Paul was running home. The police had not believed him about Andrei’s disappearance. They called him a clown and made him leave. Blinded by his tears of humiliation, the boy raced home and broke down. I could see Paul’s mother coming in to comfort him- A hand was shaking me awake.
“Come on, come on. Wake up.” A voice was hurriedly whispering in my ear.
“Wha-”
“Don’t speak, just do as I say.” The voice commanded. Sleep clouding my thoughts I stood up as fast as I could.
“All right. Why did you wake me up?” I asked in the direction of the sound while cleaning my glasses as well as I could.
“To get you out of here. The other boys died, but with your powers, we could escape.” By now my eyes had adjusted to the dark and I could see that the person to whom the voice belonged was a girl, a teenager like me. The only thing I cold clearly see about her was her blond hair, which looked like dark, spun gold, even in the black cave. I tried to see her eyes but her face was shrouded in darkness. Even though I could not see her eyes, I was sure they were gleaming with excitement.
“But I’m not a wizard.” I told the girl. She had pulled me out of the room because the walls there were indestructible, but there were weaker ones in the corridor.
“You must be. Otherwise my father would not go through so much trouble to get you here.” I tried to argue but she would not listen.
“Look, even if I am a wizard, I have no idea how to control or call upon my powers.” In the dim lighting of the hallway I could see a look of disbelief on her face.

“That I can help you with. I have powers of my own, but they’re not strong enough, or so Daddy says. But with your strength, we’ll be out of here in no time. But first, we need to take something of Daddy’s.”
“Are you mad? He’d catch us for sure, then. We have more chance of getting out the front door.”
Once again, the look of disbelief was plastered on her face. “I’m sure he won’t catch us because I slipped a sleeping pill in his cup. And why are you slowing down? We haven’t run that far.” The pain from last night had gone up from a dull throb to full out burning, and I could not take another step without agony shooting up my spine.
“Oh no…he didn’t…he said he wouldn’t….” The girl was looking down at me with understanding now for I had fallen to my knees.
“He used the Dolore curse on you, didn’t he? Oh, I told him over and over again not to use it on his prisoners. It just ended up killing them faster.”
“Wait…you mean…there were others?” I managed to breathe out. The pain in my abdomen was receding a bit, but it still hurt to breathe and talk, much less walk.

“Come on.” She urged. “My father will catch us if we stand around here.”

“If there have been so many others, why haven’t you escaped yet? With one of them?”

“Because they weren’t actually wizards. My father’s getting old and his powers aren’t what they used to be. He was wrong about the last five boys he kidnapped and all of them ended up dying. But you…you actually are a wizard. I can feel it in my bones.”

My breathing was becoming more and more labored and the pain was coming back. I could barely swallow and felt my heart start beating faster because I was panicking.

“Just a little further now. There!” It took all the energy I had to lift my eyes off the floor tiles and look at the grand door in front of me. My glasses fell back onto the bridge of my sweaty nose. They had nearly fallen off while I was running and I was grateful they had not. Without them, I could barely see two feet in front of me, let alone walk around with falling over everything.

“Wow” I whispered, before the girl dragged me inside. It was fully lit in here, and I was able to study the girl as she roamed around looking for whatever it was she needed. She did indeed have blonde hair, but it was not dirty blonde. It looked like spun gold, sitting atop a heart-shaped face. Once she turned around and I caught a glimpse of her eyes: bright green, like emeralds, shining in the light. A pointed nose above a small mouth, whose lips moved silently as she struggled to remember something, it seemed.

“What are you looking for?” I finally asked, desperate to focus on something besides my labored breathing.

“An orb...” She said, deep in thought and not paying much attention to me.

“He always talked about his orb which would help him find the next wizard. Now we need to find it so that he can’t find you or anyone else ever again.” She explained, focusing all her attention on me now.

“Oh, alright. But before you go all Harry Potter on me, you mind telling me your name? I’m Andrei, by the way.”

“Hmm? Oh, my name. I haven’t heard that question in a while. It’s…Lymara. My father told me my mother named me and I believe him. My father doesn’t have a single fiber if imagination in him.” She snorted. “Good thing too, because if he had some, he would’ve found a better hiding spot.” With those words, Lymara pulled out from behind a book a small sphere, presumably the orb she had told me about. The orb seemed to be emanating a faint, green glow, so Lymara hid it beneath her cloak and motioned for me to follow her. I suppressed a groan and stood up to follow her.

Surprisingly, there were no guards outside the door, but as soon as we crossed into the main hallway, a loud screeching resonated throughout the building. I covered my ears and dropped to my knees once again. Through my hands I faintly heard Lymara saying “Get up! Get up! We can’t waste time!” I struggled to my feet and followed her, trying to suppress the urge to cover them and curl into a ball.

“Come ON!” Lymara yelled looking over her shoulder. As she did she ran into a wall and the orb flew out of her hands.