Quest for the Fire Rose - Part 1

      Willa lowered the ice from her eye and sighed. It was no use. She would have a black eye by morning. "Oh well," she thought. "It will go well with the bruise on my ribs." Softly, she touched her side and winced. Still tender. Carefully, Willa bent down and took out a notebook and pencil from under her bed. Opening up to a new page, she began to draw. Drawing was the only thing that really ever made her happy. Her parents had shipped her off to boarding school as soon as she was ten and the girls here didn't really like her much either. She wasn't very strong and the group of girls who ruled the school, well, were. Because of this, they had marked her out as an easy target and they delighted in tormenting her. Fights were common. Willa always lost. A single tear dropped onto the page, smudging the picture of the dragon she was drawing. She always drew fantasy creatures. Elves, faeries, and such. The walls of her room were plastered with them from the seven years she had been there. More tears followed. There was no use trying to hold them back. Letting the notebook and pencil drop from her hand and curling up on her bed, Willa gave herself up to crying. She cried for a long time. When the tears finally stopped, Willa took a few deep breaths, steadied herself and sat up. What she saw nearly made her heart stop. She was no longer in her room. Indeed, she wasn't even at the school. Instead, Willa found herself sitting in the middle of a large grassy field. The sun was shining, a cool, gentle breeze was blowing, and, far off, birds were singing. Here and there bright wildflowers bloomed, sending their sweet scent into the air and mushrooms could be spotted peeping out from under them. It was beautiful. Willa had never felt more terrified...