The search

"Ha! Beat you again!" Lia yelled as she bounced in her seat. We were both sitting in my old bedroom while playing a game of Mario Kart, and she won first place again.

"Aww! This isn't fair! I want another rematch." I yelled playfully.

"Again? You know you will lose right?"

"Third time's the charm. Let's go." We continued to play another hour until she beat me again and I gave up in defeat.

"Well. You win again. I'm sorry for challenging the queen of Mario Kart."

She laughed and laid back on the couch, and I laid beside her.

"I'm going to miss this house." She said.

I looked around the room.

"Yeah me too. We've lived here since we were babies, and we have so many memories here. Moving to a new house is going to be weird."

Lia twirled through the braids in her hair. "Yeah, but as long as we take care of each other, and always have each other's backs, we'll be fine."

I looked at her and smiled. "Yeah."

She smiled back at me. "So… why are you giving up?"

Confusion suddenly ran across my face. "Huh?"

"You're choosing to die? What about me? I thought you said that you were going to save me?"

Something was not right. I didn't understand what she meant. Things around me suddenly began to get foggy and it felt like the room was spinning.

"Don't give up Malaika! Don't give up!"

Her voice continued to ring in my ear until I snapped back into reality. When I opened my eyes I saw a demon hovering over me with its mouth wide open ready to kill me.

I quickly took my sword and stabbed it from the side. Purple blood ran down my arm.

It suddenly screamed in pain. The sound was so loud that it made my ears hurt.

I pushed it off of me with all my strength and it tumbled over to the side. I quickly sat up and checked to see if it was dead.

It laid on the ground silently.

For a moment I felt a bit of relief; that is until it got back up.

Suddenly I began to panic again, and my body was shaking. I put up my shield and waited for it's attack.

Instead of charging at me, all it did was back away from me. The blood was still dripping from its side, as it moved.

I didn't understand if it was dying or not. It kept moving away from me as I moved closer to it.

It seemed like it was more afraid of me than I was of it.

Suddenly Kai moved in front of me and sliced the demon's head off.

"Malaika. You have to cut off its head in order for it to be dead."

"Oh… Good to know," I said.

Dean ran up to Kai while breathing hard. "Kai. That's the last of them. For now anyway."

Kai nodded and told the rest of his group to split up into the forest.

The girl with her head shaved came up to me and laughed. "You think this was bad? Just wait. You're going to be dealing with this all night."

I didn't think my heart could take much more of seeing those creatures. I was glad that I went with them and not alone. I didn't even know what I was thinking. Even in a group, you're not safe.

Kai looked at me. "You're sticking with me.

Dean, Jennie, and Mike, you guys too."

Jennie was apparently the buff girl's name. I've never noticed Mike before, but he also looked very intimidating.

Kai turned around and began walking without looking back.

Jennie and Mike frowned at me as they followed behind Kai.

"Don't worry about them. They're just mad that you took away their sleepy time." Dean laughed while walking beside me.

I sighed. "They have a right to be mad at me. They're putting their lives at risk to help someone they don't even know. We've barely stepped foot into this forest and I've almost died. There's no way that she survived here for this long."

Tears began running down my face.

"I just don't understand why this is happening." Now I was sobbing.

Dean put his hand on my shoulder. "Don't cry. We'll find her."

I sighed. "You say that, but do you actually mean it?"

Dean looked to the ground. "There's a possibility that we could find her. I've been through this forest many times. There are a lot of places that she could be hiding in for protection. So don't give up just yet."

I stared at him. He was smiling at me and it was very comforting.

"Dean. I want to ask you something. How did you get here? Was it through a painting too."

"Yes. One with my face on it."

I haven't asked everyone, but it seemed like they all got trapped in this world the same way I did.

There was a separate painting with my face on it, but the only one that opened was the one with my sister's face on it.

Maybe we were meant to be separated if there were two different paintings of us. In the painting I was in, I sat on a throne surrounded by different people. Maybe I was supposed to meet these people.

"How did you see the painting? Did someone give it to you?" I asked him.

He scratched his head and thought about it. "Yes, a friend of mine gave it to me as a gift. I was surprised that it looked so similar to me. I brought it home and hung it on my wall too."

"What was your friend's name? What did he look like?"

He thought about it again. It was a long pause before he answered. "I… I can't remember his name, or what he looked like. It's all a blur to me."

"Was his name… uh… what was it?" I couldn't remember my stepfather's name or what he looked like either. Which was very weird.

"Um… that's weird."

Dean stared at me in confusion. "What's wrong?"

"I can't remember my step dad's name or face."

"Stepdad?"

"Yeah. My stepdad did this."

I paused and realized what I just said. I hadn't had time to put the pieces together. Why did he do this? How did he do this?

"My stepdad did this?" I repeated.

"Woah, stepdad? My friend was the same age as me."

I stared at Dean. He was so young. He couldn't have been my step dad's friend.

"How old are you Dean?"

"I'm eighteen." He said while staring at me with confusion.

"And how long have you been here?"

He stared up at the sky.

"Geez. I haven't counted the days. Long enough that's all I have to say-"

He then paused and looked at me with sadness in his eyes.

"I've been in here for a while, haven't I?"

I look away from him, not knowing what to say.

He stopped walking and dropped to his knees. His hands were covering his head as he stared at the ground with wide eyes.

"Well…I knew it's been a while, but why am I so surprised. I guess I was just hoping that time would freeze until I got out of here, or something."

"It did freeze," Kai said as he walked towards us. "It froze for us over here, because we're all trapped inside one big painting."

Dean looked up at him. "Who put us in here? I… I can't remember."

"The one you called a friend, the one Malaika called a stepdad, and the one I called a stepbrother."