Four

Chapter 4 in which Sarah's life changes forever

The boys all looked at me with great confusion and offense, that I, a tiny tomboyish child noodle, would dare stand up to them and give them a what for.
And here I was..giving them, a what for.
"First of all, you want my help, you're gonna do what I say, when I say. Whatever I say goes and if I tell ya to stop, you stop. Second of all, I'm gonna travel." 
"What?!" "SHUSH! -- travel to whereever, WHENEVER I want to. We will go and visit for as long as I feel. When I decide to honor my end of the deal, well...it'll happen. Thirdly, I'm not gonna go off and kill innocent people. Unless someone is trying to kill me, I refuse to stoop to that low. And let's get something clear..I'm not some loyal little puppy who will blindly follow you no matter what. You try to kill me, I'll kill you. You treat me like garbage, I punch you in the face." "Seems fair." "..I'm needy, so if I want a particular thing or if I just wanna shop around, then, well, I'm gonna do it, no questions asked." 
...what on earth just came from my mouth, was I even braining.
Traveling, traveling, who said anything about traveling????
"..I gotta say, I'm liking this kid." Joker nodded, holding his chin thoughtfully.
"She demands things, she's bossy, she's gonna get places." 

There was silence that followed this. Master crossing his arms, Jim still sitting in his chair, Bane standing next to Joker, hands behind his back, the clown still holding his chin, eying the others suspiciously.
"Finally.." My eyes fluttered at the four and I moved closer, slowly and solemnly.
"I call the shots. I'll help you track down your foes, but my work stops there. We clear, chaps?" I eyed the three devious foreign men, then the amusingly obnoxious high-pitched sounding American. Bane nodded in respect. Joker cackled. Um..okay.
Moriarty clicked his tongue and winked at me. Oh dear god..
Please tell me that's not a sign of things to come
Master only went from serious face to smirky face.

He raised a hand for a shake, despite being like, fifteen feet away.
"Perfectly, love."
beef........
I had been among those men, in that ship, for like what, 10-20 minutes?
Not including the blackouts. And still, my sort've important organ was throbbing like mad.
Couldn't quite accept I was actually there. Talking to them. Interacting with them.
Two out of four of them I still had a very fresh, very unhealthy crush on. So..yeah.
I had been dreaming about meeting characters my whole freaking life. Now what?
What would they think of me? What would I even do? Would I still be alive?
Would they even like me??
In truth, I always imagined myself meeting them and eternally screaming until like..13 years later..until I'm not screaming. This felt like a dream..surreal..like I was watching this from someone else's body. Terrified that at any minute, I'd wake up.
The world still building itself crumbling around me and my mind would betray me, pulling the plug, and dragging me back to reality. But to my utter bewilderment, that moment still hadn't come. The more I closed my eyes and opened them, the more real my environment became.
The world around me still going, the people before me still existing.
I didn't know what to believe, what to think. Life had decided to throw me into a situation that I, for the first time, absolutely did not know how to handle.

My eyes fell to the Master's hand and I silently prayed they didn't hear my obnoxious gulping, that sounded like an earthquake to my own ears. They each gave me a look that finally pushed me out of my trance. Pushed me into reaching in and taking hold of his rough, surprisingly warm hand, mine being ice cold and annoyingly soft. I couldn't help but watch as he slowly moved our hands up and down to complete the shake. My eyes returned to his and I forced a smile. His brows raised.
Funnily enough, coming into contact with his skin was almost like touching a static-charged blanket.
It nearly shocked me. This had to be due to the electricity in his hands, now pulsing through his being.
I breathed in, then out. And I let go.
"I'm curious, though." "Well that didn't last long."
"Hush. You must be curious, too..where did you boys wind up when you were dead? Did your bodies vanish? Did your souls vanish? You woke up, or, ya know, got transported, and your bodies were in a state as if you never died." "Indeed...that is why we were going to show you this.."
Bane walked ahead of me towards the entrance and I impulsively followed right behind, not completely aware of what I was doing. Joker jumped ahead of us and stood infront of one door, where Bane moved infront of the other, and without further ado, they opened them, just as I uttered-
"Gonna show me wha-"
my jaw dropped.

