Enchanted High Book I
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Dominic

Dominic was being hurled in wild circles in a tornado of fire. His limbs were being thrown in all directions, his head felt like it was in a washing machine. It was the same sensation every time – the blinding white light at the front, and the pitch black darkness at the back threatening to pulverize him.

And he was dropping, fast, towards the ground, green and muddy and wet. He smelt rain – why was he smelling rain at a volcano? – felt drops of it fall onto his face but suddenly, his whole body swerved left, taking a detour, a new route he knew couldn’t be correct either. Wind blew his hair back as he zoomed towards this new light, red and dangerous.

The next second, the air beneath him had become solid, forming ground, hard and rocky. And he crashed into it, receiving a direct blow to his arm. Instantly, heat, hotter than anything he had ever felt, burst in powerful surges towards him – it was a good feeling for him, a feeling of home.

He flipped over so that his arm was no longer bent in an odd angle beneath his weight. Groaning, he lay unmoving for moments before he lifted himself to a stand. There were the vultures, looking directly at him with menacing pleasure. As if they knew that nobody could survive here, as if they longed for his carcass now. Gazing around, he saw that none of the others had arrived; why were they taking so long?

After another several moments of waiting patiently, thinking that they must have been delayed somehow, he realized that he was wasting time. Wasting time waiting for the people who had abandoned him.

A sudden thought struck him as he searched the red skyline for an anonymous object. What if they really did abandon him? What if they decided that – that they could use the power of the watches and go anywhere else in the galaxy? Where it would be better than this rock ridden island? An image hurled into his mind: June, James and Nicole, sipping a cool drink on the soft white shores of paradise ...

He gave himself a mental beating for thinking such a thought. They would never do that, never. Never would they even think of dropping the weight on him like that – Xavier, the tree.

He shook the thought, clearing his mind. If they were not here, then they must be in trouble. And if they are in trouble, then he had two options: Inform Charlie or continue the mission entirely by himself. He knew he couldn’t inform Charlie; he didn’t have the backpack with the communication devices. So it narrowed his decision down to one.

He began walking briskly, just strolling as if he hadn’t a care in the world. With one goal in mind, he decided that he would complete the mission, which he had a fair chance of since he felt right at home – but how, with only one pair of hands on deck, it would take him more than a day, and without the backpack, without the food and the water ...

How?

I’m also very afraid of fire. It’s like a monster, the flame, that feeds on things and grows into a big, giant, matter-eating DEMON - and I’m so afraid of it. When I met Dominic, I was hiding behind my boss’s coat - the way he clicked his fingers so carelessly ... I wonder, is my boss afraid of fire?

Well, no, that doesn’t seem right. I think she’d actually quite gladly step into a fire and play with it. I can already see it in my head. Yep, she’d enjoy that.

Love from all the fur on my back,

--THUG.