The Hollow

[DreamlessVoid]

Charlie and Avalon both snapped to look at Quinn as he woke, the former moving to carefully pat his back. "Normally," He hummed, glancing at the twins, "I would say you deserve this. But I don't know what's going on, exactly, so-"


"Hello."


Without Avalon or Charlie seeing, a rather tall figure had emerged from the thick of the trees. He held a hand above his eyes to block out the sun, examining the five. A light scowl bloomed over his face. "Welcome to The Hollow. I assume.. You're human? That's a stupid question. Of course you are. Anyways. Are you all uninjured?"

 

[MisshapenDear]

Quinn jumped in surprise when the tall figure spoke, almost flitting back into another coughing fit by his startledness. "What the f-" he began to swear, but was interrupted by the twins waking up. They both rolled to hack up water, but ended up smacking into each other with startled cries filled with water and even more coughing. This was such a horrible way to wake up. Even worse than the time Isabelle put a garden snake in his bed, in Blythe's opinion. And even worse than the time Blythe had dumped a plate of waffles, maple syrup, and orange juice on her face, in Isabelle's opinion. Blythe still had nightmares and Isabelle still hated maple syrup.

 

[DreamlessVoid]

Rai sighed. As soon as the portal had closed, his queen had been sold. The prophecy said five from a foreign land, and there were five! He still wasn't so sure, though. They looked weak and frail, and he couldn't sense any magic off of them. This was seriously going to be such a headache.


"..The Queen would like an audience with you. I don't guess any of you brought a change of clothing? How can a group of half-naked children be them.." He trailed and shook his head, waiting for them to get up.


Avalon scrambled over to Isabelle as soon as she woke, latching onto her arm. "I think we all must have hit out heads," She grumbled, watching the man carefully. He gave her all sorts of bad vibes.


"Um. Excuse me," Charlie spoke up, carefully rising to his feet. "Where are we? We need to get back to our camp.. So, um. Yeah. We can't go see your.. 'Queen,' or whatever."

 

[MisshapenDear]

Quinn gingerly touched at his head. "We're probably dead," he decided. "Or that lake was filled with some sort of drug and we'll all high as kites. Yeah, that makes sense. More sense than whatever is happening."


Isabelle blinked blearily at Avalon, groaning in pain as she reached up a hand to rub her head where it had collided with her brother's. "Where are we?" she mumbled, moving to sit up.


"Ow," Blythe whined, rubbing his own head and pushing himself up so he sat on his knees. "I've always known you have a think skull, Belly, but still," he grumbled, blinking his eyes open. He immediately cheered at the sight of Charlie. "You're alive!" He caught sight of Rai. "Maybe. Is it just me, or is there a freakishly tall dude watching us."

 

[DreamlessVoid]

"I've been high before," Charlie sighed and shook his head. "Nothing as crazy as this ever happened.. Yes. I'm alive and well, Blythe. How's your foot?"


He glared at him, more than happy to blame him for whatever this mess was.


Avalon swatted Charlie's shoulder and shook her head, trying to get him to leave Blyth alone. The tall guy was glaring at them like he really, really wanted to just throw them back into the lake.


Rai cleared his throat.


"Like I was trying to say.. Welcome to the Hollow. I can't direct you to the camp because you're not in your world. Terribly sorry about that. This all must be very frightening, I'm sure. But if you can control your whining for a bit, the Queen wants to meet you."


"The Queen," Charlie echoed, and then held up a hand. "Give us a minute?" He waited until the tall guy retreated into the trees, turning to his friends. "Well. He's obviously... Insane. What do we do?"

 

[MisshapenDear]

"They both ganged up on me," Blythe protested when Charlie glared at him. "You know that Belly refuses to stop until she gets her wa- oof!" he grunted when Isabelle stabbed him in the gut with her elbow for the nickname.


"Maybe we should go along with it for a while. Yeah, he may be insane and try to murder us and eat our livers, but maybe he could lead us to civilization?" Quinn suggested when Charlie spoke. "'Cause this doesn't look like any part of the lake I remember seeing, and I have no idea where we are."


"That plan is going to get us killed. What if he just wants to lead us further into the woods in order to stab us and sacrifice us to a rock that he nicknamed Queen?" Isabelle argued.

 

[DreamlessVoid]

Avalon nodded at what Isabelle said, eyeing the man nervously. "She's right. But.. There's five of us and only one of him. So.. We should follow and just keep our eyes open for anything strange."


