Twisted-Wonderland: Heart of the Night

Episode 2-22: Start of an Uprising!

~Kalin's Dream~

In an almost pitch black space, bubbles rising from beneath.  Kalin sees her hands flailing about, as if she was underwater.  Her chest felt tight, hard to breathe.  Trying her best to swim to reach the surface, she also felt weak to swim, but not from shortness of breath.  Her legs were having trouble kicking independently.  It's like her legs could only move as one and she couldn't separate them as if they were tied by an invisible rope, and swimming with just the strength of her arms was almost pointless.

Kalin couldn't worry about that, because she was running out of time before she drowns.  A tingling feeling started to prick around her hands.  She paused her hands to see what it was, but before she could see what was transforming upon her hands, her vision went blurry almost hazy.  In a state of panic, she started to scream from the sight she saw until she noticed her surroundings went darker.

A shadow crept up over her, making her line of sight harder to see underwater.  Kalin looked up to the surface of the water.  Under the full-moon, a figure was watching over the water space she was in.  Kalin started to lose consciousness when she stopped holding her breath for too long and she started to fall to the depths.  As the figure came closer to the surface line, a hand broke through coming down to her as she sunk down.  The hand grabbed her by the back of her shirt collar and pulled her up.

Feeling the breathe of air, she rose out of the person's arms to spit up the water from her lungs.  The person was holding their back to keep them steady, as she was very weak to sit up on her own.  Her vision still blurry, but not as bad as in the water.  She felt the pressure of the water leaving her body and collapsed back into the person's arms catching her.

What Kalin saw in front of her, she couldn't make out what the situation was.  All she could see was a hand holding underneath her legs.  But something was wrong with her legs, it looked different.  Her legs looked like it was shimmering under the moonlight, like she was wearing a glittering skirt.  They were halfway down the water and felt numb, from the waist down and strangely heavy.

Kalin then looked up to see the face of her rescuer, but was sadly unable to make out their face due to the blurriness and the moonlight overshadowing their silhouette.  Though there was one thing she could recognize from the shape of the head: it looked like animal ears, similar to a cat.

Kalin was soon lifted off the ground and into their arms by the strength of their grip.  Her head felt hazy and as she leaned her head in, she lost consciousness. 

~~~~~~~~~~~

"The smell of... earth?"

"Oh, Zazu, do lighten up and sing something for me with a little bounce in it.", Scar.

"Oh...  I would never have had to do this for Mufasa.", Zazu.  The bird was stuck inside a ribcage with a rock blocking the opening.

"What?  What did you say?  I... am... the KING!", Scar.

"Hey, Boss!  We got a bone to pick with you.", Banzai.  "Scar, there's no food, no water...  We're hungry!", Shenzi.

"What are you complaining to me for?  Eat Zazu.", Scar.

"I thought things were bad under Mufasa...", Banzai whispers to the others.

"What did you say?!  Get out!", Scar.

"But we're still hungry!", Ed.

"What happened to all that motivation he had before he was king?", Kalin.

~~~~Dream End~~~~

"Hey, wake up.", Jack.

"Was that just a dream?", Kalin.

*(!) Was I drowning for a moment...? (!)*

"Huh?  What are you doin' in our dorm?", Grim woke up.

I started to sit up when I realized Jack was in our room.  Seeing him standing over next to the bed gave me a startled reaction.  Making me pull on the blanket covers, while he just gave me a weird look like was I was being dramatic being woken up.  After a momentary pause he started to speak again.

"I'm on my morning run.  Today's the day of the Magical Shift tournament, and I wanted to make sure you didn't mess everything up by oversleeping.", Jack.

"Oh!  Yeah, you're right!  We gotta catch the bad guys so they'll squeeze Ramshackle House into the tournament as a reward!", Grim.

"It's time for the inevitable...", Kalin.

*(!) I have a bad feeling about this... (!)*

"*sigh*  I'll see ya at the tournament grounds.  Don't you dare go back to sleep!", Jack.  He then proceeded to leave the room and head his way out.

"Yeah, sure thing.", Kalin.  I felt relieved that he didn't notice anything weird other then my reaction to him coming in here.

After Grim got out of bed and headed out, it was then I realized it was silly of me to pull on my blankets since I was just wearing a black t-shirt to sleep so there was nothing to notice.  After reveling in that moment I got up and started to change into my casual wear since there's no classes for today because of the tournament.

 ~Side Street - Festival~

"Hm, excellent attendance again this year.  I'll have to check how the kiosks are doing.  After all, now that I'm the head of the planning committee, we can't have merchants underreporting their sales, now can we?", Azul.

"Housewarden, everything's ready at the coliseum.  The players will begin arriving in ten minutes.", Jade.

"Jade, Floyd, excellent work.", Azul.

"Hey, Azul, what's the deal?  Why do you have the player's procession starting at the east building this year?  The paths are so clogged with attendees that it'll be real hard for the players to get through 'em!", Floyd. 

"That was a special request from a certain client.  I'm not privy to ALL the particulars.", Azul.

"Ah, I understand.  So this is related to that magic-boosting potion you were making yesterday.", Jade.  "Wait, you understand WHAT?  What does rerouting the players have to do with magic potions?", Floyd.  "Shhh.  Someone might overhear us.  Lower your voices.", Jade.  "Ooh!  Is something shady about to go down?", Floyd.

"That potion is only going to last for about thirty seconds.  What could he possibly be plotting, I wonder?", Azul.

"Azul, you needn't feign ignorance.  You know exactly what he's planning, don't you?", Jade.

"Do I?  I wonder!  Heh heh heh.", Azul.

"Aw, come on!  Tell me too!", Floyd.

"Hee hee.  And I was just thinking I wanted to refurbish the lounge, so this offer came at a most opportune time.  But that's enough chit-chat.  Time is money!  Let's go see how concession sales are going.", Azul.