Chapter 10: Sleeping Beauty

"What's his mother's name? Maybe we could use that?" Conlan suggested thoughtfully. "Isn't she in the hospital? Maybe that would bring him out of it."

As they gathered round the tree, they tried everything they could think of to get his attention.

Felicity insulted his cooking. Peppi threatened to read his poetry to the football team. Nothing seemed to make him budge. When that didn't work, they progressed to knock-knock jokes with actual knocking.

"Just smack him really hard," Peppi said in frustration, "It's not like it's going to hurt a tree."

Felicity finally pulled her claws out and gave them a good rake across his trunk. Surprisingly, the bark grew back almost instantly.

Felicity was actually growing frustrated when she looked to Pat who had said nothing up until this point. His arms folded tightly across a rippled chest that saw him the star of any team he signed up for. Couldn't he do something?! Their eyes made brief contact as she frowned in bewilderment.

He shrugged and shifted into his dragon-form. In terms of size, he was not much larger than he had been as a human, but his claws, teeth and... saliva, made him a hundred times more menacing. He slithered up to the tree and breathed the slightest bit of his smoky, flame tinged breath onto the middle of the trunk.

The dragon's head swiveled back to Felicity and the others looking for some guidance. The place he had breathed on didn't seem to have suffered any damage. "Again, Pat. Just a little bit more, just be careful."

The dragon inhaled sharply and the smallest bit of fire licked the trunk of the tree. The tree shivered in turn, and the branches snapped, and thrashed, shaking Pat off. The bark in the center of the tree scrunched and pulled into mounds and a bump. A crevice formed in the shape of a mouth, and above it eyes and a nose. But those eyes were still closed.

"Sol?" Peppi asked the face in exasperation.

"That fire didn't seem to leave a mark, Pat. Try it again," Felicity said examining Solomon's trunk. "At least we can see a face now."

Pat hissed a small stream of flames into the open air and slowly turned his head to direct the stream just at the edge of the bark. The edges slowly crisped, and just as the tender wood beneath began to heat and blacken from the flames, the whole tree recoiled with a quick jerk.

The branches, leaves, and roots retracted almost like Felicity's claws. The entire form shrunk like a party balloon till it took on the shape and then finally the color of Sol's skin and hair.

"What the fuck dude! What is it with you and my nipples?" Sol shouted, clutching his left breast, which even Conlan found funny. Pat just turned around and headed back to Sophia's pillar and they all ran to catch up.

SOL'S PERSPECTIVE

Sol took a moment to get his bearings. He remembered becoming a tree and then getting sleepy. The next thing he knew, a lizard was singeing his nipple. Sophia was still hovering above the pillar. The room would not stop spinning. He looked down and realized he was completely naked... and it worse. He covered himself with his hands as best as he could. Dammit, Pat! playing with his nipples in his sleep!

"How exactly does all this work... are we immortal now?" Viv asked.

"Your life spans are no longer subject to aging, but there is too much to go over now. Much is going on in the world above you. I would suggest you all come back together later. You were being chased, remember?" Sophia reminded them.

"Shit. The library!" Sol remembered. "There won't be anything left by now!"

"There are many reasons you should go back right now. Not the least of which is that the police are looking for survivors and bodies. You can return to me at any time. I will make sure there is always a doorway accessible to you at your public library if you should need me. Though, it might be in a different place if the building changes."

"What if that gang attacks us?" Sol asked, remembering the fireballs they had lobbed at the building earlier.

"I don't think fire's gonna bother me, Sol," Pat laughed.

With that, everybody followed Pat's perfect body back up the stairs.

It wasn't long before they found their way back up through the one arch, mezzanine, and adjacent staircase that took them all the way back to their world – however it was connected to this one.

When they arrived at the doorway, though, it didn't open back in the basement. Instead the entrance was dark and moist. Was it a sewer?

"This is as close as I can take you with your library in its current state," Sophia's voice echoed in a gentle breeze. "I'll build a better entrance when repairs are completed."

As they pushed into the dampness of the sewer, they could all hear with novel clarity the rats and scurrying insects of the underworld. They also heard something else coming close. Each detected it with their unique and heightened sense, but Solomon felt the creature itself. Or lack of it.

A lifeless corpse headed directly towards them in the darkness. As the glow of the doorway faded into the distance he looked for a new way to light his path. Soon, he found himself falling into a world of hidden senses that he had no words for – except, of course, fear.