Leading them out of the room, it led to another hallway; which they walked through as well.

            How big is this place? Willow couldn't help but think.

            Down the hallway, Chelsea turned to another random room which led to another staircase that went down again. They climbed down those, which were not as steep, but much more crowded and much more humid. By the time they were at the end of that staircase, Willow's legs hurt. The staircase led to another door, which Chelsea led her through.

            "We're here." She said, rather gently.

            Finally, Willow couldn't help but think.

            The 'here' was a large room. No, it was a massive room. So large, it made Willow literally dizzy to look at.

            And it wasn't a room, it was a library. But it wasn't any library Willow had ever seen. It reminded her of the library in 'The Beauty and the Beast', but forty times larger. It stretched so far that Willow was exhausted by just thinking of walking to the other side. And it had more books than the Library of Congress! Shelf upon shelf that stretched up to sky of books. She couldn't imagine why someone would need so many books...

            Despite the largeness, there were only two people there; which made the place look even bigger. One girl that Willow guessed was a maid, for she was dusting the shelves. And a man sitting in a red armchair that looked to be around his forties.

            "Cirestain!" Chelsea called. "We brought her!"

           The man in the chair looked up as they approached him. Willow could see from up close that he had dark brown hair with silver streaks in it. Despite the silver streaks, he had barely any wrinkles and didn’t look all that old either. His eyes had a lot of knowledge in them, though.

           Cirestain smiled at Willow, "Welcome to Ganash Headquarters of RiverPlain, or for short call it RiverPlain. I trust your assigned team made you feel welcome?"

           Willow nodded, unable to find any other response.

           "Did they tell you why you're here?" Cirestain asked gently, eyeing the group. He readjusted his weight on the arm chair, which looked awfully uncomfortable, but he didn't seem to think so.

           "Uh," Willow responded, looking over at where Michael, Alicia, Chris and Chelsea were standing.

           Michael was watching Willow, but wasn’t seeming to be listening to the conversation Alicia and Chelsea were deep in a conversation that seemed important. Chris was in the corner, reading a thick book with green binding, studiously ignoring the conversation.

           They hadn't told her anything. Why was she here? She felt suddenly very small and stupid, she was transported to a world she didn’t know and the entire time wasn’t a bit worried to why.

           She turned back to Cirestain’s gentle face, "No, not really. Michael might have said something, but if he did, I didn't catch it."

           Michael smiled slightly and Alicia laughed, “She was so bored of you talking that she missed the part of where you explained her situation.”

           Michael rolled his eyes, “She missed my explaining because I didn’t explain.” He was still smiling at Willow.

           “Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Mitchell.” Alicia replied, elbowing him teasingly. They fell into a deep argument then. An argument that involved teasing insults like “Donkey Face” and “Idiotic Idiot Llama.”

           “Back to business, everybody!” Cirestain called over their arguing. They all automatically fell silent and looked over at Cirestain. Cirestain turned to Willow once again, "Ms. Glasspiers, I will get straight to the point. We are here to take you on an adventure. It is your choice whether to go or not, but it would mean quite a bit if you did. This adventure won’t be a pleasant adventure--"

                "Unless," Michael interrupted. "You like death. Than this adventure will be sunshine and lollipops for you." He walked to the blue couch across from Cirestain, where he threw himself against it.   Alicia, Chelsea and Chris followed him, sitting next to him. Michael looked up at Willow, "You can sit too." He said, scooching over and patting the space he had made proudly, "We can pass notes." He teased.

                Willow just went to sit next to him, too shy to really respond.

                "I guess we should start with where 'here' is.” Cirestain said, leaning slightly forward.

                Michael laughed, she could feel the shaking of his shoulders against hers and sent a warm feeling all the way down to her toes. “We’re at Disney Land, Willow.”

                Willow looked over at him, smiling slightly. He probably had one of the most beautiful faces she had ever seen. The blond hair that curled at the collar just slightly, and the large green eyes framed with long, pale eyelashes. She had never found any boy with light colored hair to be so…well, beautiful.

                "We call this place the UnderWorld." Cirestain said, folding his hands on his lap, his expression very serious as he looked at Willow. "We say it is under your world, but it really isn't. We don't really know where it is, exactly. We don't even know if it is on planet Earth. But we do know we can easily travel to your world.

                "You see, a thousand years ago a powerful wizard named Lancache found a way to travel to the planet Earth. He brought back food, clothes, and other sorts; things our world just hadn’t been civilized enough to have. After his discovery of “Earth” he went straight to Lake Light Ganash Headquarter near May Dark Mountain Range. In Lake Light, there was his trusted friend, James, to where he told him of all of his adventures. They told all the Ganashes of the mysterious place, and the Ganashes started to build what we call “Portals” which enable you to travel through the worlds. They stole ideas, and inventions from the UpperWorld, and studied your way of life which was much more different from ours.

                "And everything was good. But things are rarely 'good' for long. The Ganashes that studied your world kept records of the creatures, listened to conversations, even sometimes disguised themselves as humans to learn about your world. They were constantly in the UpperWorld, always hiding and learning. You guys in the UpperWorld had no idea of our existence, we Ganashes quite frankly thought of you as stupid. So we never worried about being caught or any of that nonsense. At first, really, we had nothing to worry about at all, but then a Bolesgire somehow got hold of a portal to your world, and it caused chaos.

                "You guys didn't know how to kill a Bolesgire, and the Bolesgire never showed itself without killing you first. We Ganashes knew how to, though. We’ve been in battle with them for so long, so, CarvesWay River --which is the head 'city' of all Ganashes—sent some Ganashes to the UpperWorld and killed the Bolesgire. There was about eighty six UpperWorlder deaths that had happened in that attack. So, CarvesWay decided that it was time that we took care of this precious world we had in our hands. We set up laws; laws which stated that Ganashes were to be the protectors of this weak, innocent world. Every time a deadly creature from our world comes to yours, we send our Ganashes to hunt it down and kill it—“

                "Oh!" Willow interrupted, turning to Michael, feeling quite smart for once, "Is that what you were doing when I ran into you?"

                Michael grinned, "Don't look so murderous now, do we? Just saving UpperWorlder’s butts."

                "Yes, that’s what they were doing, although they weren’t supposed to be caught doing it." Cirestain said, scolding the group before continuing, "Now, it was all in order for a couple months. But then tragedy came."

                Willow realized everybody was leaning in towards Cirestain, even her. The story was so intriguing; like a fairy tale told to children with suspense and terrible attacks. It felt like she was in a dream, that none of this had actually happened and that she wasn’t really in the “UnderWorld”, but on her couch, sleeping.

                Cirestain didn’t seem to notice that Willow was letting everything that had happened seep into her, so he continued, "One day, a Ganash student was studying the UpperWorld, and a Amnesian captured him. We later learned it was a very powerful Amnesian named Machire-"

                "Machire?" Willow exclaimed, nearly falling off her seat. Her eyes were probably wide saucers as she looked at Cirestain with disbelief. "My Machire from the government?"

                "’Your’ Machire? What's that supposed to mean?" Alicia asked, eyeing Willow spectrally.

           Willow blushed a deep red, wishing she hadn’t had that outburst. They said tragedy came when he came along, but he wouldn’t cause tragedy, would he? Everybody was looking at her, watching her and waiting for an answer to Alicia’s question. She had always been a sucky liar, she couldn’t get out of this one. “He is my biological father." She whispered.