As the galaxy turned bright and we all closed our eyes, I could sense the glow was gone from behind my eyelids, but we were still falling.

I opened my eyes, and all I saw was a night sky littered with stars, and a crescent moon. I saw that we were falling straight into a lake that reflected the sky.

"Hold your breath!" I yelled at Drake, who'd just opened his eyes. He did it though, and we both splashed into freezing cold water.

I instantly swam to the surface, my legs propelling myself upwards. When I felt cold air bite at my face, I opened my mouth and took in gulps of air. I looked around for Drake, but I didn't see him surface.

"Drake?!" I called, getting worried. He surfaced quickly, though.

"Why are you worried? I'm a Water Element." He said.

"O-oh, right." I said, embarrassed. He just sighed.

"Come on, let's get out of the water."

We swam to the shore, and I shivered from the cold. Then I noticed Drake was completely dry.

"Wha-?! No fair!" I said, gaping.

"It's perfectly fair. Now get moving, we need to find a way to get out of this tournament alive." Drake said quickly. We hurried across the grass plains, and noticed a dirt path leading us somewhere in a nearby forest.

"If we're in this Tournament, then we have to be careful and stay vigilant. There's no telling what could happen here." Drake said, eyeing the forest suspiciously.

"I guess so..." I said. I was nervous, mostly because any time outside after dark was a little nerve-wracking for me. But the woods were also pretty eerie, so my fear was doubled.

"What do you think happened to the others?" I asked Drake, mostly just to soothe myself with a conversation.

"Well, I assume Cynthia and my sister are somewhere together, and your brother and Sam are somewhere together too..." Drake said. "And it said something about transporting us to Test One..."

"Well, it'll probably test us on something, but... what are they gonna test us for?" I asked.

"An obvious one is bravery." Drake said. "Another one could be creativity, and then the third one might be intelligence, assuming there are three tests."

"Well, let's just assume that this one is the test of bravery." I said.

"In that case, let's stay vigilant." Drake said, his pace getting faster as we walked through the path.

We hurried across it, hoping to find help at the end, or even just shelter.

Well, we found both.

A particularly pale looking man harvesting some weird plant in his garden. The plant looked like it was pulsing, which was pretty creepy. He looked grumpy, but when he spotted us, he gave us a friendly smile. His eyes said otherwise though.

"Greetings! Are you lost, young ones?" He asked.

"Um... yes, actually!" I said. "We're looking for shelter."

"Well, you can stay at our mansion of course! We'll make sure to give you a warm welcome." The man said.

"Okay, sure." I said, but then Drake pulled me away quickly.

"Just one second!" I said to the man, before turning to Drake.

"What is it?" I whispered.

"I don't trust that guy... he's abnormally pale and was harvesting some weird plant, not to mention his lit up when he saw us!" Drake whispered. "It's probably a trap! What did we just talk about when we were on the path? We need to stay vigilant-"

"Drake, I think he's fine. Maybe he doesn't go out much, and maybe his eyes lit up because he wants to make new friends!" I said. "You can't judge a book by its cover."

Drake sighed. "Fine. But I'm ready to say 'I told you so' when it turns out it is a trap."

"Sure." I said, then we turned back to the man.

"Okay, are we ready to go to my mansion?" He asked.

"Yeah." I replied.

He led us through the forest and down a winding path. We eventually arrived at a giant iron gate. When the man stepped towards it it opened by itself. Drake shook his head but I ignored him and pushed on. I wanted to give this guy the benefit of the doubt.

The path turned to cobblestone somewhere along the way, I wasn't paying attention to that. But in the distance I could see it:

Lit up by the moonlight, a mansion stood before us, with gargoyles on the rooftop. They were all crouching and looking straight ahead at the forest we just came from, but that's statues for you.

"Welcome to Veronica's Manor!" The man said. "Me and my siblings live here together in the wilderness. We don't like visitors much."

"Oh, you don't like visitors? Then maybe we should leave then, save you the argument from your siblings-" Drake started, but the man cut in.

"Oh, I didn't mean it like that, I meant like neighbours. Noisy neighbours. Yeah." The man said.

I mean, he did sound suspicious... but I was determined to be right, so I feigned ignorance.

Drake gave me a look, but I didn't give him a chance for him to whisper to me.

"Wait, before we come in, can we ask your name?" I asked. I didn't want to just address him as 'the man'.

"My name is James." He said. It didn't seem as though he liked his name though, as he gave a sneer as he said it.

The front doors opened slowly, creaking a bit. In the doorway, four women stood, dressed in black robes and bearing the same abnormally pale skin that James had. They all had red eyes except for one, who had golden eyes. The golden-eyed girl looked very scared. Poor thing.

"Oh, James! There you are! Are you done harvesting the..." A red-eyed woman started. She noticed us and quickly lashed at James, holding him up by the collar of his black shirt.

"Why did you bring humans over here?!" The woman whispered angrily. James just grinned.

"You know perfectly well why." He whispered back.

The woman released him and took a deep breath, closing her eyes. Then, after a few moments, she held out her hand to us, opening her eyes.

"Hello, my name is Scarlett. These are my younger sisters - the twins, Amber and Ambrosia - and the youngest, the runt of the litter. She's honestly too worthless to even give her a proper introduction. You get the not-so-pleasing honour of introducing yourself, useless girl." The woman said, glaring at the golden-eyed girl, who whimpered and backed away a bit.

"U-um, I'm-" 

"Oh whatever, you don't deserve to say your own name, let alone utter a single word out of that filthy mouth." Scarlett said. "This here is a worthless girl named Katherine. Don't bother talking to her, she's a failure."

Katherine burst into tears, but did not move.

"Oh, stop crying! It's not my fault you can't do anything right!" Scarlett yelled at her.

