Chapter Five: The Glass Subway of Neptune

Osiris paced back and fourth watching a peculiar clock upon the wall in the den of the Dragon Infirmary. He impatiently waited for Taturan to be healed by the stars, still working on the two largest of wounds. Lolita and Dawn sat at a table beside a window in the den, intently gazing upon the scurrying stars moving quickly back and forth between the den and the nest room, collecting herbs and ointments while attempting to push the large dragonite on his side to heal two large gashes hidden on his belly. Osiris constantly watched the clock, intently reading the weird inscriptions on it where numbers should be.
"If Taturan does not heal faster, we will not make it into Sandland," Osiris rubbed his head, contemplating the situation.
"Why?" Lolita broke her stare at the stars to glance up at Osiris, who she now realized, looked like he was ready to burst.
"The Celestial Lightway will close at noon. Its the only available opening into Sandland, but it's only open every 100 years for a earth's 24 hour period, and we only have hour left!"

Osiris held his head, rubbing away his new headache, and then he crouched down to peer into the nest room. Almost spontaneously, the stars began to move quickly, so quick they were seen as tiny blue blurs. It was as if they felt the tention of Osiris' voice, even though they didn't understand a word Osiris said.

"How come you didn't tell us before?! And how do you even know what time it is? Your clock has no numbers or hands!" Dawn folded her arms, making the situation worse with her agrivation more towards Osiris then being late for the Lightway.
Osiris stormed up to the clock, pointing to the words where 12 should be, it read NONAHORA.

"This means the twelfth hour, and because our clocks go by solar system event and color, each hour has a different color that progressively changes into the next hour's color and events happening in that solar system, and when the nonhora turns bright blue, time is up."

"But the clock has only two colors left on it!" Dawn pointed to the sun at the top of the clock turning a indigo-blue.

"We must wait, Taturan is our only fastest transportation to the Lightway," Osiris sighed heavily and walked into the nest room. After 10 minutes or so, Jupiter returned, eating what looked like a  roast beef sandwich.

"Had to go get the best sandwich in our galaxy, it was only ten trillion lightyears away," Jupiter smiled and then took a large bite of the tremendous sandwich.
"You traveled ten trillion lightyears to get a sandwich.....right," Dawn shook her head. Lolita just stared with a look of awe.

"It's not roast beef, It's dark matter," Jupiter took another large bite, shoveling it down without chewing.

"That's bizzare," Dawn turned away, appalled by Jupiter's etiquette.
Ignoring Dawn 's antics and Jupiter's eating, Lolita peered in at Taturan and Osiris, feeling anxious seeing the situation.

"Does everyone travel fast around here?" Lolita asked, bothered by this question, as if she weren't suppose to ask.
"No, although most of us planets and stars don't have a concept of time, we usually just do what we want when we want it, although there are certain rules we have to follow," Jupiter nodded his head, thinking deeply.

"Like what? Like a government? Or a bible?"

"Oh no no no, not at all, more like guidlines so we are not given total free will over our existence, we must maintain our projects, like humans for instance, earth must carry her burdens of humans, otherwise she will be destroyed for disrupting the project."

"We're a Project?" 

Lolita and Dawn's faces twisted up in horror by the words.  Jupiter felt awkward and began to walk slowly out of the den  to the nest room.

"Perhaps I said too much, "Jupiter wiped his mouth, "maybe I'll go check on Taturan," and with that, Jupiter sprinted his old bones into the room to avoid answering two very puzzled and angry girls. 

"We're Projects? Projects?! " Dawn hissed through clenched teeth.

"He probably didn't mean in a bad  way, " Lolita whispered back calmly, although her look of skepticism was transparent.

" What other way could he possibly mean? Oh, for all we know, we could be some big joke created by some goddess or god for entertainment!" Dawn crossed her arms angrily, staring down at her shoes.

" I'm sure we aren't Dawn, please don't make this harder than it has to be," Lolita sighed.

Her expression made Dawn cool down. Finally Osiris and Jupiter came out of the room, Smiling and moving at a fast pace.

"We must leave now," Osiris unexpectedly grabbed Lolita and Dawn by the arm, pulling them through the nest room, now glowing bright yellow.
Within the room was a large swirling gold hole in midair. It appeared to be a portal. Taturan was sitting in front of the portal, ready to go with a huge saddle on his back.

"Off to Sandland!" Osiris jumped onto the saddle as Lolita and Dawn climbed in, a little taken aback.

