The Fifth Element
Chapter Thirty-One

“Danny!” I said and began to walk towards him. He was standing at the edge of the camp, with his head bowed down, leaning up against a tree for support. He was wearing the clothes I had last seen him in, but they were ripped and covered in dirt

“Violet, stay back. I don’t want to hurt you,” he warned.

“You won’t hurt me,” I reassured him, but those words seemed uncertain to my own ears. Something didn’t feel right about him. Danny looked up, and I stopped dead in my tracks, his eyes were completely black. I choked out a gasp

" Why are your eyes like that?” I asked my voice quivering. I took another step towards him

He opened his mouth and hissed. I saw that his mouth was filled with long pointy fangs, which dripped with some toxic looking black liquid. “I said stay back!” he snapped.

I held my hands up, “Okay, okay, no problem, I won’t get any closer to you. I promise.”

Danny’s face relaxed, and he looked away from me, inhaling deeply, and then sliding to the ground. He leaned his back up against the tree. I scrutinized him carefully, before following his lead and joining him on the forest floor, but a safe distance away.

“Why are all these people you know...like this?” I asked, gesturing to the frozen government soldier behind us. “Are you doing this?” All their eyes seemed to be aimed directly at the spot we were sitting.

“Yes, but I don’t know how! This has never happened before, but then again what’s new?” Danny said bitterly and ran his fingers through his wavy brown hair repeatedly. “I’m not even sure how I got here. All I know is... never mind.”

“What do you know?”

He looked at me for a second time, but this time his eyes were back to their normal green color, and the fangs were gone. The wrong feeling was gone too. I watched conflicting emotions danced across his now normal face, while he looked at my face and into my eyes.

“What do you know?” I tried again, and this time I got an answer.

“I knew that I was here to kill everybody in this camp,” his voice was soft and deadly, and it sent chills along my spine.

“I knew that they had you and that they were going to take you to an awful place. I was going to slaughter them all like I killed those men back by the lake when that troll of a man took you away!” he gritted his teeth together. “It felt good to rip them apart, knowing that they were there to hurt you.” He flexed his fingers like he was reliving the whole thing. I noticed his eyes were beginning to go black again.

“Danny!” I yelled, and he jumped. He looked at me like he was surprised that I was there. Then his face crumbled.

“What the is going on with me Violet?” he asked, his voice full of sadness and despair “What did you do to me back at that cliff when I fell?”

I felt tears begin to slide down my cheeks, “I don’t know!” my voice began to quiver, ” I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to turn you into a goblin. I was just trying to save your life. It was before I knew what I was.”

“A goblin?”

I stopped crying, “Yeah, didn’t you know you were a goblin?” As soon the words left my mouth, I felt like punching myself in the face. Of course, he didn’t know he was a freaking goblin. I hadn’t known until recently myself.

“No, ” he said, shaking his head. He looked like he was in complete and total awe.

“Well, you’re a goblin. Surprise!” I said and laughed awkwardly. What was wrong with me? I wiped the lingering tears away with the back of my hand.

“But I thought goblins were like dolls with souls attached to them?” Danny said.

I shrugged, “Don’t look at me, I’m not sure. My dad was the one that told me that.”

Danny’s head snapped towards me “Your dad knows what I am! Maybe he could help me then!” He looked at me hopefully.

“I guess he could,” I said, hoping I wasn’t giving him false hope.

He smiled, then his face grew serious, “But in all honesty, do you want me to kill some of these soldiers and get you out of here? I can if you want me to.”

I considered his offer for a second. It was tempting. I didn’t want to go where ever they were taking me, but I also didn’t want any blood on my hands, well I didn’t want any more blood. Plus these people didn’t seem like they were all that bad, they were just following Greta’s orders. To add to that, I wanted to see what Greta was up to.

“No thanks, but is there any possibility of you following me even if I was on a dragon, without being detected? You know to be my back up?”

Danny seemed to think about it for a second before nodding his head. “I think I can, but I need one thing from you before I go.”

He stood and walked over to where I was sitting. I stood too, wondering what he was going to do. Before I could ask any questions, he grabbed me by my shoulders, leaned in, and put his mouth on mine. “MMHHH?!” I said, at the unexpected contact.

