Quitetly, Quiggly stepped into the darkness as he stealthily approached and steeled himself. He could smell them for sure, he could taste the rot, he could hear their soft, slow breaths in the humid night air. Faint, dark forms with eyes glowing bright, they were crawling toward the mage as he quietly and swiftly got closer. The mage was a young woman who didn't have a care in the world. As she finished the spell that her mentor had taught her she turned around and saw Quiggly's dark red eyes gazing at her through the dark shadows. Her eyes widened in fear, she had never seen the shadowy figure in all of her life, had never in her life seen a creature like Quiggly. Slowly she backed away from the mage. "What are you... I can't see you..." she was shaking as she attempted to make her words come out of her mouth. Quiggly didn't even want to try and talk with the girl. Her heart was beating so fast, she didn't even know what to do. She had been in a lot of different kind of situations, but she had never been in a situation where she couldn't figure out what to do. She took a step forward and reached out to grab the girl's hand. "I don't understand. You are a shadow, how are you... Wait, why are you trying to scare me? I will make you leave..." the woman pulled her hand back. She had a firm grip on her hand that the mage was afraid to struggle for fear of touching something. Quiggly's hands and feet were now black and solid, and she almost wished she could just give up and disappear into the darkness, but she didn't know where her family was, and she knew they wouldn't have any idea where she was either. She didn't want them to worry. She didn't want to worry either, but she didn't want her to tell them that she had met a dark shadow that she could only see with her mouth, so she stayed silent. With one last pull to try and escape, the mage turned around again. She saw Quiggly's face pressed back in the darkness, her eyes glowing bright red like the fire that used to burn. It was an eerie sight, the young mage thought she was beginning to go mad. "Why are you following me..." the mage wasn't sure why, but she felt something coming, something that was different from any type of magic that she had ever encountered. She took her time to ponder it for a second. This was not like a fire that burned, or a spell that made her feel sick. This was... different, she couldn't describe it, it was all the same, but it felt different. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to calm herself, trying to think about what she was feeling and what it meant. "Stop following me." She tried not to let the young mage see how nervous she was. She was trying so hard to pull it together, to avoid getting too nervous, but it was getting hard to breath. She started walking away but realized that the shadows weren't following her. They were still standing in the same spot, staring at her with red glowing eyes. "Stop it! I told you to leave me alone!" the woman shouted at the shadow. She didn't want to talk anymore, she didn't like being out here, trying to figure out what it meant that she was seeing a shadow out here in the forest. "Stop following me or you will be punished! Get away!" Quiggly gave her one last look of fear. She didn't want to leave, but she had no choice. She backed away into the darkness and disappeared into the night. Chapter 6 The mage finally made it to the bottom of the hill, having lost Quiggly and her sinister shadows. She quickly gathered the energy from the tree and brought her wand back up into her hand. She stared up into the trees, she knew that the shadows were still in the area, but they seemed to have vanished. There were no lights burning, and the forest was dark. She was at the top of a hill, and the trees in the forest were so dense and twisted, it was easy to avoid the light of a moon that would help guide her. She was still too new to magic for the shadows to have taught her all she would need to know, but she knew that she would never make it back home in time. She felt a rush of fear in her heart, she was scared that she might be all alone now. She gathered the strength within her wand and started off toward the tree with the black, burning eye. The moment she was gone, the trees all fell to the ground, exposing the large stone room of her home. Her head and body sunk into the stone that had formed over the tree that stood in front of it, creating a path. She placed her wand on the top of the stone pillar before her. "Why are you here?" the stone spoke with a voice that was full of hatred. The woman that was called the mage walked back down the path of the stone pillar and stood in front of it. "The woman in the forest..." she paused. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know why, but she was beginning to have a feeling that this woman would be the one that would need to save the mage. "I don't know what you want me to do?" the mage began to step forward. The stone watched as her steps, her eyes narrowed. She didn't know if she should trust this woman, but she could already feel the magic that was now around her. It felt stronger, the connection that she had just made was much deeper than any other person that she had ever known. She felt like she had always known this person before, she felt like they had always been there for her. But still, she didn't trust her. She was so small compared to the tree. The moment that she placed her feet on the floor in front of the tree, she felt the earth give way beneath her, causing her to fall into the sky with the stone pillar. "Please don't be mad at me..." she spoke to the stone that was right in front of her face, the same stone that was supposed to be protecting her all this time. She felt so small, she felt like she was a nobody. The mage didn't feel like she deserved to be saved. She looked down into the ground. "I don't know what I am doing." The stone was staring at her. It didn't understand why she was doing all of this. It wasn't made to understand, it had never been given the ability to learn anything. It was simply there to stand there and protect the only entrance to the world that it could. The stone did the only thing it could do at this point. It sat there and watched. It watched as she slowly stood up from where she fell. It watched as she climbed onto the stone pillar and started to put her hand on the wand. It watched her pull her wand out of her bag and place it on the stone pillar. "Take me to the mage." the woman spoke out into the forest. She wanted nothing more than to get away from all of this, she wanted to be somewhere else. She wanted to be home. The mage could feel the stone starting to change the same time that she started to feel the magic building around her. She didn't see it, she couldn't see anything but black in front of her. A black substance started forming at the bottom of her face, and the hair on the back of her head started to grow, turning blacker than black. She pulled her wand off the stone pillar and held it close to her, she felt the magic and the connection that she had so wanted to feel for so many years. It was so warm and warm and all around her. It encompassed her body like a hug, and she pulled herself into the blackness. The stone pillar began to move. It was no longer under the forest, it was now following the path of magic that had pushed itself in front of the shadow as it tried to flee. It pushed the darkness out of its way, out of the earth and away from the mage. The light had left the mage. She had finally had the connection that she needed, but in the process she had lost the connection that was so vital to her. She thought it had been in her, but it was her who had caused it to leave. Now she was completely alone in this dark place, without her magic or her magic wand. She was completely alone and she knew that her time had finally come. She knew that she was about to be taken away from her family, she knew that she was not going to get the chance to tell them goodbye. "And then you can rest for eternity... For your family, for your family..." the woman spoke in an echoing voice as she looked around her new home. She was in the center of the forest, with the tree standing tall and majestic in front of her. "I will rest here forever..." the sound of her voice would be the last thing that they would hear as they turned to sleep. "Forever, and ever, and ever..." Chapter 7 The mage wasn't sure what happened after she fell from the stone pillar and she didn't know how to get back. Her life, which she had known was so full