The Fifth Element

At first, my half-sleeping mind couldn’t process that Danny Feathers was standing in my dorm. It just wouldn’t click, so for about thirty seconds, I sat in bed looking at him stupidly. Finally, my brain came up with the reasonable explanation that I was asleep and this was a dream. Hadn’t every straight girl had a dream about a hot guy at least once in their life?

I laid back down and willed deep sleep to take me again, but apparently, dream Danny had other plans.

“Wake up!” he said loudly. I felt his hand on my shoulder as he gently began to shake me. “You’re in danger.”

I swatted his hand away. “No, I’m not!” I grumbled. “This is just a dream.”

“It is?” He sounded perplexed.

“Yes, why else would you be here?”

“You’re right, why else would I be here?” I felt the bed indent as Danny sat down on the edge of the bed beside me. “That would make sense since I’ve been dreaming about you ever since the accident.”

“You can’t dream about me seeing that you are part of my dream,” I said, pulling the covers over my head. I had them instantly ripped away.

“Wait a minute. You think you’re dreaming about me!?” I looked over at Danny to see that he was studying me with his green eyes.

“Yeah, this is a dream I thought we got past that part.” I gave him a dirty look and reclaimed the covers that he had stolen, only to have them ripped away yet again.

“Hey-”

“Violet, I don’t think this is a dream.” Danny was gazing at me intently now.

I sat up and let the irritation I was feeling show on my face. “Well then explain how you got into this prison of a school and into my room, in case you haven’t notice you almost have to be a ghost to get around here!” I yelled, reaching for the covers again, but Danny had an iron grip on them.

“I wish I could tell you how I’m here right now, but I really don’t know myself. I just felt that you were going to be in danger, and poof I was standing over your bed.” He reached over and pinched my arm. “Does that feel real enough to you?”

I looked down to see two little crescent moon shaped indents on the section of skin he had just pinched. I looked up and met his gaze, realization hitting me for the first time. “You’re really here!” I breathed looking at him in wonder. “Oh no, you’re really here!” That wonder turning into a panic in less than three seconds.

I rocketed out of bed and began pacing back and forth in the tiny room, which only allowed me only four and a half steps per pace. I bit down on my thumbnail as I tried to come up with what to do next. How was I going to explain this to Miss Dragon-lady-headmaster and Mr. pole-up-my-butt?

BOOM! The whole tiny room suddenly shook. I waved my arms widely as I tried to stay upright, but with no such luck. Thankfully, Danny, the star of nearly all our sports teams, had an amazing reaction time and was able to catch me before I hit the floor. He steadied me on my feet before flying to the window to see what was happening outside. I crept up behind him and tried to see what was happening, but he was blocking most of the view. The only thing that I could make out was there was a thick blanket of gray smoke where there should have been blue sky.

“What was that? Do you see anything?” I asked him anxiously. He kept craning his neck.

“No, there’s too much smoke....wait hold on.” He leaned closer to the windowpane. “I think I see something.”

“What..” I began, but he held up one finger to tell me to give him a minute.

Then, without warning, he spun around and tackled me. We skidded across the unforgiving stone floor, and by unforgiving, I mean to my dress. I heard several distinct tearing sounds as the fabric was torn to shreds. We smack against the stone wall hard.

Two things had crossed my mind before the window shattered behind us. One was that I now knew the reason why Danny was the captain of the tackle ball team, the other was the dismay of ruining my dress. What happened next would give me nightmares for years to come, because the thing that had that broken the window was a giant tentacle.

Rivers of red lava glowed from just beneath its ugly stone like skin as it groped around the room wildly. It brushed against the desk and coiled itself around it before picking it up. It held the desk in midair and waved it back and forth like it was trying to figure out what it was. Apparently, it found the desk wasn’t something it wanted because it swung to the right and flung the desk against the wall, the desk shattered into a million pieces.

It did the same to the remaining objects in the room, as Danny and I watch silently, trying not to make a single sound. I was vaguely aware of Danny’s muscular arms wrapped protectively around me as he pulled us both to our feet; my attention was fully on the threat just a couple of feet away.

I felt Danny’s hot breath as he put his mouth against my ear. “Here’s the plan, when it comes over this way we dive under it and inch away against the wall. When it finds nothing, it’ll figure no one is home and give up. Don’t let it touch you or the jig is up.”

I nodded my head to tell him I understood.