He pulled away after a couple of seconds, and I fell over in surprise when I saw his face. His skin was gray, and dark lines were running across it. I watched in fascination as his skin slowly returned to his natural color, and the lines disappeared.

He looked down at me, and smiled sheepishly, “Sorry, I had to do that. Back when we were attacked by that giant Kraken at the school, and I used those black flames to kill it, I started to feel weird. Then I kissed you, and I felt better. I think it has to do with using powerful magic or something like that.”

He bent down and picked me up and cradled me in his arms, “What are you doing?” I asked absently, I was beginning to feel dizzy and light headed, and it wasn’t because I had just gotten kissed.

“Remember how after I kissed you and you passed out like most girls do when I kiss them... ” he joked,“well I’m not going to risk you walking back by yourself. I have a feeling that this spell is going to end soon. Now, it smells like you came over from somewhere in that direction...”

“You can smell where I’ve been? I know I haven’t taken a bath in a couple of days, but I don’t smell that much,” I mumbled, before closing my eyes. I drifted off to sleep.

A cool breeze hitting my face accompanied by the sound of flapping dragon wings woke me up. I looked down to see that the ground was far below me. I really needed to stop this habit of passing out and waking up on the dragons. It was seriously getting old.

I closed my eyes again, and when I opened them, I was lying inside a room with walls made of very familiar stones, black with gold swirls through it. I couldn’t believe it! I was back at the academy, where I had started. I felt like laughing and crying all at the same time. The room I was lying in looked like the room I had been in when I had been first brought here, minus the window and desk. I guess being attacked by a giant squid, and then a giant lizard, lost your desk and window privileges.

“Hey, you’re back already, aww you missed me didn’t you?” A familiar voice mocked. I turned my head to see, Lacy, the redheaded ghost, sitting beside the bed. She gave me an evil grin when she saw I was looking at her.

I turned away from her, grabbing the pillow resting under my head, and used it to cover my face. “Leave me alone!” I groaned

“Not until I hear if you made any progress on getting justice for moi, so did you?” she sounded eager.

“Yeah,” I answered “Vivian is going to confess, and she’s going to make that Blackwing guy pay too somehow. Hey, why didn’t you tell me you and Vivian were sisters?

A long silence.

“Lacy?” I looked to see if she was still sitting beside the bed. She still was, but her hollow eye sockets were staring down at the floor.

“Are you are right?” I asked her.

Lacy looked up, “We aren’t actual blood-related sisters. We just grew up together in the orphanage, so we were kind of like adoptive sisters. But she’s no sister of mine now!” she hissed, and floated towards one of the walls, and stayed there.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

“Showing you how to walk through these stupid walls, so I don’t have to keep talking about my feelings,” she replied, “Besides, we had a deal right? You are holding up your end, so I’m going to hold up mine.”

“Sometimes it’s good to talk about your feelings, instead of holding them all in,” I offered.

“Shut up! I will be an unhealthy ghost bottle up my feelings if I want!” she snapped.

“Okay, sorry.”

“Now your flat chest over to this wall!”

“Aye aye captain!” I replied and got off the bed and joined her at the wall. I pressed my hand against its cool surface.

“Now remember that thing that I said about the walls having a mind of their own, well I want you to reach out and touch it again.”

I nodded and did it. I felt something stir again like I had before, but this time I felt like it had responded to me more. I pulled away.

“Hey Lacy, do you remember when I was dead,” I said and laughed when I realized how ridiculous that sounded.

“Yes, how could I forget the satisfaction it gave me? What about it?” she replied and floated away from the wall towards the ceiling.

“Well remember how we were going to see what felt so wrong on the other side of the wall?”

“Yeah...” Lacy trailed off, and I waited for her to finish.

When she didn’t, I threw my hands up in frustrations “Well what was behind it?”

She narrowed her empty eyes sockets at me, before saying “You got to see it to believe it. That’s how bad it was. So if you want to know, then you need to learn how to go through walls.”

“Okay,” I said, ” I’m not going to stop until I master it.”

“Good, because I wasn’t going to let you until you did.”