(You're good! Real life is way more important.)
"Are you sure you don't want me to come with? She might have yet another death trap to deal with, and the precious little staff hasn't been activated yet." Ana stared angrily at the place Alina had been standing, muttering something under her breath along the lines of, "And she called us dramatic."
She leaned against the wall, ignoring the pain in her leg, and the fact that she might have to give herself stitches, and that she would have to walk all the way back to the jeep, halfway around the lake. She just focused on her friend, making sure nothing happened, all senses on alert in case that unhelpful queen returned to doom them all with some other dumb side quest.
"No, no, it's fine," Laurel quickly said, shaking her head. "I'm pretty sure I'll be fine." She didn't want Ana to move around any more than she had to. That cut probably hurt a lot, and she still had to walk to the car. The less Ana had to walk, the better. Laurel reached the wall, scrutinizing it first. It still looked like a totally normal wall, even up close. There was absolutely nothing unusual about it. "Aww, come on… just give me something…" Laurel carefully tapped the wall, but it felt like a normal wall too. So she started pressing on every single slightly out-of-place part she could find, just in case one of them was a hidden button. Nothing again. Maybe Alina had pointed at the wrong wall. She wouldn't put it past the queen.
"Now, I know Alina said we should let you figure this one out," someone said from next to her. Laurel let out a small scream and jumped away from the figure, who turned out to be Endor. "But this is painful. There's a stone in your pocket. It goes with the staff. Have fun!" Endor gave both her and Ana a big smile, and disappeared as well.
"Can you two make up your minds about helping us?" Laurel yelled after her, angrily fishing around in her pocket. "Either commit to the helping or let us bumble around on our own. This half-assed 'helping' is incredibly annoying." After a few moments, her fingers connected with something smooth and warm. It was that strange amber stone she'd found and promptly forgotten about from earlier. Endor had said it went with the staff, so… Laurel held the stone up to the staff, wondering how they fit together. She didn't have to wonder for long, though. Some strong force snatched the stone out of her fingers, pulling the stone into the space at the top of the staff with a quiet click. A burst of warmth rushed through Laurel, making her shiver slightly. She raised her eyes to the wall and gasped. There was a doorway there now, leading into darkness. "Okay, how was I supposed to figure that out on my own, Alina? Thank you, Endor," Laurel grumbled, turning back to Ana. "Are you okay to move, or do you need to rest?"
"You've got to be kidding me. We had a part of the staff the entire time and they decided not to tell us?" Analaya grumbled, limping her way over to Laurel and looking the girl over to see if the action had done any visible damage.
She felt uneasy. These weapons, the staff and the crown and the weird glowy stone, none of them seemed to be good for humans. Laurel seemed to have been pulled around against her will, which made her worried. What would happen if they took her over and Laurel was no more? The thought made her worry, and she desperately hoped that she had imagined the flash of gold in the other girl's eyes when the stone and the staff had connected.
"I'm fine." She gazed around at the wall. She didn't see a change in the wall - maybe it was something only a bearer of the staff and crown could see? "But… where is the door?"
"I mean, at least it's in character," Laurel sighed heavily, cautiously poking at the doorway. "Alright, but tell me if you need to rest," she continued, glancing back at Ana. "What do you mean, where's the door? It's right there." Laurel pointed to the very clearly visible door, wondering what tricks were being played on them now. Was it a weird magical crown thing? Well, even if Ana couldn't see the door, it was still an exit. "Just, uh, take my hand, I guess. And don't freak out about stepping right into a wall. I promise there is a door." She grinned and held out a hand towards Ana. "I have no idea where it leads, but it's bound to be better than starving down here."
"So you can see the door, but I can't? How is that fair?" The brunette grumbled, but took Laurel's hand. She pretended not to feel the surge in her heartbeat at that action, and just gazed at the blank wall. "Unless this leads to somewhere full of more monsters. Then we can starve while fighting to the death!" She rolled her eyes. "Although, somehow, I don't think that Alina will stand for you to be injured in any way."