We did exactly that as the tentacle brushed the wall a couple of inches to our right. Danny pushed me ahead of him as we both dove under the gigantic tentacle. We scrambled to our feet and pressed ourselves against the wall once safely on the other side. We remained there as the tentacle explored the last of the room before slowly retracting out of the window in which it had come.

I heard Danny exhale in relief after three uneventful minutes ticked by us. He thought we were safe, I could tell as he eased his grip on me, but I had a gut feeling that we weren’t quite out of the woods yet. That gut feeling proved itself to be true as a huge yellow eye peered through the window. Its plate size pupil dilated when it saw me.

It had known I had been here the whole time, something told me as the wall separating me from it was ripped away. Before the displaced wall even hit the ground below, I was in the grasp of one of seven stone tentacles.

I did my best not to pass out as if pulled me out of the ruins of my dorm and held me in front of its single yellow eye in the center or its head, below it was a powerful bird-like beak where a pink tongue wiggled like a giant earthworm. It let out a sound somewhere between a hiss and a purr as it studied me.

“I am going to die,” I thought as a looked at the monster squid. ”It’s going to eat me, and there isn’t even going to be any bones for my mom to bury.” But the question was when right now it seemed content to go on studying me. In the background, I could hear someone howling my name.

The earth began trembling as the mountain-sized squid did an 180 until it was facing away from the castle it had plucked me from so easily. As soon as we were completely turned around, I was hit with a vicious wind that yanked my hair back from my face.

The wind grew stronger and stronger until I could feel it begin to pull me out of the monster squid’s grasp. Sensing that I had not only one danger in front of me, but another behind I spared a backward glance.

Hey, you can’t blame me for wanting to know what else might kill me, too bad my hair had other plans.

A very unwelcoming sight came into view once I managed to brush back the curtain of hair blocking my line of sight. It was black, round, and had blue lighting crackled across its surface. It was almost the size of the monster squid and sucking us in. I realize as the squid began to slide forward slowly but surely, that was what was causing the wind. Then the giant squid did something equally terrifying and unexpected when we were less than a hundred yards from the hole in the sky. It let go of me.

I never had the joy of experiencing falIing sideways, but I think it’s a joy I rather pass on next time. I screamed as I torpedo towards the black hole. Then suddenly I was no longer falling sideways but in someone’s arms, and we were rocketing upwards until I could no longer feel the wind sucking me towards the black hole.

Blue sparkling wings flapped around us as we leveled out on a warm rise of air. I didn’t have to turn around to know who’s arms I was in. Who else did I know who rode on a blue dragon besides dead-but-he-just-doesn’t-know-it-yet Henry?

Sure enough, I heard him say in the cold tone he almost always spoke in for the short time I had known him. “That was a close one.”

I turned around and gave him a look of disbelief. “You think!?” I said before turning my head away to peer at the ground below. The black hole was gone, leaving a large crater as evidence of its existence behind. Besides the crater the monster squid laid motionless on the ground, black flames consuming its body, wait, black flames? I narrowed my eyes and wondered if I was seeing this right.

Once we had landed on the ground safely and very far away from the monster squid’s burning body, I heard someone scream my name. Danny sprinted towards us from the direction of the now visible castle. But when he was only a couple of feet away Henry stepped in front of me and pushed me behind him. Danny stopped in his tracks and scowled at him.

“Who the hell are you?” Danny said icily.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Henry replied, the coldness in his voice causing me to shiver.

They stood there sizing each other up. The tension was building in the air, and I wasn’t sure why.

“Henry, it’s okay I know him,” I said as I felt the tension begin to reach a boiling point. I tried to move past Henry, but he pushed me back behind him. This was the breaking point for Danny.

“DON’T TOUCH HER!” He hissed and lunged at Henry. Henry pushed me out of the way before Danny slammed into him. They both fell to the ground in a tangled mess of kicks and punches. They rolled around on the ground as they tried to get on top of each other and gain the upper hand. I opened my mouth to yell at them to stop, but it appeared that I couldn’t get any words to come out.

Danny finally managed to get the upper hand, and he looked like he was about to punch the teeth out of Henry’ mouth. By this time, I found the words that had become lost in my throat. “STOP!” I yelled.

Danny’s fist froze in mid swing. Henry took that opportunity to crack his knuckle into Danny’s nose. Danny went sprawling back onto the grass clutching his bleeding nose.

Henry stood over him breathing heavily. “You’re that guy that she brought back from the dead, aren’t you?” He glanced over at me and confirmed it with the look we shared. “The three of us need to talk.”