[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/rP3uwiN.png[/img]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/d80gKvl.jpg?1[/img][/center]

	There was no mistaking the moment they entered Hollow Forest. The dry, decaying bark of trees of the Twisted Forest ended in a defined line, each bent over as if frozen trying to flee what lay inches past its boarder. The trees beyond the dark line grew tall and thick, and vines wrapped over everything, threatening to strangle the vegetation. Crimson sap seeped from a few of the richly brown trunks like blood. Dense foliage a shade of green that looked impossibly deeper and more real than any reality spread above, casting the ground below in an unnerving patchwork of shadows and brilliant rays of sunlight. An unnatural silence saturated the forest, as if even the insects feared to disturb what lurked between the trunks. Dust motes glittered and floated lazily in the early afternoon light, the sight as inviting as a spider’s sweet call to a fly.
	 As soon as Elayra’s foot fell on the ground of Hollow Forest, a shiver ran down her spine. The cold feeling of emptiness and despair brushed lightly against her consciousness, begging for her to let it in. A gentle, phantom wind blew through the trees, caressing her and Drust in its icy arms as it passed by in sporadic spurts.
 	She quickened her pace, trying to keep closer to Drust. Her concentration turned from watching for any threats to keeping the emotions trapped between dirt and foliage at bay.
	Though the journey into the outskirts of Hollow Forest had taken only near an hour, if that, Drust led the way at a near run for neigh six more, stopping only when Elayra forced him to take a break. Outside his irritated complaints about having to stop, Drust said little. His head twitched every few minutes, and the black lines at his eyes pulsated vulnerably with his mood and the persistence of amassed misery held captive in the forest. The further in they went, the more intoxicating the sensation of hollow desolation became.
	“How much further?” Elayra asked in a quiet whisper. She winced at the sound of her voice shattering the sinister silence that clung between the trees in a dark reverence. She swallowed hard and took a couple leaping steps forward so she was only inches behind Drust. The hem of a pant leg caught and ripped on a thorny vine as it snaked its way across the ground of its own volition.
	Drust stopped, and she bumped into him. He snarled and turned his head to glare down at her as she gave a mumbled apology, then looked forward again with an exceptionally violent twitch, one following the other. “We’re here,” he hissed, his voice strained. 
	Elayra looked up, confused, then stepped to his side. A wall of trees stood in front of them, each growing so close to the next that bark grew into one large mass. Vines lapped at the base of the trees, desperately trying in vain to climb them.
	She gasped and took a slight step back as whispers tickled her ears. Mocking, pained, and desperate whispers, sickly sweet tones of a time long past all talking over each other to form a jumbled, disorientating mess of echoic voices and cackles:

[center][i]“I’ll have his bones to grind my bread!”
“To die will be an awfully big adventure.”
“All the better to eat you with!”
“She shall prick her finger with a spindle, and she shall die!”
“Mirror, Mirror on the wall...”[/i][/center]
	Elayra, breathing heavily through her mouth and eyes locked on the wall of trees, lifted a hand to an ear as if it would silence the whispers.
	Drust cast a sideways glance to her, his face tight and voice clipped. “You hear it.”
	She swallowed, incapable of tearing her gaze from the trees that felt eerily familiar, as if they belonged in a dream of a dream. “What [i]is[/i] that?” she breathed.
	“Voices of other worlds.” Drust stepped toward the natural wall, offering no further explanation. “Ignore them. Come here.” He removed one of his gloves, revealing the stark white skin beneath, his opaque nails broken and uneven.
	Elayra hesitated, glancing between him and the wall. 
	“I [i]said,[/i]” Drust turned his infuriated gaze to her, the red in his eyes threatening to overpower his pupils. “[i]Come. Here.[/i]”
	Not wanting to risk the Curse taking over in such an environment, Elayra scurried to the wall. The whispers grew louder, more frantic, making it impossible to tell one from the other.
	“Would it kill you to say ‘please’ every once in a while?” Elayra muttered in a poor attempt at lightening the atmosphere. She hesitantly placed a palm to the trees. A tingle spread down her arm, making her hairs stand up and goosebumps form. Beneath her palm, the bark felt soft and warm. It felt [i]alive.[/i]
	Drust snorted, but otherwise ignored her. “I want you to repeat after me. Word for word. Deviate even slightly, and this place will become our tomb. Understood?” His eyes shifted toward her.
	Holding her breath, she nodded.
	Drust bent his head for a short moment, his eyes closed. He took a deep breath, and muttered something Elayra could not hear, making panic flood through her. But his head snapped up, stared at the wall of trees with an intensity new to her, and began to speak in a loud, clear voice. The power and strength in it reverberated through Elayra, and she felt the trees shudder. Drust paused after each line, giving her the time to repeat it before moving on:

[center]“Wind and rain, lightning and thunder,
Hear the cries of a world asunder.
Seek we entrance to the worlds beyond
To heal the terror that has been spawned.”[/center]
	As their voices faded, absorbed by the surrounding forest, a creaking moan erupted from the trees. The jumble of whispers intensified, making Elayra feel dizzy as they seemed to come from everywhere yet nowhere all at once. Laughs and sobs. Screams and groans. Words and phrases in every conceivable--and [i]inconceivable[/i]--language.
	She felt suddenly sick, and wobbled slightly on her feet. Drust’s firm hand gripped her shoulder, before the other gently wrapped her wrist and removed her palm from the tree. With one arm draped around her protectively, he guided her quickly back from the trees and their wooden groans.
	Elayra took a deep breath, trying to steady herself, her jaw setting and back straightening in the effort. All the same, she was thankful for the White Knight’s presence.
	The wall of trees morphed together, forming a giant wad of formless browns and greens. A final dark, screeching laugh blew by them. A laugh that sounded disturbingly familiar and threatened to bring her to her knees from a mix of fear and sheer volume. A triumphant laugh that had woven through her nightmares for as long as she could remember. The cruel laugh of the Red Queen.
	The glob of color that had become of the trees melted into the earth with a bubbling squelch, then vanished in a gentle cloud of dirt. Behind where the wall had been, a zigzagging cobblestone path wove through the forest. Various types of trees, from pine to weeping willows, lined the path in multifarious shades of green that glimmered in the evening light. But the awe- and fear-inspiring beauty, and peaceful quiet that fell was not what caught Elayra’s attention.
	She strode forward, trance-like. Her feet carried her slowly toward the end of the path, Drust close behind her.
	Two stone pillars rose on either side of an ornate gate, flanked by two massive, plant-covered hills reaching high into the sky. An arch connected the two pillars. Embedded at the crest of the arch was a red stone in the shape of a heart, a gentle pink light pulsating at its center like the heartbeat of a man on his deathbed. Behind the gate, an inexplicable light glowed softly despite the sinking sun.
	Though the stone looked weathered, and vines and moss hung from it and two heart-shaped statues flanking the path, a memory of an archway made of pristine, glittering white marble flashed through her mind.
	Elayra closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to dispel the long-ago recollection. She needed her head in the present, in what [i]was,[/i] not what once [i]had been.[/i]
	She looked up as Drust strode by her and onward to the gate. She took a deep breath, glad the whispers had at last fallen silent, and followed his lead.
	The rusted gates slowly jerked open inward, their hinges squealing in protest.
	Another memory flashed through her head, one of a strong, dark-haired boy beside her, her hand clutching his for dear life as they passed beneath the archway and beyond the once silvery gates. It was the hand of her best friend. A friend she lost before she could form more than snippets of foggy memories of.
	Elayra growled, closed her eyes, and gripped her head with both hands, willing herself to focus on the present.
	“Elayra.”
	The gentleness in Drust’s tone made her eyes snap open. Not realizing she had stopped, she blinked at the cracked cobblestone of the path, then looked up to him. For a fleeting second, an opalescent shimmer glinted over his irises, and a kind understanding flashed over his features. It had been far too long since she had seen even a glimpse of that, of who he once was so long ago in a time she dared not dwell on. Alas, as quickly as it had come, it faded away, as all good things tended to do in her world.
	“Get changed.” The demanding stoniness in his voice had returned.
	Elayra groaned.
	Drust’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “We know little of Earth. We must--”
	“Try to fit in, as much as we can,” she interrupted. She ran a hand grumpily through her hair. “I know. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
	He smirked, then turned his back and removed his own pack from his shoulders as Elayra did the same.
	A few minutes later, the two continued down the path, Elayra now in a long, worn red dress adorned with a thick, brown leather corset belt, her sword, dagger, and quiver of arrows hanging from her own belt situated just beneath it. Drust sported a simple pair of knickerbockers, a vest over a white shirt, and a black hooded cape, his katana still slung over his back.
	The two emerged into a large, bowl-like clearing surrounded by hills stretching to the sky. A gentle, golden-green glow radiated from an orb floating high above the center of the clearing. Massive oak trees lined the clearing in even intervals. Exposed roots at the base of each outlined a large circular hole leading into the ground. Darkness waited in the depths of each hole, save for one; a blueish-white light rose from the hole of a tree to their right.
	“The... portals.” Elayra strode toward the center of the clearing, the grass beneath her feet lush and springy. The sensation of magic hung thickly in the air. Unlike what she had grown used to, here, it felt comforting, as if it was welcoming her and Drust with open arms. It seemed to speak of better times, of a period before the Era of Crimson Destruction. “Was this...” she started, but stopped herself from asking the question running through her head: was this what Wonderland had been like before the Red Sorceress? Carpeted with grass so soft you could sleep comfortably on it, and filled with an air of hope and wonder?
	She snorted angrily at herself. “We’re wasting time,” she growled. She adjusted her pack and bow slung over her chest, then strode toward the open portal.
	She paused in front of it, the buzzing feeling of magic intensifying. A circle with a plus sign inside it was carved into the tree trunk near her eye level, its form glowing faintly with the same light as the portal.
	“Have you forgotten how to move?” Drust thumped her hard between her shoulder blades, making her turn a scowl to him. “Simply jump through.” He nodded toward the glowing root-lined hole. “Focus on whatever you can remember about Ghent. It’ll guide us, and, in theory, deposit us through the portal opening closest to him.”
	“In [i]theory?[/i]” Elayra groaned.
	Drust snarled. “We haven’t tried it, have we? Now [i]go.[/i] I’ll be right behind you.”
	Elayra nodded, then looked to the hole at her feet.
	[i]This is it.[/i] She took a deep breath, bent her legs, then jumped into the glowing portal. [i]We’re coming for you, Ghent Madrail. Wherever you are, we’re coming.[/i]