NO, AM WITH...

…

The green snake that trailed behind James and Sandra crawled deeper into the dark cave, into a small hole on one of the walls of the cave and was met with a bright light which glittered everywhere. that part of the cave was made of pure gold including most of the objects there. The snake crawled towards a large golden throne and inscribed on its body was the pattern of a snake.

It stopped in front of the throne and transformed into a beautiful woman who seemed to be in her early 20s. she had a pair of green eyes and a snow white skin. Her hair was long and wavy and the lower part of it were green in color. "greetings, Queen Mabel" she lowered her head and bowed to the woman sitted on the throne, rather creature. it wasn't a full human.

It was a half snake half woman that was sitted on the throne. Her upper body was like that of a fragile sissy girl with burnished skin and her lower body was that of a snake. She had large white tail that was super long with strong scales on them. She looked very similar to the topiary of half snake half human James had come across. But this time she had a black leveled short hair but tiny portion of her front hair was white in color. On her neck was a golden chain which went round her neck, then down to the floor by her left side to the far end of the room. it was strongly hooked to a wall like that of a dog's chain. Indeed, it was a dog chain for she was caged there.

Her head was bent as her attention was focused on the golden crown she was playing with. she wore a golden glittering piece of cloth on her upper body which complimented her burnished skin. her slender hands that were rested on the handle of the throne had many bracelets on. the upper part of her arms had a curled golden snake like bangle on them just like the topiary and on her wrist were round golden bracelets of different patterns on them.

She stared scornfully at the crown she had in her hand and uttered with a majestic voice "rise" commanding her subject.

"thank you your grace" the snake gracefully replied as she stood properly preparing to part her lips to report to her queen.

"last warning, don't ever refer to me as a queen again" Queen Mabel added sternly with a scowled countenance rising her face to look at her subject in the eyes with her plane white eye balls. She had no iris.

Immediately the green snake's eyes met with her queen's making her drift back in fear looking downwards. Her queen was in sour mood which was more of a reason to be careful.

Queen Mabel nodded in response with a straight face yet majestic. She moved her gaze from her subject and looked into the thin air "Maureen, what news have you brought forth?" she urged her subject to go ahead and speak.

"they were here" Maureen informed her.

Hearing this Queen Mabel quickly looked at Maureen once again. her excitement was visibly displayed on her countenance.

…

It was evening and everywhere was getting dark. Sandra and James were crawling out of the giraffe topiary. Sandra took the lead and was in a hurry to find her brother while James followed behind. Immediately she crawled out and was ready to take off but was dragged to the side by an unfamiliar man who wore the same uniform as James' guards restrained her. he held her hands at her back and covered her mouth before she could utter any sound.

James crawled out with an indifferent look and looked at Sandra where she was being held. Quickly, another guard came behind him from the other side of the giraffe topiary where he was hiding and asked with a harsh voice "where is the dagger?"

two other guards came out from their hideouts seeing that James and Sandra has been captured. Spotting the dagger on James hand, one of them replied "on his hand" and snatched it. he smiled and added "this was easy. Why then did Mr. Margate send many of us? His son is weak"

"shh! That's none of our business" The other guard holding James shunned him to close his mouth. he didn't like the fact that he exposed that Mr. Margate had sent them.

Understanding the reason why the guard reacted, the guard holding the dagger continued "you don't need to worry beside what awaits him after we leave here is grave. We won't get in trouble" he stated with a mischievous smile. He walked close to James, without wasting time and knocked him out. the guard holding James gently laid James on the floor and checked him thorough but found nothing and left him.

The Guard holding the dagger turn to the guard that restrained Sandra and said impatiently "put her to sleep already"

"no…" Sandra panicked.

But her plead was not heard, the guard did as he was told to do by hitting her on her neck. Proudly raised his hands and looked at his co-worker with a proud smile. They all smiled back and walked off, leaving the both of them there lying unconscious.

Night fell, the sun had set but there was light from the crescent moon. Sounds of crickets and owls could be heard. James slowly opened his eyes with a scowled face. his neck hurt. he checked on Sandra and she was unconscious. She was equally knocked out. 'poor Sandra, she was knocked out three times today. He then carefully looked around and cornily checked the topiaries enclosing them to make sure nobody was around apart from Sandra.

He then went back to the giraffe topiary to crawl back into the place. he placed his palm on top of the grass and was ready to crawl in but was severally cut like before. "shit" he moaned lowly in pain. He wasn't expecting it to still cut him. so there was a time interval the grass won't cut him after Sandra had touched it.

He rubbed off the blood on his trouser and walked to where Sandra laid unconscious "Sandra wake up, wake up" he whispered gently as he tapped her hoping she would do as he said and not start her drama. Anyway it wasn't her fault, she was just worried about her stupid brother.

Sandra slowly opened her eyes, fluttering her eyes open. Her eyebrow knitted to a knot as she felt pains on her neck. She moaned in pain and slowly stood up with her hand placed on her neck. "what happened?" she asked looking for her sanity.

"we were attacked. We have to act fast and leave here. come" he gently helped her up and took her to the front of the giraffe topiary "crawl in" he commanded.

"what?" she asked curiously. She hasn't fully understood what was happening. She held her head as everything began flowing back into her head "they took the dagger" she uttered in horror.

"no am with the dagger. I need you to help me get it. I left it there" James requested looking at her.