Twilightgirl12

Hollow looked at the worn wooden door before his carved eyes darted around at the deserted street. The glowing lamps that brought them to the small town swayed gently, suspended by small chains that hung from the tall poles. The swaying light threw flashes of shadows, each one making his heart race faster. Each flicker between the light and the darkness caused him to tighten his grip on his scarf. It worse if it was either his, Jay’s or Alex’s shadows that got thrown up onto the brick walls. They looked far too human for the briefest moments they appeared. In their haste to get to the tinkling lights and to shelter, the thought that if the unconscious girl in Alex’s arms was from the town, then it was likely that there would be more humans didn’t occur to the scarecrow. Until now, as they stood in front of the first cottage they came across. Under normal circumstances, Hollow would have liked the smaller housing this town had. The straw thatching on the roofs would give him a hope

Hollow’s boots partly sunk into the wet sand as he, Alex and Jay trudged along the darkened beach. Waves crashed against the shore line while heavy rain lashed down on them. Hollow used a hand to shield his carved eyes to stop the rainwater getting stuck inside his head. He could hear the goat man’s grumbling despite how loud the sea was. “They did this on purpose! They are deliberately making this harder to get back at me!” “Oh, Alex, stop being a big baby! It’s just a little rain, it won’t kill you.” The scarecrow heard a growl before Alex retorted, “I’M made of INK! Ink and water do NOT mix! That son of a-” “Alex! Language! There’s a kid here!” Jay cut him off, turning to Hollow. His dark brown hair was plastered to his face and muzzle as he gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that. He’s just being a grumpy goat. Pay no attention to him.” Hollow gave a quick shake of his head, wiping a wet, red sleeve over his face. He could understand Alex’s ‘grumpiness’ at the

The first thing Hollow noticed was the tall, spiky branched tree in the middle of the room. It wasn’t as large as the ones he had seen outside of his home growing up but with the star that was placed on top of it, it almost looked like it touched the ceiling. Little lights on a string were hanging from its branches and softly lit up the differently shaped ornaments decorating the tree. He was sure he had seen this tree before….that he had been in this place before. Letting his feet guide him, the scarecrow walked towards the tree as if he was a bystander, watching himself getting closer to it. It was as if he was watching one of those Tee and Vee things that was in the Space. Hollow knew he was there in the room as he could smell cooked food coming from somewhere but it was like he wasn’t in control of where he was walking. He began to notice other people were with him as he side stepped out of the way of someone walking past him. They were mingling with each other, talking and

Hollow and Elliot snapped their heads towards the voice. The scarecrow felt his stomach plummet as he saw Prince Devi on the other side of the blue square pit, holding three of the helmet pieces in between his fingers. Each of the helmets he had were the same ones he and Elliot had. Even with the donkey’s head mask, he knew the prince was smiling at them both and it wasn’t a nice one. Standing next to him was Saddler, glancing curiously from under his yellow hat towards the prince. It was the first time Hollow had heard him speak as the wooden carved horse spoke up. “Uh, your Hayness? Isn’t it supposed to be that WE won?” He whinnied. Prince Devi turned to him, giving a curt nod as he dropped all of his helmet pieces into his free hand. Extending his now empty hand, he purred, “But of course, my dear Saddler! But remember our bargain?” The horse nodded. “Of course I do. I just had my turn and got it for you.” Saddler then started to shake the hat on his head. The was a

Elliot glanced away from Hollow, putting away his helmet pieces into his pockets. “I wasn’t really paying attention… Prince Devi said he was representing the Cats, so I wanted to stay away from him.” His body shuddered and he wrapped his arms round himself before continuing. “I didn’t hear everything but… when the prince was talking to Saddler… I heard them, or Devi mostly, talking how they should work together. How if Saddler helped him, Devi would make sure he would give him half the realms to do as he wished with them. They kept talking about the helmet pieces too…” Elliot went quiet, rubbing the sides of his arms when he finally looked down at Hollow. The scarecrow watched as he bit his lip before adding, “That’s when you came… I didn’t think that’s what they were planning…I didn’t realise until now…” Hollow listened to Elliot’s explanation with his carved eyes growing wider by the minute. Prince Devi had to have planned it from the very beginning…He was talking to the

