This time, instead of blue, a golden sliver of light shot out…appearing to cut straight through the suspended girl. -----“AMANDA!!!!” Death once again raised his bony hand and this time, balled it into a fist. The suspended girl rotated to a standing position and was lightly set on her feet. **SHE IS FINE. HER SOUL HAS BEEN RETURNED.** -----“DUDE! Don’t scare me like that!” There was a golden aura surrounding the girl; a breeze seemed to lightly rustle her hair and robes…though there was no wind here. A haze of silver, as though a mist, coated her from head to toe, yet disappeared just as soon as it had appeared. She gasped and opened her eyes…which seemed to glow their light green color in the darkness of the room. -----“What’s wrong with her…” **SHE CAN NOT TRULY WAKE IN THIS ROOM. FOR HER TO SEE ME IS FOR HER SOUL TO RETURN TO THE BEYOND.** Sure enough, looking at her, one could tell that though she was standing, she was not truly balancing herself. Perry walked up to her… -----“What the hell is wrong with her eyes?” A close inspection showed that there was a thin black ring around the light green color of her eyes. **THAT IS THE MARK OF DEATH. ONE WHO HAS SEEN DEATH AND RETURNED TO THE LIVING WORLD HAS THAT.** -----“So…” **YES, YOU HAVE IT AS WELL.** There was an odd silence now…the silence that falls between two people who just let a dark secret slip. -----“So, when we leave this room, get through all those traps and get out…you’ll be there?” **I HAVE REMOVED ALL THE TRAPS AND DEAD ENDS…YOU WILL BE NOT BE BURDENED TILL YOU REACH THE JOURNEY FROM THE CAVE TO HOME.** -----“But you WILL be out there when we get there…right?” **THE LAWS THAT GOVERN DO NOT ALLOW ME TO TELL YOU** -----“But you do know when you’ll be defeated…so you do know you’ll be there?” **YES. I KNOW WHEN I WILL BE DEFEATED.** -----“Alright…we’ll see you there.” Perry took Amanda’s arm and guided her out of the doorway…she did not so much as walk as roll along the bottom of her feet. Once they had stepped though the doorway, Perry turned to look back…only to find a solid wall where the open frame once had been. There was a loud snap… _”Wha…”_ -----“It’s ok, Amanda, me a Charlie brought you back. Charlie…brought you back.” _”But I remember…werewolves…I’ll be…”_ -----“No, you won’t. We took care of that.” _”Where’s….”_ -----“Charlie will meet us when we get out of the cave.” Without all the traps, dead ends and violent creatures, it took less than thirty minutes to get out of the cave…where it had taken Charlie and Perry over five hours to get to the door from the cave entrance. Once Perry and Amanda were at the entrance, they stopped. _”Where’s Charlie?”_ -----“You know what we did to get you, don’t you?” _”Is it like the fairytales?”_ -----“Exactly.” _”So, Charlie is…”_ -----“Yeah, but when somebody beats him, he’ll return here, just outside, and in our time. If memory serves me, just after we exit this place, he’ll appear.” _”Good.”_ But you could tell she was scared. A lone tear fell from her cheek. She could do nothing but worry. Her relationship with Charlie was worth everything to her, and while he had done exactly what he promised…”If ever anything happened to you, I’ll fight and beat Death himself to get you back”…She was still terrified that she wouldn’t see him again…. They stepped through the cave entrance… In the vast darkness of the room, a thousand voices rang out in a whisper… **I KNOW THAT I WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED AGAIN…IN ALL OF TIME** The cave entrance sealed itself the moment they stepped through…words etched there way on the stone surface… ****************** Here Lies Death Defeated In The End Only By Himself ******************