The Fifth Element

Part 2 Chapter 53

It was then the turn of the other halfling  children from the other world to disappear into the portal behind Savannah.  They did so one by one until me and Santana, the dragons, and Henry were the only ones left in the room.

After a pregnant pause Santana finally spoke. "I guess it's time to finally close these rifts between the two worlds."

She snatched up my hand and squeezed it tightly. I let out a cry of protest at her rough touch, but stopped when I noticed the look on her face. She had the same look as Emily when she told me what most of her family was gone.

"Ready?" she asked, her voice cracking in the middle from emotion.

"Yeah..."

I felt some energy leave my body, like water being drawn to a well.

She let go of my hand and stepped back from me.

"Is that it..." I asked. "Is the rift between the two world's closed."

"Yes," she said and immediately collapsed to the ground, like a puppet with its strings cut and the room echoed with her sobs.

My eyes flew to Henry with a silent plea asking him what to do. But he was busy looking at Santana like she had some sort of incurable disease.

I sighed and shook my head, knowing that I was going to have to deal with this on my own. I knelt down on the ground and reached a hand towards her. But the second my finger tips grazed the fabric of her dress, she jerked away from me and stood up. She wiped furiously at her face with her sleeve.  I stood up too.

"I'm fine, no big deal. I just sealed off my only way home."

There was a crash from somewhere in the distance and the room shook and tilted to the right before straightening out, but not before it sent me and Santana colliding into each other.

"Ow, what now!?" Santana yelled while she rubbed her nose that had just collided with my chin.

"Um, I think that was Miss B telling us that the attack has just begun," I said while I rubbed my chin that had just collided with her nose.

Henry raised an eyebrow at me.

I felt my hair being tugged by some wind and I looked to see that Santana had already opened a portal.

"Are you guys coming?" she asked impatiently.

Without answering her, we walked towards the portal.  Henry whistled and Nessie came bounding up to him. She and him walked through the portal ahead of us, while Santana stood to the side waiting. I singled  for Deception likewise and in moment, he was besides me. I tugged on the side of his saddle to lead him forward, and together we walked through the crackling black mass.

Walking into the portal instead of all the ways I had enter one before, made for a much better landing on the other side, although the journey through it was still painfully uncomfortable.

We were now standing at the edge of the forest. I could  see the camp in the distance.  It was daylight outside and the sun hung high in the sky and so did the know visible floating school. It looked like have of it had been destroyed.   The portal closed silently behind us.

Suddenly Santana began hoot and I looked at her startled. Had she lost her mind?

I jumped a bit when three figures emerged from the shadowy forest.

"Emily, Peter...Dr.Nightingale? What are the three of you doing here?" I said aloud. But I most I wanted to know why Dr. Nightingale was here.

Sure he had helped Danny the night so long ago that he had fallen off the cliff.  And he had also helped Henry when he had injured his head when the Griffins had attacked.  But, I wouldn't consider him belonging to he close inter circle of people that I trusted, which did include Emily and Peter .