"This is all strange," Noah threw his hands up, eyes blow wide. "But.. Yeah. Whatever happened, we're not at the lake. So I guess we should follow until we come up with a better idea. If it goes south, though," He paused and glanced at Isabelle and Avalon, "We can sacrifice those two."

 

[MisshapenDear]

Blythe nodded in agreement, ducking to avoid his sister's punch. "I approve of that plan," he claimed, ignoring Isabelle's offended noise and the onslaught of water droplets she had squeezed out of her short hair and tossed in his direction.


"I also agree," Quinn said. "And since your votes-" he looked at the girls "-don't count because you're the ones that got us into this mess, that means we're going. Now we just have to hope we don't all die." Quinn really hoped they weren't all going to die. He liked the way his life was now, thank you very much.

 

[DreamlessVoid]

Charlie nodded, ignoring the sounds of protest Avalon made. "And since you pushed me in, Quinn, you can talk to the weird dude." His face was very blank. He really just wanted to get back to their camp. The whole situation seriously weirded him out.


Still holding onto Isabelle's arm, Avalon huffed. She really wished she'd worn a shirt of something when she went swimming- It was a bit cold, and she was starting to shiver a little bit.

 

[MisshapenDear]

"But Blythe agreed to be bait," Quinn grumbled, though stood anyway. He was mostly complaining to stall for a moment. Rai was fairly terrifying, and Quinn didn't want to be eaten. He could easily imagine Rai opening his mouth freakishly wide and devouring them all in one bite.


"We both know I was bullied into it," Blythe argued back.


Isabelle noticed Avalon's slight shiver, moving a bit closer to share body heat- she was also growing pretty cold. "Curse of the bikini."

 

[DreamlessVoid]

"Before you two throw the blame back on us," Avalon huffed and huddled closer to her friend, eyes still a bit red from the water, "Just remember that you went along with it!"


Charlie sighed- His friends were hopeless, honestly. He felt like a fretting mother sometimes when he was with them. If he weren't so upset, he might have offered the girls his plaid button up, soaked as it was. But he felt like a little bit of cold-hard exposure to the elements might help them realize how dumb their little prank was.


Rai, realizing their little meeting was over, walked back to them. He raised an eyebrow as he waited for whatever they had decided.

 

[MisshapenDear]

"Belly won the staring contest," Blythe argued. "You all know the losing twin to the Contest must honer the other's wishes. It's in the twin code!" The Bolton's twin code, at least. The siblings had implemented the system when they were six and had followed it ever since. It had been greatly approved of by their parents, and even encouraged.


Staring contests were certainly more appreciated than screaming contests.


"We'll go along with you to meet your 'Queen', for now," Quinn told Rai once he was close enough, ignoring his bickering friends.

 

[DreamlessVoid]

"You shouldn't have even looked her in the eyes," Charlie hummed, "Kinda like Medusa.."


"Isabelle is way too pretty to be compared to Medusa," Avalon informed him, watching Quinn out of the corner of her eyes. She didn't trust him, and certainly didn't like her friend being so close to possible danger. So, she carefully pulled Isabelle over, hooking her other arm through his, pulling him into their little huddle. "Quinny," She half-whined, "We're cold! Warm us up with your manly-man body heat."


Rai didn't understand these humans. Constantly insulting each other, despite obviously caring deeply for one another. It made his head hurt. But, glad to be free of them soon, he turned and headed into the woods. He didn't bother to check if they were following or not.

 

[MisshapenDear]

"Yes! Exactly like Medusa!" Blythe agreed, reaching out to pull lightly at a strand of Isabelle's hair. "She's even got the snakes!"


"My hair has never been touched by a snake, heathen!" Isabelle argued.


"Lies. I remember that garden snake. I put it in your shampoo bottle."


Isabelle gagged. "What?!"


Blythe huffed in irritation. "So that's why you never retaliated. Mom must've thrown out the bottle before you could turn it into a make-up container or whatever." Isabelle enjoyed creating things out of her product containers. It was a fun hobby she'd picked up when she was twelve.


"Possible hallucination guy is leaving without us," Quinn informed them, holding out an arm to help up whoever got to it first.