no. freaking. way

My legs moved forward and my heart raced by the second.
My breathing shortened. My skin lost all of it's heat and I now felt cold.
"Holy....crap."
As if the characters weren't enough, I was floating..in a spacey tunnel...
my head..omiword... the T.A.R.D.I.S. was flying.. I was flying.
I WAS FLYING IN A FOREIGN PLACE.
FLYING IN A FOREIGN PLACE.
FLYING.
WHAT WITH A CAPITAL WHA.
"SEND HELP, I'M DYING."
"Breathe."
"Where are we?!"
Master approached the edge and and looked out. glancing here and glancing there.
"A place we believe we go when we die..."
I blinked several times. "...And how long have we been here?" Yes, the place that I thought was home and it actually is very very far from home. "Ever since we took you." Jim answered, coming right behind me and resting his chin on my shoulder. His knobby little chin on my poor tiny shoulder, no respect. "I've had the T.A.R.D.I.S. on autopilot, let's say." Master added.
I stepped over the edge and peeked out to see my surrounding environment. We were moving slowly down the darkened tunnel, between two black stone walls, of which was covered with colorful specks of starry floating rocks. Even a pitch black tunnel such as that was beautiful and wondrous to me.

"Are we in space, though??" "Yes." "skwsjjwksjsjq" "I don't quite know how to respond to that."

It was silent as we cruised along..as I reached out, my hand hovered in the air, moving on it's own in a gentle, soothing motion. Zero gravity. We were in space. We were really in freaking space.
how were we even breathing. But yeah, it felt like I'd just put my arm underwater.
Best way I can describe it. It put me in a daze. "Okay, but like...we're in space."
Master nodded, crossing his arms. "I know."
"But space, though." "I know."
I snatched him by the collar of his hoodie and gave him a couple of shakes.
"SPACE." "I know."
He was just accepting my crazy.
I turned my head back ahead, but gawked when I saw what was coming into view.
"HOLY HECK-- WHAT IN THE--"

In a brand new room, that was still dark and in a cave, the oddest thing was gazed upon by my eyes.
And as we moved slowly into the overwhelmingly large space through the small tunnel, I was able to get a closer look. Bodies......bodies living inside strange translucent pods that had a green tint to them, the ones inside hovering in the air, yet connected by the small vines that were attached to the pods.
What was more, the walls not only had the glowing starry rocks scattered on them, but glowing vines with a substance that almost resembled magma underneath. And they were moving, making the walls pulse with life. Literally, the walls looked alive, even resonating a deep breathing sound.
And the air was no longer silent as it was in the tunnel.
There was excessive whispering scattered, coming in every direction, jumbled and confusing,
and honestly rather gloomy. Millions of voices in millions of tones.

I looked closer at the ones in the pods.
My heart sagged. Characters...these were characters. Some familiar faces is all I'll say..
their eyes were closed, their bodies motionless. The only reason they were moving a bit is cuz they were still in zero gravity, though held in place by the vines. They were...haunting looking..
something about them was just foreboding and I didn't like. It honestly made me wanna cry.
Heroes and villains..here...together..in this place.
"What...what is this place?? Why are they in those pods??"
"What this place is...I don't know for sure." Master looked at the pods. "But them? The pods? This place in general? This is where they were taken..this is where WE were taken."
My eyes gravitated to him and his to me.
"...They're dead."

In that moment, my heart dropped.
This...this was a graveyard.

No wonder it felt so cold and empty..I was looking upon those whose lives were taken.
Cast aside by the universe and dumped into the ground...or pod, as the case may be.
I now got the answer to what happens when a character dies...and I didn't like it.

It finally became too much to look at and I had to break free.
I hurried off into the center of the room, trying to control my breath as my eyes stun from the sudden urge to shed a tear. I swung back around and faced the four villains who stood beside the open doors.
"How'd you even find this place?"
Joker shrugged his shoulders. "We had the ship take us before we took you."
"No, how did you find it, not when. How did you know about it?"
They were a bit reluctant to say.
"..What, did the voices inside your head tell ya?"
Master's head lifted and his eyes cut surprisingly to the others before he looked back at me.
"...Well, actually..."
"Oh, for Peter's sake. You're telling me a VOICE told you to come here?" "And find you."
My head jerked back.
He lifted his brows, then took a step forward.
"That's a part of our story we neglected to mention..a voice told us about the Queen. All four of us. How to find her..what she can do for us..we have heeded this voice because it is the very same one that breathed life back into us."

Whoa...my eyes zoomed back to the open doorway and I took a deep, long exhale.
"....and them....what am I supposed to do??"
That's when Jim abruptly slammed the doors closed and spun on his heels,
"Nothing! We don't expect you to do a thing with that, you're here for us, not them, isn't space fun? I love space. I want tea, do you lot want tea? I feel like tea, I'm getting tea."
He was off. I mentally facepalmed.

