Happy Birthday, Sky!!!!! :D *hands her 20 birthday cupcakes*
Hope you have an awesome day filled with cake and ice cream, and more cake :D :D
Her leg wasn't broken as originally suspected, but she still had to have a cast on her leg and needed crutches to walk around.
Four days passed before she was finally released from the hospital.
She'd spent that time being completely stressed, equally because of what her life has become, and because she was worried about her brother, who was in a medically induced coma because of his head injury.
When they could get ahold of the doctor, he told them that Harry had a concussion, and that there might be a more serious matter, and that he was in the coma so that they could more efficiently run more tests, and hopefully prevent any permanent brain damage.
Their mom was a wreck. She didn't understand what had happened, just that her daughter has a broken leg and her son is in a coma.
And throughout all of this, Sally had not seen any sign of Bram.
Every morning before she would visit her brother at the hospital, she would go to the park where she first met Bram, and wait. But there was nothing.
She was getting increasingly angry with Bram for not visiting, for ignoring her attempts to summon him, as she had on the day she accidentally teleported herself into the realm of a monster.
Disheartened and angry, she left the park again, heading for the hospital.
Whilst, unknown to her, a figure was watching from the trees.
* * * *
"There has to be an explanation here somewhere!" Bram said, frustrated as he looked upon all of the books he had collected.
"Calm down, Bram, we'll find something." Aerton said, setting down the book he had been reading and picking up another.
"I can't calm down when that girl and her family is possibly in danger!" He said, sitting down in a huff. And it's all my fault.
"Bram, you need a break." Coarson said. "You're focusing on this too much."
"I can't help it." Bram replied, picking up another book and flicking through it, and, finding nothing of importance, again, he slammed it back onto the table. "You would think that with an infinite library such as this one we'd be able to find a helpful book!"
"Well, this one is helpful," Coarson said, holding up a strange looking book.
"What is that?" Aerton asked, leaning closer.
"Apparently a book on how to properly care for a labradoodle." He said, looking puzzled. "What is a labradoodle?"
Bram rolled his eyes as he looked through another book, falling upon a chapter named "The Portal's of Syien", curious he started skimming it.
"Who is this Syien?" He asked, looking up.
His two companions froze.
* * * *
She sat dozing in a chair while her mother ran down to the cafeteria to get some coffee and food.
"Sal?"
She jerked awake at the sound of her brothers' voice.
"Harry!" She said, relieve overwhelming her and she fought back tears.
"What happened?" He asked, looking around the room. "Why am I in a hospital?"
"You don't remember?" She asked.
He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to remember. "I remember.. getting thrown into a... into a... what are those weird brick walls called anyway?"
She laughed. "I don't know."
He shrugged. "Well, I got thrown into that and then I woke up here." He paused. "Wait, there was that man, you said his name was Bram, why you're hanging out with Bram Stoker is beyond me, but, if that's how your friends treat people, I would consider getting new ones."
She smiled. "It wasn't Bram, I don't know who that was."
He frowned, and then he looked around the room again, as if a thought had just occurred to him. "Where's Sylvia?"
"She didn't want to come to the hospital." Sally replied, inwardly cringing at the thought of bringing this argument up again. "She said, and I quote: 'I don't need an amnesiac falling in love with me today, just tell him to call me when he's better'."
He just looked at her for a minute. "She said that?"
"Yeah."
He opened his mouth to speak when their mom walked through the door.
Seeing her son awake, she dropped the tray of food she'd gotten and ran over to him, hugging him tight.
"Mom," he laughed. "I can't breathe."
She stepped back and they could both see the tears streaming down her face. "Sorry, sweetheart, I'm just so glad you're OK."
"I'm sorry I scared you, mom." Harry said, and they hugged again.
There was a knock at the door, and the doctor peeked her head in.
"Hi there," She said, walking in. "I'm glad to see you're awake, Mr. Jameson."
"Hello Doctor Stiles." Their mother said.
"Hello, Mrs. Jameson." Doctor Stiles said, smiling. "I have some good news, we just got the test results back, and you are in remarkably good shape for someone who had brain trauma."
"So does that mean I can go home?" Harry asked.
"Soon," She said. "It's hospital policy to keep people who have had brain trauma for at least a week, and you have only been here for four days."
"So, he can come home at the end of the week?" Sally asked.
"It appears that way." The doctor said. "I have never seen anyone recover as quickly as you have, Mr. Jameson, it's quite remarkable."
"Thank you, I have been told that I'm remarkable before." Harry said, putting his arms behind his head.
"Yourself doesn't count." Sally retorted, making the doctor laugh.
"We will still be monitoring him for any changes, but it looks like he'll be ready to go at the end of the week."
"Thank you, Doctor." Their mom said.
"You're welcome." She said, and left.
Their mom turned to them and grinned. "Well, I knew you guys healed fast, but wow." She said.
They laughed.
* * * *
"What did you say?" Aerton said.
"I asked what the Portal of Syien was." Bram said, confused.
