The Secret Passage | Teen Ink

The Secret Passage

October 25, 2016
By jalynnrichardson BRONZE, Warsaw, Indiana
jalynnrichardson BRONZE, Warsaw, Indiana
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

 My name is Rory and I’m the princess of the elvish kingdom and this is my story about how my life changed.
               I awoke from my sleep by the sound of my maid, Sara, folding and putting away my clothes. The sun was shining heavily through my curtains blaring my eyesight.   Sara had short blonde hair that laid straight on her shoulders. She was about my height, which helps me alot when I want to look into her eyes. Looking into people’s eyes is how I can read their minds as well as going through their memories. I don’t normally enjoy staring into people’s eyes like a weirdo, but with her soft blue crystal eyes it is easier.
“ Sorry did I wake you your highness?” said Sara.
“ Yes but I suppose I should have woken sooner anyways ” I told her as I stood off the bed, “ but you know I like to do things for myself.” I never really liked it when my  maids or servants do things like my laundry or cleaning my room, it just makes me feel bad.
I walked over to the bathroom and looked into the mirror. My hair seemed a bit longer than usual. I always knew as a kid there was something off about my physical traits my hair has always been an unusual color of white, my hair is always growing, which is why I keep it to the length of my hips, and my eyes alway change color. Today my hair grew about two inches more than the night before, and my eyes are a leafy green. I liked today’s physical traits combo, it looked pretty good.
After I washed my face and pulled back my hair I headed out of my room, down the stairs, and into the throne room. That was then I realised something was wrong.
My father’s morning routine was to wake up at 8 a.m, take a shower get out at 8:15 a.m, eat breakfast, finish by 8:40 a.m,  then he sits at his throne in the throne room until I wake up. He sits in his throne until I come down and get ready, because he teaches me lessons of ruling the kingdom. The first thing I thought was that he was in the bathroom, which is in his room, so I began to head that way. When I got to his room the door was wide open with no guards outside or inside the room. I went in very cautious of my surroundings.
I looked around the room and noticed his bed wasn’t made,  the covers were all thrown around on the bed and some even on the floor. I turned towards his bathroom door which was shut. In my mind I continued to pray to the lord that he was in there, I prayed that the maid just forgot to make his bed. I then knocked on the door.
“ Father, are you in there?” I questioned. There was no response. My heart began to beat so fast I thought I was gonna have a heart attack. Then I heard a noise coming from the hall. I whipped  around to see a guard passing by. I ran out of the room and began to speed towards the guard. He spun around, catching me off guard, and I ran into him knocking him over and me along with him. I started to rubbed my head when I heard him begin to say something.
“ Sorry your highness,” said the guard.
I looked up into his eyes and noticed he had dark grey eyes. His hair was a dark brown color and had been spiked upwards. I began staring into his eyes to read his thoughts. His name was Alec, he came to the elvish kingdom to earn money to pay off the debt he made he made after accidentally burning down his village. He is scared, he seen something here that he shouldn’t have. I can’t tell what he has seen, I think he was blocking himself from thinking about whatever he saw.
“ It’s fine I shouldn’t have snuck up on you like that.” I said as I came out from his mind. He began to stand when he stuck out his hand, making a gesture for me to take it. I grab onto his and began to stand up as well.
“ Did you need something your highness”
“ I was wondering if you have seen my father, the king, recently?”
“ No.” he replied. I think he was lying so I decided to go through his mind again. He was on his way to the throne room and he heard a noise from ahead. He slowly crept over to the room and saw the king on the floor. Not dead just possibly drugged. Then coming from behind the throne came out a human. Humans are beginning to go extinct, but humans are extinct in the elvish kingdom so I don’t understand how he was able to sneak in the castle.
He had black hair which was also spiked upwards, probably with gel. His eyes were a dark brown with a golden trim. He seemed a bit young for a kidnapper, maybe seventeen. He walked towards the king and grabbed his feet and began to drag him, when the guard slipped off the wall and fell over. The kidnapper walked over to the guard.
“ Now, weren’t you ever taught that it’s rude to eavesdrop?” The kidnapper asked. “Alec, right? Well if you tell anyone about this I will find your house and kill you entire family.” He threatened.
“I saw nothing.” Alec told him. Then the kidnapper began to turn back around to the drugged out king. He grabbed his feet and dragged him over to a hidden passage under the royal thrones. When I came out of his thoughts he had been asking me something.
“ What was that?” I asked.
“May I be excused your highness.” he replied.
“No, you’re going to help find my father.” I told him, “ Follow me.” We began back towards the throne room. When we got there Alec began shaking.
“ Hey are you ok?” I asked
“ Yeah I’m fine.” He lied.
“ Alec if you know something you need to tell me.” I told him.
“ How do you know my name?” He asked.