"Okay, but I'm still confused." "Ugh, HOW." "WHY ME?" "Because you're the Queen!"
"No, why do you need ME, of all people! There's plenty of peeps out there, a million times more useful than I am! I'm a turkey!" "Well if you're not useful, we'll just kill ya."
I blinked.
Master's eyes turned to Joker, "The clown is being a little excessive. He means we'll just dump you if you're not as valuable as we hope." "I am okay with none of these."
"You still haven't given us an answer, kid." "Does Harley know where you are?" "Who????"
"Whoops, wrong dimension."
They glared at one another.
"See?" He looked over at me with a smirk.
"You know things we don't. Even about ourselves, it's freaky."
Whoops, I accidentally fully convinced them.

Master then abruptly slipped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me in toward the center column, I was not comfortable. He reached in and tapped a few buttons. I felt uneasy since getting this close to a villain means, well, they're luring their victims in for the kill.
"There's no reason for second thoughts or hesitations, love. It's simple. Lead us to our enemies, then we'll return you to the exact same time, exact same location we took you from."
Bane stepped forward, holding his vest straps. "Or we will give you a second choice, Miss Demens..give us the location of our enemies and we will set you free."

Now there was an offer you just can't refuse. Give out the location of other characters, let them handle the mess you bring upon them, close the deal, and walk away as if it never happened.
Easy as pie, eh? yeah...it would be...except for one tiny thing.. I WASN'T REAL.
The Character Queen nonsense was a sham, sham I tell you!
Whatever powers they believed me to have, I did not have in the slightest.

Let's be honest, I never in my entire time of having the nickname thought that the "Character Queen" would be the reason this would happen to me. Most certainly did I not expect for it to be the death of me. So for me to just up and sign the papers on my travel plans on the spot was absurd, most assuredly getting me killed, and I would have none of it, say no.
"Absolutely not, sir!" I yelled a little too loudly. All eyes focused on me. I blinked.
"Why, going home is out've the question!"
you fool.
"I need to stretch my legs and see some new places! Meeting foreign alien life, building some uh-mazing memories, almost getting eaten or killed or both, probably will, and you know, all kinds of destructive fun. I shall need a camera! In fact, these clothes are much too drab for travel. A change of wardrobe is required! And I'm starving! And dare I say, my hair is in need of a cut, as well."
I smiled like a child, heading for the control panel.
Yes, good plan Demens, deceive everyone you come across, delay the truth for as long as possible, die an even more horrible death than you would've before cuz you kept secrets and gained misplaced trust.
At the moment, I couldn't tell if I was being brilliant or just a complete moron.
But at least I had my good health.

"Well then!" Master announced to pull my attention back to him and he hopped towards the center column, moving his hand to the controls for take-off. Just as the other three ran to us, Master looked at me with eyes full of fiery excitement. He was clearly eager to begin.
"So.....shall we begin?" He tapped his fingers.

I bit my lip to contemplate on my decision one final time.....this was it....I was making my choice....the moment where literally my entire life would change.
In just a few minutes, I wouldn't be able to go back to Kansas...not for awhile.
Unlike Dorothy, though, I had a choice of whether or not I should get sucked into the tornado.
Welp..to heck with the ruby slippers.
I finally had a chance to find a place of vivid colors, like-minded locals and pure, untapped adventure.
Something my world unfortunately lacks. There was no way I was leaving this behind for a drab, colorless land....what? Don't gimme that face.

In my circumstance..ask yourself... "What would I do?"
If you had the chance to finally do something you've been wanting to do all your life...
to take fate by the hand and jump across the reaches of time...
to catch the rabbit by the ear down the rabbit hole...
to finally have your wish granted...
would you let a few villainous sorts stop you?
Nah...not me, either.

All I did was grin.
Grin with complete certainty.
And I nodded my head, eagerly.
The Master grinned along with me, and his hand flipped the toggle,
"Hang on!!"

The T.A.R.D.I.S. exploded into action, causing all of us to cling to the parts of the ship closest to us.
My heart violently thrashed about in my chest, unable to breathe, unable to think.
We were going so fast, it felt like an insane roller coaster.

This was it.

We were going..I was going.

I realized in those seconds...a really deep realization I can't fully express..

my life did change that day.....
and it would never be the same again.