Down End Road
chapter 47

I slipped into bed and snuggled deeper into the soft duvet. My muscles ached and my head was mildly dizzy from our sparring session earlier. Two days back from the competition in Colorado, and they had already brought us back fully into training sessions and lessons. I turned over in bed switching off the lamp before I dropped my head onto my pillow.

Rustle. I turned, then tossed, then turned again. No matter how long I laid in darkness, sleep refused to come. I groaned and sat up in bed, switching the lamp back on.

I dragged my hand down my face and sat in the deafening silence of my room. I looked around, my eyes snagged on the worn leather book that pulsed with a lively energy. I turned my head.

"Nope, not gonna do it." I spoke quietly. I turned off my lamp again and laid back down.

Click.

I sighed and sat up again, jumping out of the covers I jogged over to the book on my desk and rushed back to bed.

My ring and necklace throbbed with the familiar tingling warmth. For a while, I sat and stared at the old leather bound journal, tracing my fingers over the name again, my breathing hitched when my fingers sparked.

After much mental debate, I relented to my curiosity and opened the worn book. I exhaled long and slow then focused on the words...

1784 2nd of February

Abby is gone. One moment we were exploring the portal the next moment she is no-where to be seen. Her dragon is gone with her. Without her everything seems to be falling apart. The Society is calling for the closure of the Order of Adams and the immediate hand-over of the portals key. I simply can't do it.

They say that I have been fraternising with enemies and disclosing vital information. There are no grounds for this arrest and J.M. knows it. A.H. has been in contact and relayed that Washington is becoming more irritable.

I know why they are doing this. They have discovered Abby's influence over the lands. How all creatures bow to her. When John. Jr saw this he took to calling her queen of the monsters. I couldn't agree more.

Now that she is missing everything is collapsing, the shifts are becoming more volatile, Grimers are becoming quicker to anger, and there have been signs of a corrosive and deadly fungi taking over the foliage in the portal belonging to the order of Jefferson.

My theory is that without their queen the worlds collapse. However, this theory does not make sense for if this were true how would the lands have survived this long, unless they are not as old as we think.

1776 1st of January

They found us, they closed our gates, they took our power. The only thing I could do was hide it. Hide the portal and hope that one day someone with a goo heart replaces it.

The world needs that portal, no matter how long they deny it for one day they'll know. And one day the queen of Monsters will arise. The order of Adams is disbanded for now, but they cannot keep a dragon tame forever.

Now I am back at my desk, in New York travelling to Washington D.C. on the 7th. I am not devastated, as long as I keep hope that like Abby says, one day we shall rise again.

I dropped the book on the bedside table. The resounding thwump sent shivers clawing up my spine. Why! Every time I read that book, something bad had happened. My spine was sat bolt straight before mechanically lying back down. I needed to sleep. My body screamed for rest and my spooked state begged for oblivion. So I slept.