“ You look like an Alec.” I told him, “Come on over here.” I walked over to the secret passage where the kidnapper had gone. There was a huge echo throughout the dark tunnel as we dropped from the room above. The only light in the tunnel was from the room above. Alec saw a torch on the wall beside him and grabbed it. He reached into his pocket and grabbed a match from inside, he lit the torch and began to search the tunnel for clues.
“ Hey since you know my name, what's yours?” He asked.
“ My name is Rory.” I told him. We continued to walk through the tunnel for what seemed like forever when we seen a light around the corner of the tunnel. We stopped for a moment contemplating what would happen, what or who’s on the other side of the tunnel. We looked at each other for a second then continued on. When we got to the corner we stopped to peer over to see what lies ahead. When we looked around the corner my heart began to beat out of my chest. We both turned back thinking of what we were going to do next.
“ Is that what I think it is?” Alec asked.
“ If you think it’s a group of sleeping trolls you would be right.” I told him.
“ How are we going to get pass all of them, we can’t exactly fight our way through four trolls.” He said. I look up and notice a thick long pipe that runs across the trolls and to the other side of the tunnel. I tuck away any loose objects that may fall out of my pockets and jump up on the pipe. I begin to crawl across the pipe and head toward the other side. Then when I jump down Alec jumps up on the pipe as well and begins to crawl across. He gets about halfway through when his pocket knife drops right on top of one of the trolls. The troll begins to wake up and his shuffling around wakes the others as well. He starts speeding across the pipe and jumps down along side with me.
“ Run!” He yells. We both started down the tunnel through the dark again. As we both continue to run for our lives we can tell the trolls are getting close, when we hear four bangs from behind. We turn around to see the kidnapper and on the floor are all four trolls. Unaware of what just happened I began looking through the kidnapper’s mind. He used an old shotgun that humans used to use, before they started to become extinct, to kill all four trolls. He killed them because he’s for some reason trying to help us. I come back out of his mind and see him walking towards us.
“ Stay where you are.” Alec commands in his knight voice.
“ Hey we’re all friends here.” The kidnapper suggested.
“ Don’t lie we know what you did.” I told him, you kidnapped my father.”
“ I didn’t kidnap him, I simply drugged him so it would be easier to get him to safety.” He explained.
“ Why did he need to get to safety?” I asked
“ I can explain later but right now we need to get out of here.” he told us. I looked into his eyes and began to read his thoughts. He was taking us to somewhere safe, which is where my father is. I came back out of his mind and began to walk his way and Alec shortly followed.
“ Let’s go” I told him.
“ Alright then.” he said. We continued to walk back towards where we came from and soon after we got back to where the trolls had been sleeping. We went through that area instead of crawling the pipe, then we continued until we got back to the secret passage that lead to the throne room. We stopped still in the tunnel and waited. The not kidnapper knocked three times fast on the wall in front of us and that was when I noticed it was actually a door. We it opened my father was standing there in the door. I jumped into his arms automatically and gave him a huge hug.
“ Hey are you okay?” I asked as i released him from the hug.
“ Yeah I’m fine, Matt has been taking good care of me.” He replied
“ Matt?” I questioned
“ Uh yeah that's my name, Matt.” The not kidnapper told me. Alec and Matt both walked in through the door.
“ So are you going to tell me why my father needed protecting?” I asked.
“ Well, you remember the trolls in the tunnel right?” He questioned.
“ Yeah.” I answered.
“ Those trolls were waiting for an opportunity to raid the castle. Their plan was to look for an opportunity and then tell the the other thousands of trolls waiting to help raid the castle. Next they would sneak into the castle through the tunnels and attack.” Matt explained
“ And how do you know all of this.” Alec asked
“ Well, humans aren't really going extinct.” Matt told us.
“ What, how, where are all the humans at then?” I asked
“ After the the elves took over the humans became vulnerable and unsafe, so we decided to secretly make an underground place to live. Then one by one we all began to head that way.” Matt told us.
“ We're is this place?” I asked.
“ Can’t give specifics, I’m only allowed to say that it’s underground.” Matt said.
“ Why are you here then?” Alec asked.
“ There are at least fifty humans left on every continent to keep the… other species from destroying the world, and I’m one of them.” Matt told us.
“ Oh, wow, well I'm going to go to bed, sleep all this craziness off. Good night everyone.” I told them all.
When I woke up there was a strange noise coming from the tunnels.
“ Guys wake up!” I whispered. They all began to rustle around and avoid the fact that they have to get. About a minute later they all began to sit up.
“ What?” Alec asked.
“ There's a Dublin noise coming from the tunnels outside the door.” I announced. We all got up without saying another word. I slowly and quietly opened the secret door just enough to to see through. I peered over to see what was behind the door making the noise.
“ Guys, the army of trolls are raiding the castle.”


The author's comments:

This piece is about an elf princess in surch for her father. What inspired me to write this piece was The Shanara Cronicles.


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