Ready? GO! Love, Alex

"Guys?"
"Hmmmmm...?"
"I had the greatest dream!"
"Mmhm."
I recited my lovely dream, which involved us all getting together with some of my favorite characters from my favorite movie: The Lord of the Rings.

"Alex, we are locked up in a cell, it's dark and cold, we lost Mom and Dad again, and you're just sitting there talking about your sweet little dream." Rikki scoffed. She had just woken up, and definitely a little more on-edge than usual.

"Guys, I'm sorry. It was just so nice to think about us being together and stuff. Remember watching The Lord of the Rings with Mom and Dad?" I replied.

"Those were the days..." Hailee started.

"Okay, guys, we can talk more about this later. Let's start working on how to get out of here." Carter said.

"You're right," I said, "Let's get working."

We felt around the small area with our hands, as the darkness prevented us from being able to see around easily with our bare eyes. The room was small, and the floors and walls were hard and smelly. We continued to crawl around in such a manner, bumping into each other and scraping up our knees, until Kailee finally made a discovery.

"Hey, looky here! It's a... key?"

We all made our way toward her the sound of her voice and crowded around her. We took turn rolling the small object around in our hands, making predictions as to what it could be. Every one of us agreed it was most likely a key of some sort and was something that could be useful in escaping the cell.

"Well... Now what?" asked Bailey.
My answer was simple, and stated the obvious:
"We keep looking for a way out of here."

Clambering up to our feet, we moved our sore hands along each of the four walls. We hand't quite made our hopeful discovery yet, and our hands continued to become more bloodies and sore as they felt along the rough concrete. What exactly are we looking for? I thought to myself. We continued our search in quiet. We spent nearly an hour before Carter decided there must be another way to get out of the place that didn't involve quite what we suspected. She was right. Almost as soon as she said do, we heard a deep, grunting noise. Howwwie. Howwwie. Howwwwwwwie. Howwwie. Howwwie. Howwwwwwwie. 

"C-C-Carter? Al-l-lex? Ri-ki-ki-ki? Ha-ai-ai-ley? K-K-K-Kailey?" Stuttered my young, frightened sister, Bailey.

Crash. Boom. Tick. Grunt. Crash. Boom. Tick. Grunt. Grunt.

We all backed up against a side wall.

CRASH. BOOM. TICK. GRUNT. CRASH. BOOM. TICK. GRUNT. GRUNT.

We all clenched on to each other's hands and squeezed for dear life.

CRASH! BOOM! TICK! GRUNT! CRASH! BOOM! TICK! GRUNT! GRUNT!

Silence.

Rikki seemed to have guessed what was going to happen. She quickly whispered out instructions.
"KaileeBaileyHaileefindawayout,don'tworryaboutuswe'lljust-"

She was interrupted with the sound of a loud blast.

"CHARRRRRGE!"

Hideous monsters and creatures of all sorts came running out of what seemed like nowhere. There were dozens, all accompanied with some sort of weapon: axes, swords, slings, and some even had hands that could very well knock out a dozen men in a single blow. How we, Carter, Rikki, and I, were going to keep them distracted and fight them off while the rest of our crew searched for a way out, I was not well aware. Us three oldest had all decided (in our heads) that strength probably wasn't our best weapon against the small army, so we chose to battle with our wits and knowledge instead. We eached clambered three of them and blinded their eyes with our hands, causing them to swat and bat at each other. Three down, 57 more to go. We slipped in between them and stole their weapons, too. Finally deciding to use the strength we had, we used those weapons against them. We were using effort and strength I wasn't even aware we had, but 20 creatures still battling were still getting closer to the three youngest of us Six Sisters, who were still desperately searching for something that could help us escape.

Maybe it was the lack of sleep, her desperation, or who-knows-what, for some reason, Hailee decided it would be a good idea to come right up to me as I was taking down some sort of ogre-looking creature and tell me they couldn't find a keyhole- as if I didn't notice.

She approached me, the key pinched between her pointer finger and her thumb. On the inside, I was screaming, "NOOOOO! Stay back!", but I failed to yell it our loud.

"Alex! We can't find anything!" she cried, getting closer and closer. Suddenly, there was silence. My battle foe fell crashed down to the ground. I stood in awe. As Hailey continued to come my way, all the creatures within ten feet of her dropped down.

"Alex, what do we do?" she asked, clearly unaware of what had just happened.

"I-I-I.... I don't..." I stammered.

"Oh, my..." Gasped Carter. We all backed up until we had formed a circle with our backs facing each other and surveyed the odd scene.

"The key wasn't the way out... It was the way to stop whatever was blocking the way out." Said Rikki.

We drew our eyes to what used to be the wall guarding the way the creepies came. I assume it had opened for them, and now that we had fought them off, it was open for us. As if we could read each other's minds, we all headed for the now-open passage. Meeting our first turn, Carter's charm bracelet glowed a blazing gold.

"Let's take a left," Carter suggested. We all turned that way but soon stopped in our tracks as Carter let out a pained yelp.

"It was the bracelet!" She cried. So we turned right. We had made six turns, each time someone different's bracelet leading us in the right direction. Soon, we came to a large, brass door, standing still and tall like a mighty king.

"Here goes," said Kailee as she pushed open the great door.

A loud chanting noise reached our ears, and something inside me wanted the door to be shut. But my curious side overshadowed my safe side and I let Kailee forge ahead, leading us into a setting that shocked us all.

It was a large arena, surrounded my thousands of cheering bodies. Across from our entrance was a jumbo screen, and it took me a second to realize what it was showing. It was me and my sisters, so dirty, bruised, and even a little bloody that I didn't recognize us at first. I'd hardly wondered what I might actually be looking like, fighting and searching and thinking of more important things and all, and I hadn't actually seen myself in months. A long cut bloodied my face from my ear down to my chin. I had a bruise on my forehead. Carter managed to get a sick-looking scrape down her arm. Rikki had several bruises on her cheek. Hailee had a gushing wound on her knee, and it was staining her jeans. Bailey's hair was matted with dirt and her forehead bore a cut. Kailee's nose was scraped up. We all had other bruises and cuts and scrapes and scars and dirts covering us, and we look rugged and as if we hadn't had a good meal or a nice, long rest in a very long time. That, for the most part, had been true for the past few weeks. A voice coming through booming speakers sliced through my thoughts and drew my attention to the man standing in the middle of the arena. It wasn't exactly who I'd wanted to see at the moment.

"Ladies and gentlemen, look what we have here! These six enduring sisters passed our first challenge. Let's have a round of applause!" Exclaimed MON.
"I'll say so myself, that did not look easy. Congratulations!!" Rikki sneered at him, and her action played on the jumbo screen for the audience to see.

"Now, it's time for Round Two! But of course not looking like that." He then clapped his hands, and called out, "Matilda!" A petite, young lady rushed out of a side door and ushered us into a dressing room where we were cleaned up and each one given a pair of clothes. We changed and were then shown through another door, which led us to the heart of the arena. We were greeted with a large obstacle, looking a little like a children's playground, but bigger, more dangerous, and not so much fun-looking.
"In order to move on to the next round, you will need to get to the other side by climbing through this obstacle. Good luck!" He jeered, and with that we were thrown through the entrance.

"Ready?" MON questioned. Without waiting for an answer he cried out, "Begin!"

"Let's do this!" Cried Rikki, and with that, we were off, jumping, sliding, climbing, and swinging our way through. Under 30 minutes we had crossed.

"Well done," said MON. "Now, for your third challenge..."

More later!

-Alex