Hollow watched as his die rolled on the ground, its yellow side facing up when it finally stopped. The teenager gulped before slowing walking towards the large yellow square on the path in front of him. Coming to the edge, he took a deep breath before stepping onto it. For a few minutes, nothing seemed to happen. Hollow let out a relieved sigh while glancing around him. If a trap hadn’t been set off, surely one of the helmet pieces should appear now…. As he went to take a step forward, he found that he couldn’t move his feet. And that he was sinking into the ground. Fast. Hollow flailed his arms in the air, trying to pull his legs out of the yellow goo. However, the harder he tried to free himself, the goo felt like it would become solid. “Oh no, oh no!” He cried out, panic beginning flood his mind. He couldn’t even register the sounds of laughter from the audience that were watching his antics. Every step he tried to make was heavy and slow. The yellow goo kept changing; it let

Hollow almost retreated back through the story’s dice shaped door as the sound of a roaring crowd rang in his ears. He suddenly felt sick to his stomach as he realised that he was standing in what looked like a stadium, filled with so, so many people. Too many people. Instinctively, he ducked his head to look at the ground while his gloved hands teased the ends of his rainbow striped scarf. His eyes were drawn to a large, white ‘S’ shape that was engraved into the ground under his feet. Next to it, there was another large engraved shape, this time, it looked like a ‘T’. The disguised scarecrow furrowed his brow as he saw more letter like shapes further on. Studying them, he mouthed them until he reached the last letter. “Start?” Hollow read out loud, raising a brow when a loud, booming voice interrupted him. “And finally, our last player! Representing the realm of the Hats in this noblest game is the young and bold, Hollow Feathertop!” Hollow snapped his head up quickly at the

Sitting crossed legged on a carpeted floor, Hollow made a grumbling sound and closed the book cover of ‘The Cricket as a Thermometer’. Balancing it on a small tower of tomes close by, his hand stretched up to the large bookcase next to him and slid another book off its shelf. Hollow paused to read the title before glancing up as he gazed around at cylindrical, library like place he had found behind the dark, ornate door that was very much out of place in the blankness of the Void. The disguised scarecrow was pretty sure that, according the the golden plaque of rules that was hung near the entrance, ‘The Space’ was not here the last time he came to the Void….at least, he had no memories of it. Like the Void, it to go on forever, with its endless book cases. There was also hundreds of floors, both going up and down with a spiral staircase connecting them all. At the center of it all was a large hole in both going down and in the ceiling. Every so often, there open spaces with

“Nope, nope, nope….What are we supposed to be looking for anyway?” Ethnr grumbled as he scanned the crowds of people around them. “I don’t know! Something that…I guess looks different?” Hollow replied as he scrutinized any bare neck he could see for the black bird tattoo they had been told about. He and Ethnr had been searching each gaming table they came across, relying on the silly looking glasses Ethnr was wearing to help spot anything….well…Hyperion had not been very clear on what it was they were meant to find. It didn’t help that the time inside the glasses was also ticking away. “It’s seven minutes now! And we’re just going around blindly staring at people!” Ethnr retorted before adding quietly, “What happens if we don’t find them in time!?” Hollow could hear a twinge of panic in the slime’s voice and he looked away from the necks of the crowd to look down at Ethnr. Despite his own gut twisting at the thought of failure, he tried to sound calm as he said, “WE will find

If the bar assaulted his ears, the ‘Sensho’ casino almost deafened Hollow as he and Ethnr stepped out of the long corridor from the basement door that the large bartender ushered them though. The teenager stepped through the red, velvet curtain that hid the corridor with his mouth wide open. There were more curtains decorating the casino walls, alternating between blacks and reds. The rest of the casino was huge; it was easily as big as a grand hall from the wizard’s guild buildings that were back in his world. Obviously, it was a bit different; they had to be big spaces to stop the wizards fighting in magical duels over not having enough room. Here, however, everyone was crowded around numerous tables, either playing different types of games or watching those playing. Some of the games involved a lot of playing cards, decorated with little symbols like blue hearts and green diamonds. Other tables were playing with multicolored tokens, with the players trying to ping them into a cup