There comes a moment in a person life where they crave for adventure. That desire never leaves them but a world that exists only in our sub consciousness is easily forgotten. A world where adventure is a daily routine is left behind along with our childish things.

Our story begins in a quiet, peaceful village where a girl of 10 yrs old lives. A bright, kind girl she is and curious as well. She constantly wanders away from home in search of new and exciting places inside the forests that surround her village. When the sun barely has a chance to wake from deep slumber, she is wide awake and ready to go exploring. She steps out of her house as quietly as a mouse with no idea that today will be the day she will never forget. As she walks deep into the dark green forest she sees a sight she hasn’t before. Two ghastly statues stand before her protecting the dirt path behind them. As she stares into the eyes of the statue she recalls her parents warning her to stay away from them. Their frighten features are meant to scare away any strangers from walking to whatever dangers lies at the end of the road but as the old saying goes curiosity killed the cat. One step, two steps, three steps more past the rocky guardians of the road. Nothing is stopping her from approaching her unknown destination. Tick Tock strikes the clock, as she gets closer and closer with every minute that passes until she finally arrives to the forbidden land. Covered in vines, dusty and old is a ruin that is completely unwelcoming to the sight but so inviting to her mind. Does she dare step any closer, past the sea of beastly statues that leaves a clear path to doors of the ruins? How can she not? Without a fear in her heart or a doubt in her mind she enters the area with ease, only to be engulfed with the darkness within. Unable to see the hands in front of her eyes she aimlessly walks forward with her arms extended. She slightly bumps into another pair of doors and gently pushes it open to reveal a circle of light piercing through the endless darkness. In the center of the light is a pedestal with a mask on top. As she picks up the mask she notices something strange. It was very beautiful, with markings of light green and blue but instead of hiding your face it shows it completely. It was a see through mask as strong as steel yet as thin as paper. Naturally she puts it on her face.

As she looks around she realizes that the ceiling of the room is tumbling bit by bit, slowly breaking away, and letting more light into the room. Her bravery quickly leaves her when she sees the horrific sight of something struggling to get out of the walls. Hidden within the shadows, it roars and growls and stares at her with blood red eyes. She yells at her body “run!” trying to force it to move from being paralyzed with fear. Slowly and wobbly she runs through the doors and out of the ruins only run into a more horrific scenery then the last. An earthquake pushes her down but she dares not get up as the monsters within the statues breaks free and stares at her as if she was a delicious meal ready to be eaten. They plunge forward with mouths wide open prepared to sink their sharp teethes into her when a sudden heavenly roar from behind stops them in their tracks. A blue lion with a golden mane stood behind the girl in all its glory. Carefully he picks her up from the hood of her sweater and runs through the sea of snarling beasts without breaking a sweat. He meets up with two more lions just like him that were once statues guarding the road. He puts her down and harshly yells at her “you idiot! How could put on the mask and awaken the monster, revive the story that I trying to prevent from repeating again!” She tries to remove the mask from her face thinking that it will make everything okay but she quickly realizes that the mask is apart of her skin now. Unable to take off the mask she lets out a regretful sob and looks up at the face of the lion with eyes filled with sadness. A roar as loud of thunder draws their attention and then a terrible figure emerges above the giant trees making them look as if they were nothing but saplings. The lion yells out “we have no choice, we have to fight,” and pushes the girl on her feet implying that she has too as well. With a shaken voice she replies that she can’t and as the trees come falling down and the enemies get closer she quickly flees from the fight leaving the lions to battle on their own.

As she trudges through lonesome path back to her village, she thought of something she had not before. She can’t return because when they see the mask on her face they will immediately know what she has done. She wanders away from village and walks without any idea of where to go for two hours or so until she finds a small cave near a lake. She looks into the shallow water to see her reflection, and it appears as if she has nothing on her face. Only the green and blue markings of the mask remained as if she had a tattoo done. She stares and stares at her reflection hoping that the events that had taken place will go away but then a blue figure is reflected in the water. She looks up and sees the injured blue lion falling to the ground. She runs to his side to see the damage. The poor lion, he had a deep wound on the side of his stomach, feeling guilty of leaving the lions alone and ashamed of being afraid she cries out “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” about a dozen times. She held the lion close to her when he spoke up. His calming voice comforts her as he assures her that it is okay. “I shouldn’t have forced so much on you,” he says.”It’s okay to be scared everyone gets scared from time to time.” Prepared to accept the consequences of her action she bravely asks “what do I have to do?”

The lion tells her the giant monster, Inferno gets stronger every time he is revived and how his smaller monster are his spawns that spread to every civilizations in hopes of one day ruling the world. He explains to her that his purpose is to turn them all to stone and the purpose of the one that possesses the mask is to harness the power of the mask and kill them off when they are turned to stone.

“If that is true then why didn’t the last owner of the mask kill inferno,” she says.

