Trolls World Tour: Forever My Queen

Ch. 19: Living Nightmares

I woke up from my nightmare screaming! The burning sensation on my arms had worsened. I took a peek under my bandages to find two more bands had burnt out. This time, it was the orange and purple ones, which represented Country and Funk. Only the pink band, Pop, remained lit.

How long was I asleep?! How was Barb able to get a hold of two more strings so quickly?

I tried to stand up, but immediately had to sit back down. I felt dizzy and a bit nauseous all of a sudden. I looked down at my hands and noticed they were shaking even more now. My skin tone had also started to get lighter. The troll on stage in my dream...I was slowly starting to look more and more like her.

I closed my eyes and tried taking some deep breaths in order to calm myself down and get my hands to stop shaking, but I was quickly distracted when I heard an unrecognizable voice.

"Bad dream?"

I shrieked. There was someone else sitting in the corner of my cell!

"AH! It's a ghost!" I screamed as I picked up my book and threw it at her. She shrieked and dodged it at the last second. "Begone! Fly!" I scooted myself into the nearest corner as fast as I could in order to get away from her.

"I'm not a ghost! I'm alive!" the troll said as she too backed up into her own corner, probably to get as far away from me as possible. My face flushed from embarrassment.

"Oh," I whimpered, realizing my mistake. "I'm sorry..."

"No, I should be the one who's sorry!" the bright pink troll said. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

"Oh no! There's no need for you to be sorry," I reassured her. "I'm just not used to having anyone else in here with me, that's all."

As I squinted at her to get a closer look, the first thing I noticed was that she was definitely not a rock troll. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a troll like her before! She was so bright and colorful! Aside from her pink hair, skin, and eyes, she wore a blue dress and had a green and blue velvet crown on top of her head.

"I was wondering when you were going to wake up! You were still asleep when those rock trolls threw me in here earlier. You were mumbling a bunch of gibberish and tossing back and forth so I tried to wake you up, but you wouldn't budge. You must be a really deep sleeper!" the troll said quickly as she made her way across the cell. She stuck out her hand towards me. "I'm Queen Poppy of the Pop trolls, by the way! What's your name?"

My mouth hung open. "Umm...I-I..." I didn't know what to say. I used to be Princess of the Hard Rock Trolls, then I became Queen of the Techno trolls, but now, I think I'm just...Roxy the nobody...

"My name is Roxanne, but you can call me Roxy," I answered Poppy as I shook her hand.

"Well it is very nice to meet you, Roxy!" Poppy said happily as she forced a smile on her face. It was obvious she was upset about something, but when she gave me that forced smile, I thought it would be best not to ask.

"Oh please! The pleasure is all mine!" I responded. "I've never met a pop troll before!"

"Yeah, I've heard that from a lot of different trolls these last couple of days," Poppy said as she sat down next to me. "So, did Queen Barb lock you up too?"

I chuckled. "No, her mother did...my sister..."

Poppy gasped. "Wait...are you a princess?!" She asked me enthusiastically.

I winced. "Well...I mean...you could say that...it's just...I don't consider myself to be one anymore..."

"Oh," Poppy whispered as she started to swing her legs back and forth. A confused look began to form on her face. "Wait...why would the rock trolls lock one of their own up in a cage?"