 

[DreamlessVoid]

Avalon slapped Blythe's hand down for her friend, shooting a glare at him. "How rude. Who puts snakes in people's shampoo? That's so immature," She drug out the 'o' in so, grabbing Quinn's arm, her other still linked with Isabelle. Her skin had began to dry in the warm sun- It was, honestly, extremely hot here. She hoped that the shade would provide a little shelter, as she hadn't put on any sunblock because it had been nighttime. "Um, Mr. Tall-Guy-Dude," Avalon rose on her toes as if that would help her voice carry, "Do you have any sunscreen back at wherever we're going? Maybe SPF 30?" 


Charlie snickered when Avalon was ignored, hurrying to catch up to the other group, walking a little behind Quinn. "Just so you all know, I'm the only innocent one. When Mr. Stone Wall kills us all, I'm the only real victim. You're all responsible for your actions. I just wanted to read my book.." 

 

[MisshapenDear]

"She put it in my bed, first!" Blythe protested, clambering to his feet on his own. He hit lightly at his legs to clear them of sand, then followed after them, making a face at the sand that he couldn't bat away. Blythe wasn't too fond of sand and beaches and water, because sand when combined with water turned to mud. And mud was hard to clean off wet legs. And when mud dried it tugged sharply at all his leg hair when he pulled it off unless he got it wet again. That wasn't much of an option, here, so he wasn't too pleased. 


"That's the whole reason we're in this mess, if we're playing that game," Quinn pointed out to Charlie. "You wouldn't join in the fun when you could've read your book later. We're all friends with Avalon. You shoud've known that she'd rope us all into a plan to push you in. So you're actually the least innocent of us all, excluding the girls."

 

[DreamlessVoid]

"It's your fault for being stupid enough to think you needed to retaliate. You know better than that, silly boy." Avalon stared at the back of their guide's head, wondering if there were any way to get hid attention. She decided against it, turning to Quinn. "You should carry me, Mr. Manly Man. You have muscles to spare. Annnd these roots and rocks are all really hard on my poor feminine feet." Everyone would know it was a lie, but she still put on her best pouty face and cocked her head to the side. 


"It- It- That makes no sense!" Charlie threw his arms up, glaring at Quinn. "I like to have fun. I just don't like swimming in water when I can't see what is actually in the water. If we'd gone to my family's cabin instead of the lake, and used the pool instead of a stupid teleporting black hole, none of this would have happened. But Avalon just haaad to have her camping vacation! You know what, I blame Miss Princess for our impending deaths."

 

[MisshapenDear]

Blythe threw his hands up in exasperation, flicking his sibling's head when she snickered. She swiftly retaliated with a hit to his arm. And so began the millionth (perhaps literally) slap-fight between the two. The twins had been quite violent with each other when they disagreed, though it depends on a person's view of what's violence. They rarely hit with their full strength, and never punched, pinched, nor hit faces or other vulnerable body parts. Just a friendly beating accompanied by bruises. 


Quinn ignored the twins' antics. "Nope. No carrying for you, Avy. I never actually got to swim before we were dragged off to wonderland, and I'm putting that blame on you and your 'poor feminine feet'. They can suffer." He then responded to Charlie, rolling his eyes in exasperation and amusement. "I blame everyone for having something to do with this. I mostly blame the lake for being an evil kidnapper, though."

 

[DreamlessVoid]

Ignoring WW3, Avalon tugged at Quinn's arm. "You'll get to swim later! But what if my foot gets cut open and I get an infection and I die! You're not invited to my funeral because you wouldn't carry me. Isabelle will make sure you're charged with manslaughter because you totally could have prevented my death- ..Oh." 


Her rambling cut off mid sentence as they finally broke through the thick tree line, suddenly exposed to a fairy-tale like castle. The beautiful, soft green grass they were standing on went on for about ten feet before a sheer vertical drop. To their left, stairs were carved into the cliff face, leading down to the valley that housed the huge castle. The lake in front of it was fed by the water fall that plummeted down the mountain which sheltered the backside of the palace. Something huge and black swam in it's depths. 


The castle itself was a deep green color, reflecting the sun back at them. It reminded Charlie of the scales of a fish, and he shivered, lifting a hand. The four towers of the castle each had numerous guards, and there seemed to be an elaborate system of walkways and balconies along it's face. To the right, the mountains dissipated and gave way to rolling green hills, dotted with houses and towers, and in the distance, farmland. 


"..Alright. Who put the drugs in my Gatorade? Are you guys seeing this?" Charlie blinked, but it was still there. 

