Part 1: Untitled Novel, Day 21 - Words to Go: 0

She stood very still on the bottom step, there was a corner ahead of her. She stared into the blank stone wall for a minute. What would she do? She would man up and she would walk into that dungeon and she would save those people.
She straightened her spine and pushed her shoulders back. She was going to walk into that room looking strong, it'd help her to feel more confident, even though she didn't feel it. She stepped off of that last step and she turned the corner into a very dark room.
One torch was lit beside the entrance to cells, but Goldie lit up the fairy blessing's white light instead of that. Inside the room, dungeon cells lined the hall, five on each side of the hall, and one at the very end. She tried to avoid looking at that one. She didn't need to see her yet. She could wait to see her. She glanced between the first door on her right and Goldie's cell.
A wave of emotions washed over her - sadness, excitement, anger, happiness. She put her hand on the handle of the door and wished it would open. She pulled and it opened easily. There was a figure in the back corner of the room, leaning against the wall, one emaciated leg stretched out and the other knee bent. He had a full beard and long, matted hair. He sat up when he saw the door to the cell open. He waited to see what was coming in. He watched Goldie's light as it moved toward him. When she'd almost reached his side, he turned his face away and closed his eyes tightly.
She knelt down beside him and touched him on the shoulder, he was spooked by her touch and pulled his shoulder away.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"Who is that?" he asked in a voice hoarse from lack of use. "Who's there?"

Goldie suddenly understood why he was staring past her. She was still invisible and he probably hadn't heard what she'd said to him, either. She wished to be visible and able to be heard, again. When the man finally met her eyes, she knew he could see her.

"Hi," she said.

"Are you an angel?" he asked. His eyes were deep set, his face skeletal. all of his teeth seemed to be missing. He was wearing what looked like a potato sack to Goldie. His feet looked so large against his atrophied legs.

"I'm not an angel, I'm just a little girl," said Goldie. "I'm here to help you."

The man just blinked his eyes slowly at her.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"I can't remember," he whispered. "Sometimes when I'm able to sleep, I dream of before. In my dreams, my name is Tyler."

"It's nice to meet you, Tyler, I'm Goldie," she said and held out her hand in greeting. He just looked at it, so she wiped it against the front of her shirt, and let it hang back down by her side.

"Are you able to walk?" she asked him.

"Too weak, been like this for days," the man said. Suddenly, his whole body was seized by violent coughing and, afterward, when he wiped his mouth on his arm, it left a dark streak of blood. He leaned his head back against the wall. "I'd really just rather be dead."

Goldie's heart fell. She didn't know what to say. She was seven years old, for goodness sake. She slid down to sit on a floor so dirty, she could barely tell it was made from stone. She put her head in her hands and the two of them sat there like that. Goldie thinking she'd never be able to get the people out of here if they were too weak to walk. She couldn't lead them through the woods, or carry them all. She couldn't leave them here, either.
She wished that Floyd was there with her to help her figure out what to do. Just because she had the most fairy magic in the entire fairy world didn't mean that she knew what to do with it.

Goldie heard the door at the top of the stairs open and the dull thud of footsteps decending the stairs. She whipped around to look into the hallway, only just noticing that she hadn't shut the cell door behind her. She made herself invisible as she ran to the door to pull it shut, locking herself back inside. Everything thing is back the way the dark fairies had it, she thought. She stayed at the cell door. A dark fairie with keys hanging around his neck came into view. He jingled in and walked down the hall. She could hear his breathing, the same as Kiffen's had been. Snort, growl, snort, growl.

"Goldie! Goldie!" Tyler screamed desparately. He'd only just noticed her absence.

His shouts brought the guard back to his cell door. The dark fairy's face came with inches of Goldie's. His teeth were bared and he was growling like an angry dog. His snake eyes were red. Kiffen's were yellow. She liked the color yellow better than red on the dark fairies. Red was scary.

"Shut up!" the guard bellowed through the bars. His voice hurt Goldie's ears. She covered them and ducked to the ground.

"Goldie!" Tyler shouted, again, louder than before.

"Don't make me come in there," the guard pounded his fist against the door.

Tyler sobbed quietly in his corner with his arms over his head. Goldie leaned her head up against the door, listening for him to finish his rounds and walk back up the stairs.
Goldie weighed her options. What would I want to happen if I was trapped in this place? I would want to go home. I would want to go back to before this happened and never let it happen. I would want to be in the place where I felt the safest in the world. I would want to be with my mom. Sitting next to her while she read a story to me. She hadn't read a story to me in a long time, probably not since I learned how to read. I would be leaning on Mom's arm, watching her turn the pages. I loved to look at the pictures. I would want to do that. Just be there in that peaceful moment again. Start life again from that moment. Can I do that for these people? Can I put them back in the place they felt the safest before they were kidnapped by the evil dark fairies? The fairies can navigate time, I know they can. I can do this. I will do this.
When the guard's footsteps could be heard retreating up the stairs, Goldie ran back to Tyler and knelt beside him, yet again.

Tyler grabbed her arm when she put it on his shoulder to comfort him. "I can't see you," he said. "Are you the death angel?"

Goldie changed her invisibility preferences. She made it to where she was only invisible to the bad creatures. The fairy blessing would hide her from anything it considered threatening.

"You're not going to die," she said. "I'm going to save you."

"What if I want to die?"

"You can't." Goldie sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "You just can't, ok?"

She was trying so hard to save these people. Why didn't he want her help. Did he not believe she could help?

"I'm going to send you back. You will not remember any of what you've suffered while you were here, even though I know it's all you remember right now. Do you believe me?"

"No," he said flatly.

"I guess maybe you never will. But, hey, you won't be sick anymore. You won't remember me when you get there, but I will remember you. Go back to your life, Tyler," she put her palm on his forehead and wished him back to his world. He shuddered for a moment before passing back through to his life before he'd been captured and added to the people collection. She was left with an imprint of his life in her mind. Goldie wept when she saw his childhood, his happiness, she saw his marriage, his kids and their kids, she felt his sorrow at the death of his wife and not long after that, she saw him buried in the ground. He had a good life, he was already dead in Goldie's timeline. But at least he had gotten the chance to have a life. She would never see him after this moment. She dried her eyes and stood up from the hard floor. She didn't know how long she had until the guard came back around. The place would be swarming with dark fairies when they realized the king's people collection was missing.

Goldie traveled from cell to cell freeing the prisoners one at a time. There were men and women, old and young. One said she'd only been here a couple of hours. She was the most emotional of all the prisoners because she hadn't had time to lose the idea that someone would eventually come in and save her, that maybe this place was really just a horrible nightmare. This place was like the center of a time vortex, or something. So many people, from many different countries, all from different eras and she sent many of them back only to find out they would be dead by the time Goldie had been born. This young girl was different, though, she would not even be born for about three decades after Goldie's birth. For some reason that was harder for Goldie to fathom. Goldie could see less of her life than she'd been able to see with all of the other prisoners, could it be because knowledge of the future would effect Goldie's own future?
After little girl from the future, her name was Veronica, only the cell at the end of the hall remained.