"Don't say that name." Coarson said, his voice taking on an edge.
"But who is Sy-"
"Don't!" Coarson and Aerton said in sync.
"Why?" Bram asked.
"Why do we never speak the names of the creatures to which you are caretaker?" Aerton said.
"Because to speak the name is to summon them." Bram said. "So you're saying that to say that name of this person is to summon him?"
"Yes." Coarson said.
"But who is he?" Bram asked. "And why did you get strange when I mentioned his name?"
"She was the first queen of the realm." Aerton said. "And trust me, you do not want to summon her."
"Why haven't I heard of her before?" Bram asked.
"Because she was erased from all but the memories of those who lived during her reign, who passed on the stories to their children, who passed it onto their children." Coarson said.
"For good reason, her reign was considered the Dark Times." Aerton said.
"She was that bad?"
"She was a tyrant," Coarson said. "She wasn't content with ruling this realm, she wanted to conquer all of the realms."
"Enough of this talk." Aerton said, standing. "We do not need to invite more malcontent into our lives than talking of the First Queen."
"Aerton is right, Bram." Coarson said, also standing. "Perhaps we should call it a day, we have been at this for hours."
"You're right." Bram said.
"I think I hear a stew calling my name." Aerton said, picking up his hat where it lay on a bookshelf and putting it on and heading out the door.
"I think I'll join you." Coarson said, following him. "Coming, Bram?"
"Maybe later," He said. "I think I'll stay here for a while, look through a few more books."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, you go ahead, I'll catch up." Bram said, picking up a book that had been underneath a few others.
"Alright," Coarson said, and left.
Bram put down the book he had picked up and instead picked up the book he'd been reading, flipping through the pages until he found the chapter he was looking for: The Portals of Syien, and started reading.
* * * *
Three days later, Harry was released from the hospital, to the joy of Sally and her mother.
They had set up a Welcome Home banner in their living room, hanging above the entrance to the kitchen.
It was cliché, Sally had to admit, but it was necessary, even if she knew her brother would make fun of it once he found out that it had been her idea.
When he walked through the door and saw the banner, he started laughing hysterically, like she knew he would, and she smiled quietly to herself. Everything was back to normal.
Her leg was healing well and quickly, which surprised her doctor, who said he hadn't seen a leg heal that fast, especially since he had declared the leg broken only to be proven wrong by x-rays.
After her brothers Welcome Home party, and she was able to sneak away for some time to herself, she finally allowed herself to think the thoughts that had threatened to overwhelm her since the incident outside her house.
She sat on her bed and confronted the memory of what had happened, allowing the memories to flood her.
Why had she mistaken him for Bram? She had at first thought it was because they were of the same height and build, and while that was true, it was more than that. He had had the same feel as Bram, and that weirded her out.
She nodded to herself, there was only one way she was going to get the answers she needed.
She had to talk to Bram, but how would she find him? She tried to think back to how she had called him the day they met, but it was fuzzy. She groaned in frustration and laid back on her bed and draped an arm over her eyes, when a thought occurred to her. She had summoned the... she stopped herself from saying the things name, by picturing it, and she could recall picturing Bram in her head just before he had saved her, and he had said that she'd summoned him. She sat up and slid off of her bed, and sat on the floor, and cleared her throat.
If Bram wasn't showing up in her world right now of his own accord, she would just make him.
*
After the fifth time, she all but screamed in frustration. She covered her face in her hands, taking deep breathes to calm herself.
"This can't be that hard." She said, pushing her strawberry-blonde hair back off of her face.
She took a deep breath and sat in the position she had seen numerous times in movies, then she shifted as searing pain shot up her leg.
She closed her eyes and cleared her mind, attempting to draw an image of Bram into her mind, she saw him as he had saved her from the creature she had accidentally summoned and felt that same kind of mental tug she had just before he had saved her, again (this was becoming a recurring theme, she noticed grimly), from the creature, but it felt different this time and when she opened her eyes, she was no longer in her bedroom, but in a library, bursting with books that looked so ancient, she thought that if she touched one, it would crumble in her hands.
She got to her feet and began wandering.
There were symbols on the side of the bookshelves.
"A numbering system?" She thought aloud, her voice echoing around her. "Okay, this is seriously creepy."
She kept walking, feeling as though she was wandering the labyrinth and that the minotaur was about to leap out at her at any moment, and once that thought had occurred to her, she started getting incredibly jumpy, starting at every little creak and crack that she heard, which, in the logical part of her brain, she knew to be the library settling (after all, it did look ancient), but the illogical part of her brain turned the sounds into the minotaur sharpening his claws, getting ready to gut her.
She shivered.
Sometimes she hated her imagination.
She saw a candle in the distance and relief flooded her, maybe she could ask a friendly librarian the way out.
Or maybe that librarian would just turn on her and have her for lunch, or maybe dinner, she wasn't sure; she didn't know what time zone she was in now, it could be breakfast for all she knew.