The three of them and Taturan took off through the large glowing gold hole. On the otherside were miles and miles of glowing gold hills, that seemed to extend forever.

" Are we in Sandland?"

Lolita looked down at the glowing hills.

" No, we are in  Merridium of Neptune, just along the borders of the dimension where Sandland is," Osiris hollered back as they flew, Lolita holding onto Osiris's shoulders and Dawn holding Lolita's.  They flew for what seemed like miles . The land below began to change from gold hills to purple forests. Among the new purple forests seen were tiny domes of sand that almost looked like small cottages.

"What are those?" Dawn pointed to one of the domes.

"Those are the sand huts of the Obigoths, they are the sand dwellers that protect the borders from attacks by magical beings," Osiris laughed at the thought, " They are very tiny though and many people and things have gotten past them unnoticed for years. They use to be high-strung and strong warrior society, but now, since the creation of Sandland,  they are too weak to keep their heritage or families alive, Sandland drains people of youth and life if you live too close."

"Sounds so sad," Lolita looked down at the small houses, now noticing that none of the sand dwellers were around. Dawn ignored the converstion, too worried about the height of their flying.

"Well the closer you live to Sandland, the more frequently you become bitter, depressed, and tired. Sandland has great affects on magical beings.

" So what about non-magical beings," asked Dawn, now drawn by the conversation.

Taturan bagan to lower, aiming for a clearing in front of a larger dome in the center of a purple field of tulips. They didn't noticed as they talked.

Without enough warning, Taturan had crashed them into a field of purple tulips. They screamed and covered their faces as purple dirt blew up from the heavy fall. Osiris was very worried this time, jumping quickly off Taturan and checking Taturan's body for wounds.

"Taturan has fallen asleep," Osiris was very upset about this and Lolita and Dawn looked just as annoyed.
"Well at least he crashed in front of the King of Merridium's dome."

 Slowly a short purple and scaley man wearing orange robes creeped out of his house. When he saw Osiris, he immediately came out of creeping and hollered, " Osiris, is that you?!"

"Yes it is King Skozsha!" Osiris smiled through worried expressions as the two girls stood behind him catiously.

"Looks like you took quite a fall, did Taturan fall asleep again?!" King Skozsha smiled big hearing Taturan's new snoring.

" Yes, and to tell you the truth, we are in a great hurry, and we will be stranded if we don't make it to the lightway of Sandland before it closes."

"Ah, I see, well we do have the Sazzhin tunnels, they aren't as fast as Taturan, but  the Obigoths are visiting Sandland this time of year for the great awakening of the Glass planet, so feel free to take the Sazzhin, I'm sure you will get there in time that way," King Skozsha smiled broadly leading the way to his large dome house.

The three followed the King in through a narrow passageway inside. Expecting sand-like walls on the inside, Lolita and Dawn were surprised that the entire inside was made of brilliant colored glass, even the furniture was made of glass.  Everything was glass! They followed the king until they came up to a large glass door with large vault locks on it. With a giant key that was hanging on one side of the wall, King Skozsha opened the vaulted door to unlock a bright portal-like looking light. As the four of them walked through it, on the other side they came accross what looked like a giant glass subway station. The subway station was full of Obigoths walking around in groups, with funny orange clothes, similar to the robes King Shozsha wore.

"Wow," Lolita and Dawn responded at the same time.

Osiris chuckled at their faces, trying to hide from laughing in front of the king.

"Well here we are," King Skozsha directed them to a small platform where all the Obigoths began to gather. Approaching was a large glass, cilindrical, snake-like subway floating above the ground in the tunnels. It came up so fast, it looked like a blurred rainbow prism. It stopped in front of the platform and two golden doors opened for the pasengers. They began to pile in, and Lolita, Dawn, and Osiris piled in after, feeling cold from the glass atmosphere of the subway.

"Good bye my friend, and take care of your girls! Don't worry about Taturan, I'll take him to the dragon infirmary!" Shouted King Skozsha as he waved them off.

They waved back, but their faces didn't look too pleasant.

"Where exactly does this subway whatever thing go to?" Dawn asked.

"It takes us to central Goma, near the Celestial Lightway.  Goma's where most beings go for all major events," Osiris replied, trying to comfortably move his arm out of inbetween two Obigoths and the glass wall of the subway.

" We're gonna make it, I know we are!" Lolita said, attempting to cheer up the mood and horrible atmosphere of the place....

(To Be CONTINUED)

ã Ali Starchild