Dark, cold… alone. 

Someone yelled my name, too muffled to hear. 

Falling, falling, falling… darkness.

                        Prologue: 1 day ago…

Another day of ‘adventure.’ 

Legend always says, “Someday you’ll find your adventure.” 

Sigh. 

Only Nightmaster and Shadowking understand. Oh! Hi diary. I’m Darkstalker. Mama Mira gave me this diary. All I’ve ever wanted is an adventure, buuut it’s never gonna happen, no matter what Legend says. 

Me and my friends are going to explore in the woods next to my home today. After we visit Legend, of course. 

“Beware of the Blackfire!” Legend says. 

Sigh. The Blackfire is a portal to another dimension. But it’s only a myth. My friends’ names are Shadowking and Nightmaster and they agree that the Blackfire is not real. Well, see you soon diary, I’ll update in an hour.

    Part 1 : The Blackfire 

Ten hours later: I’m back diary! This is what happened today. The stuff before this was boring, so I’m starting where it gets exciting. But in case you want to know, we got lost in the forest and got chased by a fat hamster that we thought was a rabid wolf pup.

Suddenly, I felt a light tingling in the back of my head, but when I looked around all I saw was the forest and my friends. Two minutes later, I felt it again. By the expression on Nightmaster‘s face, he was feeling it, too. Again, I looked around and, for a moment, I thought I saw a tiny golden dot. The tingling turned into an immense pressure. The flames were so black, we couldn’t even see them. We could only feel and hear the heat and smell the wood, while the deafening sound of crackling flames filled our ears.

We stumbled out on hard ground. All of us blinded and confused about what happened. “What is going on! GET OFF, GET OFF, GET OFF!” screeched Nightmaster. When I finally got my bearings, I looked around and gasped. Two enormous, flaming pillars stood before us, usually it wouldn’t be that bad. But the flames were black.

 Part 2 :  The Sign

“No. No, no, no!” Shadowking whispered. Legend was right, I thought. We were in the Blackfire. And there was no way out.

There was a sign in the middle of the glowing magma path reading: ‘Enter the ShadowMaze if you dare. Only the three champions will survive.’ 

Nightmaster was as white as a ghost. “I am out. Get me out RIGHT NOW!” 

”Calm down, dummy,” said Shadowking. “It’s only a sign.” 

“We aren’t going in there right?” I asked. 

“Looks like we don’t have a choice.“RUUUN!” yelled Nightmaster. I looked behind me to see a huge magma monster dashing towards us.

 Part 3 : The Magma

The titan was leviathan level large. It had four fists constantly blasting flaming projectiles at us, and five glowing red eyes. 

“Everyone grab on,” muttered Shadowking. 

“What! Shadowking what are you talking about!?” 

“Just trust me,” he hissed through gritted teeth. We all held on. Then something strange happened. He stepped into the shadows, and the world disappeared. 

                .       .      .

We popped out on soft grass. Even though we couldn’t see the titan, we could still hear it. 

“GO! GO MY MINIONS, FIND THEM AND DESTROY THEM!” it bellowed. 

“Time to get moving,” said Shadowking darkly. 

“Too late,” Nightmaster squeaked. Then, he fainted. Shadowking muttered something under his breath that I am not going to write about in here. But I will tell you, what he said, it wasn’t pretty. 

As we were running, I asked Shadowking something. “Shadowking … do you know what happened when we stepped into the shadows?” 

“Yeeea. But I don’t like to talk about it,” he said. 

“Please, tell me what happ - oh crud! INCOMING LAVA BABY!!!” A miniature version of the titan was sailing towards us. So this is what the beast meant by ‘my minions’. More and more were rising from the ground, surrounding us. 

“Well, if these are gonna be my last words to you buddy, I did it,” said Shadowking. 

“Did what?” I asked. 

“The step into the shadows thing.” 

“WHAT!!!!!” I roared.

By then they were closing in around the three of us. Nightmaster woke up with a start. “W - what’s going on right now?” 

“I’ll explain everything later,” I said. All the babies bounded towards us. 

“I need a shadow! Where there are shadows, there are portals!” said Shadowing in a panicked voice. 

“Gotcha!” Nightmaster said in a rush. He jumped up ten feet into the air, whispering something, creating a shadow portal. 

“Jump!” Shadowking yelled. And the world went black.

                Part 4 : The Maze

OW! That was the first thing I thought when we exploded out of the portal. 

“You can do that?!” Nightmaster gasped baffled. 

“Yeeeeeeeah,” said Shadowking slyly. 

A long pause. “YOU COULD DO THAT THE WHOLE TIME AND YOU DIDN’T TELL US!” “Where are we now?” I moaned. 

“Where we started, of course.” Shadowking said taken aback. 

“Sooooo, we gotta go through the ShadowMaze. That’s what you’re saying, right?” 

“Yup.” 

“Well we should get going. It’s going to be dark soon,” I said. 

                      .        .        .

As we started walking through the black labyrinth, I noticed some holes in the walls and ground. “Hey guys, what are -.” But nobody was there, just the eerie fog and holes. “This game isn’t funny anymore,” I called out to the gang, knowing nobody was there. I was on my own.

                .        .        .

I panicked. I looked everywhere within a fifteen foot radius, nothing. They must‘ve fell into those big holes. I thought. I’ve gotta keep walking. As I trudged on through the depressing mud, the holes got bigger and soon I entered a holeless clearing.