TWENTY-SIX

                                    

                                          
❝TAKE A LOOK AT THE FUTURE
WHO KNOWS WHAT'S AHEAD?❞
MOLLY KATE KESTNER, PROM QUEEN



The second the crowbar hit the grass with a muddle fud, Lorelei blinked and her surroundings had changed. She was back in Ohio, standing in a tight line with her friends as a large being - Trigon, no doubt - stood far, yet not far enough, ahead doing whatever worldly ordeals he was poisoning.
It only took one glance at her friends - and newly not so introduced Donna - for Lorelei to grow worried. Their eyes were blackened with the surrounding skin adorning the same eternal hole. It was eerily similar to Halloween makeup and certainly not in a good way.
They stood still, not paying Lorelei attention as she noted Rachel, Dick, and Garfield were unaccounted for in the line up. She had to find them and it seemed they would be inside. There was nobody around for miles, nothing but dead birds falling from the sky and a dead woman laying at the bottom of the porch were outside other than Trigon and her friends.
It was an educated guess. The only one she had, really.
As she stepped into the house, Lorelei was met with Garfield covering his lower half with a nearby blanket. There was only one word that could be used to describe Garfield's appearance; he was a mess. Blood dripped from his face, panting against his wounds and body showing nothing but aching with every move he took. He was weak and without knowing what had happened, Lorelei was sure that he was lucky to be alive.
"Holy shit, Gar, are you okay?" Lorelei asked, though the answer was painfully obvious. 
"Seen better days." Garfield admitted, shock lapping his features as he slowly turned at Lorelei's voice. Even his voice was as bad as he looked. "Trigon did something to you guys, how did you-"
"I didn't turn to the darkside."
"You did."
"I almost did, there's a difference." She huffed, walking towards Rachel and Dick. "Did my eyes look like that?"
Much like her friends on the porch, Rachel and Dick held the same blackness. Whatever Trigon had warped up for her friends had worked. He was powerful, no doubt. Her Archmage was right about that.
But the stubbornness Lorelei held to not become a weapon would always prevail and if she was going to save Rachel and her friends, she would.
"No, they were your white with the black edgy stuff." The green haired boy admitted.
"Exactly, I fought it. You try Rachel, I try Dick?" Lorelei suggested. If the young mage could wake up from the trance, battle against the offerings placed within her alternate universe, then why couldn't everyone else?
There was no logic behind it, but that was her thought process.
"Try what?" Garfield asked, limping against his pain. 
"I don't know, wake her up? I'm gonna try going in his mind." She shared.
It was an awful plan, a dangerous one at that. To enter a mind that was under the influence of an all powerful being could end terribly for Lorelei. Which is exactly why she wasn't entering Rachel's mind.
She would test the waters with Dick while Garfield attempts whatever he will do to try and wake Rachel up. Then, and only then, when she knows what she is working with, Lorelei will switch and enter Rachel's mind.