 

[MisshapenDear]

Miraculously, the twins stopped fighting to gape at the castle. The first and last time that had happened was when they were three and had been forced outside, where they had then discovered a beehive in their backyard. That day resulted in much tears and homeless bees. 


"If it's drugs, it's drugs that show everyone the exact same thing," Quinn answered, staring at the castle in disbelief. "Because I'm fairly sure we're seeing the same thing. If you're not seeing a fairy tale castle that all five-to-ten-year old girls would literally murder to live in, then no, I'm not seeing what you're seeing." 


"We're dead," Blythe chimed. "We're all dead and this is the afterlife, because there's no way this is an actual thing." 

 

[DreamlessVoid]

"MR. TALL GUY-DUDE IS THE GRIM REAPER-" 


"The stairs are slippery," Rai cut into Avalon's screaming, looking back at the teens. "So be careful. If you fall, you might actually die. What a shame that would be.." 


He turned away to hide his grin. These kids were so naive. Foolish. Weak. There was no way the queen would even entertain the idea of them beginning the warriors in the prophecy once she met them, and all this stupidness would be over soon. He stuffed his hands in his pockets as he took the stairs two at a time, deciding to wait at the bottom for the troublesome kids. 


"...Do we follow?" Charlie turned to seriously stare at his friends. "All jokes aside. This is really creepy. Insane. This stuff- It.. It doesn't happen! I don't trust this place at all." 


"We just go down and find a phone and call someone," Avalon suggested, nervously fiddling with the side of her bikini bottom. She was starting to really want dry clothes. "Do you think they have phones?"

 

[MisshapenDear]

Blythe shook his head. "They probably don't. I feel like I'm going insane, though. If this is an actual thing that exists, then there should be a whole bunch a tourists. But there's not, and there's still a castle. So yeah, insane." 


Isabelle nodded in agreement. "I have no clue what's going on, and I don't like it. This stuff is seriously weird, guys. I honestly don't have a clue which is smarter."


Quinn just still looked to be in disbelief, staring at the castle. "I'm just half-convinced that we're in a story book," he muttered. 

 

[DreamlessVoid]

"..That's it," Charlie announced, nodding to Quinn even as he moved to follow the tall guy down the stairs, "I hit my head on one of the poles when you pushed me in. I'm dreaming about the book I was reading. That makes sense. Someone pinch me." Avalon did pinch him, and he squealed and slapped her hand away, slipping on a moss-covered step. He teetered precariously for a moment before using the cliff wall to balance, eyes blow wide. "They are slippery and that was horrifying. Why is there no railing? This has to be breaking at least seven safety codes." 


"..Slippery," Avalon turned to pout back up at Quinn and Blythe. "One of you has to carry me now. I will slip and bust my head open if I try to go down those steps by myself! I don't want to die, even if we're already dead." 


Rai had done a lot of studying on humans, and he knew that the teens constant jokes about being dead and him leading them off to murder them was simply a defense mechanism to keep themselves from panicking. Knowing this did not, however, make it any less annoying. He waited at the bottom of the stairs, having stolen the capes off of the sentries posted there, planning to give them to the girls until they could find suitable clothing. 

 

[MisshapenDear]

"Nope," Quinn stated, beginning to carefully climb down the stairs, hands out to grab the cliff in the case he slipped. 


"I don't think I walk down that, let alone carry you, Avalon," Blythe claimed, peering nervously down the stairs. He had a terrible fear of heights, and he would've been nervous walking down the steps even with a railing. But slippery steps and almost nothing to keep him from falling? Yeah, nope. 


"We'll walk in a chain," Isabelle decided, looping her arm through her brother's and tightening her hold on Avalon. "That way we can catch each other if we fall." She nudged Avalon to go first. Isabelle was currently in the middle, so couldn't go first, and Blythe would end up tripping over his own feet in fear and send them all tumbling over the edge if he had to go first. 

 

[DreamlessVoid]

"Or make all three of us fall," But Avalon began her trip down the steps anyways, placing a palm on Quinn's back once she was caught up. "This way, if I fall, I can drag you with me." 


Charlie reached the ground ahead of the others, doubling over to calm his breathing. It had certainly been stressful to know that one misstep could have him toppling to his death. He tried to ignore the amused smirk that took up the tall stranger's face, pursing his lips. It was clear that this guy was mocking them, and it was beginning to bother him. They'd obviously been through a lot, so why couldn't this jerk give them some slack?