His eyes became cold as he whispered “he wasn’t able to; he was strong enough to kill the smaller beasts but when it came to inferno, he failed. You see in order to use the mask properly you have to focus you mind on the size of your enemy and make sure that you use the right amount of power to kill him off. If you use too much or too little the power of the mask will simply bounce back and attack you from the inside, by destroying all you internal organs and eventually turning into you dust. ” He stared off into the distance, past the lake and past the trees and quietly says “this time things will be different, I’ll make sure that you are prepared. We will fight the small fries first until you are able to kill them off with ease. “

They spent six years traveling from place to place killing off any of Inferno’s spawn that happen to get in their way until they finally felt like they were truly ready. They began the search to find Inferno only to find him in the girl’s beloved village. The once quiet, peaceful village was engulfed in flames and screams could be heard from a thousand miles away. Her heart was torn out as her people suffered in the hands of infernos spawn. Her hatred grew as she saw him watching them die, laughing at their screams. Blinded by anger she took out her sword and charged without a plan of action. She was playing right into infernos hand using the place that she held to be so precious to draw her out. It would have worked too if it wasn’t for the lion stopping her. He jumped in front of her preventing her from taking a taking a step closer to her village.

“Get out of my way,” she yelled.

“Calm down, you won’t save anyone if you die. You need to clear your mind, you need to focus or you won’t be able to kill off inferno.” He said

His calming voice once again comforts her “your right, what do we do now,” she asks.

“I want you to stay here, when I roar is when I want you to come down,” he said.

“But-,”

“No buts, you will do as I say. I want you to be at full strength.”

As he turns to leave he looks back and says” You are very important to me, I will never forget you,” and with that he leaves.

“Wait!” she screams but it was to late his last words were strange. It was almost like… a good bye.

She looked down at the village and saw dozens of infernos spawn dead on the ground, most likely at the paws of the blue lion no less. It’s been almost an hour since he went down there and she was worried. She wanted to go down and help him but he told her not to. She stared down at the long fought battle, waiting for him to roar but to her surprise inferno decided to join the battle.

She couldn’t wait any longer “SCREW THIS!” she yelled as she ran down to help.

Through the trees, down the path running, as fast as she can until she tripped and fell close to the battle of the blue lion and inferno. Her presence immediately caught his attention, distracting him for a second and that second was all it took. With one of the needles in his large hand he stabbed the blue lion in the chest. The wound was big, big enough to make him bleed to death in a matter of seconds.

“NO! “She cried out as she got up.

“STAY AWAY! I told you to stay away and wait for my call,” he said.

He stood up, crouched down and closed his eyes as he prepared his last attack. His blue fur and golden mane stood at ends length as his paws turned gray. His eyes opened wide as he let out a strong and powerful roar seconds before inferno was going to stab him. His roar was so powerful that a gust of wind pushed inferno back and in a blink of an eye they were both turned to stone. This was the moment that she trained so long for; filled with sadness she steps forward. Sorrow overflowed her mind consuming her thoughts as the picture of the dead villagers and fallen companion flashes over and over, forever engraved in her memory. She tries to concentrate as she focuses the power of the mask on the immense size of inferno. She leaps out and stabs him in the heart but the attack recoiled and hit her. An incredible pain struck her in the inside as her eyes begin to bleed. She has to focus, she knows it, she has to but this sorrow in the back of her mind. She takes her position once again and tries to focus on infernos size. She closes her eyes and say” focus, focus, focus, FOCUS!” she leaps once more and strikes him in the heart turning him into dust.

“I did it” she says with laughter in her voice.

She looks back and says “Blue lion, I did…it.”

There he stood, her blue lion strong and proud as the great lion that he is. She walks towards him, her vision getting hazy; she falls to her knees and sobs uncontrollably. As dark clouds gather above her and begins to rain she falls asleep remembering her blue lion.

In her dreams she dreamed of all the moments that they had together like all the times he let her pull pranks on him or when they stayed up late at night looking up at the stars. In her dreams she remembered the first time he smiled…yea the first time he smiled. That day he told her that it is a horrible thing to be stuck in a statue; To be alive and dead all at the same time, to see the world around you but never be apart of it. As she awoke from her deep, sweet sleep she knew what she had to do. She raised her sword knowing that it is better for him to live in the afterlife then it would be to live in a stone. She held her breath and whispered “I’m sorry my blue guardian, please forgive me,” and with that she struck him and then the world turned black.

A young girl awakens, amazed and excited by her vivid dream. She quickly hops out of bed, gets her sketch book out and starts to draw down the dream that she had, with haste. The desire for adventure continues with us as we become older but along the way the world that lives in our subconscious seizes to exist. We leave childish hopes and dreams behind and forget everything that we have learned in that unclear world, not knowing that they hold some kind of truth, some kind of life lesson. Hold on to dreams, don’t let it go because the desire for adventure can be achieved easier then you think.