She paused in her step and almost giggled. That thought train got derailed quickly, didn't it? She thought as she approached the candlelight, taking great care to walk quietly, lest it actually be a hungry librarian who would want to have her for breakfast-lunch-whatever.
She stopped walking when she got close enough to make out the area surrounding the candle.
It was a table, piled high with books, and sitting at one of the four chairs surrounding it, was Bram.
He was reading an old looking book with strange lettering that she couldn't quite make out; and she found that when she looked harder at it to try and figure it out, she started getting nauseas, so she stopped and focused instead on Bram, who was oblivious to her presence.
"Bram?" She said and couldn't help the laugh that escaped her as he leapt at least three feet in the air.
He looked around for who had spoken and his eyes widened when he spotted her.
"Sally?" He asked in disbelief as he stood.
She waved at him. "Hi."
"How did..., what are you doing here?"
"I was looking for you." She said, walking closer to the table.
"Why?" He asked.
She looked at him incredulously. "Seriously? My brother and I were attacked, Bram, in front of our own house! And you're surprised that I was looking for you? The one person who might actually have answers for me?"
"Oh."
"'Oh'?" She repeated. "That's all you have to say? Where have you been all this time?"
He motioned around the room. "Baking cookies." She glared at him.
"You know what I mean." She looked around the room. "What are you doing in a library, anyway?"
"I don't know what you do in a library," He said, sitting down again. "But I'm doing research."
"Research? What do you need to do research for?"
"Well, research is something that one does when you need to learn more about a subject." Bram explained.
She glared at him again, then sat in one of the chairs. "I know what research is, nimrod, what I meant was, why do you need to do research."
"I'm flattered that you think that I know everything there is to know about virtually everything, however, the truth of the matter is, I do not, and so, I need to do research."
"Okay, you can lose the condescending tone, Mister."
"Mister?" He said, flipping through a random book he had picked up. "And we're getting away from the main point: What are you doing here?"
"Already answered that one." Sally replied, picking up one of the books.
"Okay," He took the book from her and placed it near him. "How did you here?"
"Well," She cleared her throat. "I'm not entirely sure."
"How can you not know how you got here?"
"I don't know how I teleported myself to another dimension that is apparently a prison for a monster that can be summoned just by picturing it or saying its name, so how on earth am I supposed to know how I got here?"
"That's.. a good point." He said. "What were you doing right before you appeared here?"
"Well, I was thinking about all the weird stuff that has been happening around me lately, and I figured you'd have an idea of what is going on."
"Unfortunately, I don't." Bram admitted. "I don't know who it is that attacked you, and I don't know how you managed to teleport yourself to the Albertron's realm, or here, for that matter."
"Wait, how can you say it's name without it appearing?" She asked.
"I'm the Caretaker of Creatures." Bram said, as if that explained everything.
"Could you be a tiny bit more specific?" Sally asked.
"I have mental locks in place to prevent my saying its name acting as a gateway." He said.
"Okay then.." She said. "Anyway, I thought back to when I was in Voldemort's realm and how you said I had summoned you, so I thought I'd give it a try. What?"
Bram had gotten a confused look on his face. "Voldemort?"
"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." Sally said.
"Thank you, that'd cleared everything up." He said, and she smiled at him.
"Now you know how I feel." She said. "Voldemort is a character in a book series, and since he is typically called He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, I thought it was a fitting name to call the thing that only you can say that name of."
"I see." He said, though he clearly did not. "We seem to have gotten off course again."
"I noticed that." Sally said. "Anyway, I thought I'd at least try it, and the next thing I know, here I am, in this really creepy library."
"What was going through your mind?" He asked, and when she gave him a confused look, he clarified. "Sometimes, if you are thinking hard about something or someone, but another thought appears in your head, it can shift the original summons."
"Oh, well, I was just thinking that I really needed to find you and thrott- I mean ask, you about the weird things that have been happening, and when I opened my eyes, I was here."
She thought she covered that up nicely until she saw the glint in Bram's eyes that told her he knew what she had been about to say.
"So now stray thoughts wandered into your head?" He asked.
"No."
He sat back in his chair, thinking, and Sally's eyes strayed to the book he had been holding when she first spotted him.
"What's this?" She asked as she picked it up.
"It's a book." he said absently.
"Really? I thought it was a pigmy goat." She said as she examined the cover.
It had one of those odd symbols on it, she ran her hand over it and felt a strange tingling all over as she opened the book.
A shock wave knocked her and Bram off of their seats.
"Sally? Are you alright?" He asked, as he got to his feet.
"Yeah, I'm fine." She said as she sat up, she rubbed her head. "What happened?"
"I don't know." He asked as he helped her up.
"All I did was open that book and..." She trailed off as she saw the expression on Bram's face. "What?"
"What's on your arms?" He asked and held up her arms.
Covering her arms, were symbols, similar to the one on the book cover.
"What is this?" She asked, attempting to wipe them off, to no avail.
She glanced to her left and caught her reflection in a suit of arms and gasped.
Her face was covered in swirling symbols.