I couldn't take any more of this.

"Leave her alone! What made her so worthless anyway? Because I doubt that doing that will do anything to help!" I yelled. "Later in life, you could swap places with her, and you could be the one crying here! Treat people the way you want to be treated!"

Scarlett just stared at us for a second, then laughed.

"Oh, you naive little girl. What use would that be if I became a slave to everyone? Besides, you're the one who's going to be spending the night under our roof. You should stay quiet if you want to keep breathing." She said. "Now come along inside."

Did she just threaten me with my life?

Drake shook his head once they turned away, but the petty stubbornness inside me just wouldn't go away, and instead, I walked confidently inside the manor.

On the walls were portraits of what I assumed were past ancestors. The floor was made of polished wood that sounded like marble when you stepped on it, and a huge chandelier was in front of a grand staircase.

A mural was painted across the ceiling, depicting all of the Elements in a circle together.

"The twins will lead you to your rooms. You'll only be staying here for tonight, and that will be all. You will not visit us again, understand?" Scarlett said, and we nodded.

"Not going to want to come here again anyway." Drake muttered under his breath.

"Amber, Ambrosia. You know what to do." Scarlett said, and the twins nodded in sync. They were very creepy, almost like two voodoo dolls. It creeped me out a little, and I started to lose the little faith I had in this place.

We walked upstairs, and I could hear Scarlett and James arguing about a diet of some sort. I couldn't exactly hear what they were saying as we were too far away to hear the full conversation.

I saw a door labeled 'Guest Room', and assumed the twins would lead us there, but instead they led us to a door labeled 'Library'.

As soon as we walked in, I felt really dizzy and felt as though I really wanted to fall on the floor and sleep.

The library was filled with fog, and I could hear high-pitched laughter. Trying to stay awake and alert, I held my head with my hand.

"Drake...? Where are you...?" I called drowsily. I saw him next to me, somehow completely fine. But his back was turned to me, and I couldn't see his expression.

"I know what you did! You made a sleeping fog!" Drake said. I heard splashes of water, and assumed he used his magic on something... was he using it on the twins? Wait...

Did the twins do this?

I should have listened to Drake. We shouldn't have come here. Why did I have to be so sure that everything was going to be fine all the time?! I'm too optimistic for my own good!

The fog cleared and I saw the twins... with... fangs. Vampire fangs.

I screamed. I screamed as loud as I could, scared for my life. I heard glass break from the windows, but I didn't care. I sent a barrage of spells against them, desperate to get away.

"Woah! Rachel! Calm down!" Drake said. "You already knocked them out with the first spell that hit."

I looked down and saw that Amber and Ambrosia were unconscious on the ground.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. And, I'm so sorry Drake. We shouldn't have come here. I'm so naive!" I said, yelling the last part, feeling like I could kick something from frustration.

"Listen, I'll be happy to hear your apologies later, but right now we need to get out of here without the others noticing. Any ideas?" Drake asked.

"No, not really. Give me some time to think." I said. If they were vampires, we needed to find their weakness. What was good against vampires...

Well, there were multiple options. Silver, stakes to the heart, sunlight, garlic...

Ugh! If we had Sam here, he could use his magic to deal with them! But we needed to find some way to deal with them...

"I think I have an idea." Drake said. Intrigued, I listened closely...

+.*.+

I walked down the grand staircase and heard Scarlett and James arguing. Apparently they'd never stopped.

"You're supposed to be on a diet of blood fruit!" Scarlett screeched.

"It's not my fault blood fruit is the most unsatisfying blood for vampires!" James yelled. "I want the real deal!"

"This is why you are so easily able to drop down to Katherine's level! You are too reckless and do not have a single ounce of patience of gratitude!" Scarlett hissed. "Hold yourself together! We don't want to risk creating more vampires! Especially ones that could come after us afterward if we bit them!"

"Don't you wish we could actually have the real stuff, the one that rejuvenates us in a way blood fruit never could?"

Scarlett paused. "Yes, I do." She admitted. "But the rewards will come soon if we continue to hold back. There will be a whole collection of humans to suck blood from. We just have to time things right. Besides, these are 14 year old kids. We can't bite them."

"Then why did the twins try to bite us?" I asked, loud and clear.

Their eyes widened as they stared at me.

"Those idiots..." Scarlett muttered under her breath. "Now we need to try and find that memory spell-"

"THEY DID WHAT?!" James screamed.

He was so angry his red eyes glowed with seething hatred.

"James! Calm yourself-" Scarlett started, before she was thrown across the room by James.

"YOU DON'T CONTROL ME ANYMORE!!" James shouted, and then went on a rampage. He lunged for me, and I screamed as loud as I could, using my magic to amplify the sound. Screaming was actually pretty fun, and it helped me control my fear from the vampires.

James covered his ears, yelling in pain from the noise, and fell unconscious.

Scarlett gasped, and apparently decided that patience was over and done with, because she lunged at me too, her fangs ready to sink into my neck-

Drake came surfing in on a giant wave of water and crashed into Scarlett, wrapping her in chains that he'd conjured mid-air.

And they were silver chains.

Scarlett screamed in pain, he skin burning from the metal. She was left to her agony as we tried to run out of the mansion, but Katherine came in our path and we stopped. We hadn't expected her to fight us too. We got in defensive positions.

But she held out her hands as if to say that she meant no harm.

"Thank you... for freeing me from them..." She said quietly. And for the first time since we saw her, she smiled.

"Your welcome. Just have some more confidence, and don't let them push you around. Show them you're not someone to mess with." I said, and hugged her.

Then, I felt my grip on her fade and I opened my eyes to see me and Drake falling in a familiar galaxy, the other four coming into view as well.