Neither could I, she thought, surprising herself with the revelation.
"It isn't. Alina really does like playing favorites, doesn't she?" Laurel shook her head, a soft smile appearing on her face as Ana took her hand. She gently squeezed it, then slowly walked through the door. It was dark on the other side, the only light source coming from candles lining the hallway. "Spooky," Laurel muttered, squinting in an attempt to see further down the hallway without actually going down it. "I hope not. And she has a really funny way of showing it, leading us to that cat-monster-thing." She glanced back at Ana. "Can you see the candles, or are you just in a wall at this point?" It would be really annoying of Alina if Ana just couldn't see any of this hallway. What if there were more monsters who attacked them? Ana might get even more injured, and Laurel wouldn't stand for that.
When Laurel started leading her into a completely blank wall, Ana actually panicked for a minute, worrying if this was another trick and if, since she couldn't see anything, she would just be smothered by the weight of tons of earth collapsing over her head. But she felt the gentle squeeze Laurel gave her, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes, and followed the other girl into the wall.
She didn't open her eyes until Laurel's question, and when she did, she gasped. She could see dimly, spots of light coming from what seemed to be pure darkness. She couldn't really see the other girl, but she could feel her hand, which made it better.
"I… can see floating lights," she said slowly, "but nothing else. Are they candles? What does it look like? Where are we now?"
"That's good." Laurel let out a relieved sigh. At least she didn't have to worry about that. "They are candles, and it is pretty dark in here. No idea where we are, but I'm guessing we just… follow the path? And it'll lead us out? Probably?" Laurel desperately hoped that she was right about that. How nice would it be if these candles led straight out into the open? Hopefully an open with no monsters around. And hopefully close to the Jeep as well. God, she was hoping for a lot of things. "Well, here goes nothing. Let me know if, uh, anything weird happens. Or if you need a break." Laurel started forward, following the faint candlelight further down the hallway. There were quite a few twists and turns, each one raising her heart rate to dangerously high levels. But there was nothing but more candles and more darkness around each corner.
"Maybe we're in a maze," Laurel muttered to herself, peeking around yet another corner and finding nothing but darkness. "No, wait, a labyrinth? The really long, twisty ones." She shook her head, still keeping a firm grasp on Ana's hand. No way was she letting her go.
Being led through a room filled with darkness and floating lights, with nothing for her to see or punch, having to rely on Laurel, made Ana feel incredibly unsafe. Not that she didn't trust the other girl, she just didn't like not being able to use all of her senses. She could feel the ground under her feet, the pain in her leg that continued to throb and ache whenever she took a step, Laurel's hand as it tightened on hers. She could hear their breathing, and Laurel talking, and that was it. She couldn't hear their footsteps, even when she tried to stomp a little harder with her good leg.
It was… unsettling, to say the least.
When Laurel said, "We're in a maze," Ana felt her heart drop. She couldn't see anything, nor was she good at puzzles. So even if she could have seen anything, it wouldn't have done any good.
"We really can't get a break, can we?" She asked bitterly.
"Apparently not," Laurel grumbled, going around yet another corner and finding nothing. "I swear, there'd better be an exit soon or I'm going to lose my mind." There was no way she was spending an hour wandering around dark corners, especially after everything she and Ana had just gone through. After dealing with that monster, they deserved to have a break. A long one, too. Maybe even one where someone else dealt with the monsters for a while and they got to have a nice, peaceful nap or something. She carefully led Ana around several more corners, each one deflating her a tiny bit more. She was quite sure they would be wandering around in the dark for the rest of their lives when she noticed a light different from that of the candles she was now far too used to.
"Hey…" Laurel slowed slightly, peering at the light. She didn't really want to say anything, just in case she jinxed it and it turned out to be just another candle. But she didn't know if Ana would be able to see it too and she wanted Ana to know what was happening. "I think there's an exit?" As they got closer, the light revealed itself to be a door, slightly ajar. "Yes, oh thank God!" Laurel grabbed the edge of the door and pulled it open.
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