Tale of the Temple

Matt woke up to what was another perfect day. Another perfect day soon to be wasted by walking.

He got up and stretched his arms and looked around. Only MiMi and Palmon were up otherwise, and they were collecting fruit.

"Early time for you to be up, MiMi." The girl jumped and saw Matt.

"Oh. Yes, well, I woke up and Palmon was already awake, and so I just decided to get up."

"And now she's helping me carry fruit!" Matt grinned a little bit.

"Well, I should probably go catch some breakfast." MiMi and Palmon went back to work, pulling down fruit and chattering quietly while working.

Matt woke up Gabumon and brought the half-asleep Digimon down the river to help him catch some fish. When they got back and rekindled the fire, both MiMi and Palmon were laying and resting against a tree with a formidable pile of fruit laying near the fire. Matt raised his eyebrows.

"And you've been up how long?" Neither human nor Digimon answered. They were too tired.

"Matt, are you going to help me get these fish on sticks?," Gabumon said to Matt. Matt turned back around, squatted down, and started to lodge some of the fish onto the sticks and into the fire.

Five minutes later, the fish was cooked and the smell was arousing all of the other children and their Digimon. Each pair groggily got up and sat down beside the fire to eat.

"Who didn't sleep last night?," said Tai. Nobody answered. "Good!" Matt groaned. Tai was WAAAAAYYY to happy in the mornings. Well, at least he's not jumping around like a lunatic and yelling, "Woo hoo! Woo hoo!" Matt thought with a grin.

"This is good fish!," Biyomon said, taking another one. "How do you get them at such a perfect cooking point, Matt?"

"I took cooking in school."

"What's school?," asked the ever-curious Patamon. T.K. smiled.

"It's a place that you go and learn stuff in, like math and reading!"

"What're those things?" Everybody laughed.

"You don't need to know now, Patamon," Tai said.

After eating breakfast, the crew of sixteen packed up. Kari was still quiet because she was tired. But she still walked along calmly with Gatomon to help her stay awake.

It took them around 3 hours, but they finally found a nice place to stay just as the sky was darkened into blackness by rainclouds. They all tore like heck into the tall, majestic temple made entirely of quartzite and limestone as the rain and wind began to come down and strike the earth with harsh blows. They sat down on the hard, cold floor and looked around for the first time.

The floor was made from mixed, square quartzite and limestone slabs, about 5' by 5'. The walls were made from long, rectangular slabs, about 10 feet wide, 60 feet high. The ceiling was made from quartzite and lined with gold along the edges as it sloped up into a point. Large, obsidian statues of dragons came out from each of the walls, one high on the top of every wall. They were carved with great detail from the head to the tip of the tail. A long, quartzite staircase with a red velvet carpet led up and then split three ways - left, right, or straight. The children and Digimon were awed into silence as the levels of the temple went up and up, lined with gold and statues made from crystals and rock types. It looked as if this place had recently been abandoned.

"Wow," was all that anyone could utter.

"This must be the Temple of the Great Digimon!," said Gatomon in a hushed tone. "This is where Digimon usually go to worship a couple of dead Digimon who supposedly created the Digiworld."

"I think I can remember learning that," Palmon said.

Matt stood up and walked toward one of the statues. It was far, far up above him, so he couldn't reach it. He placed a hand on the wall.

"Hey Matt, you going to go up the stairs with us?" The teen turned around and saw the rest of the kids and their Digimon heading up the stairs. He followed, slowly, though.

They went up the stairs and left, then right, then back straight. They went into every room, every level, looked at everything. Nobody was anywhere. So they headed back down onto the stair case and all sat down.

"We searched the whole place and found nobody!"

"I didn't see Nobody."

"I meant that we didn't find a single Digimon or person here, Tentomon."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Should we even be in here?"

"What do you mean, Matt?" Matt looked up at the pointed ceiling.

"Well......I just don't feel right being here. It feels like there's somebody or something here that is watching us."

"Matt, everybody gets that feeling every once in awhile," Tai said. "Don't worry about it! I'm sure that Agumon would've told us by now that it'd be wrong." Tai glanced at his dinosaur-shaped digimon. Agumon looked at him, confused.

"Well, I'm going to go see if the rain is stopped," Matt said.

"Wait for me, Matt!," Gabumon said as the kid tramped down the velvet steps.

"Still raining. I'm getting more nervous by the second."

"Well, if it gets TOO high, you and Tai will start to fight." Matt walked back to the stairs and reported the weather. Everyone groaned except for Gomamon.

"Hey, lighten up! At least we can still talk about stuff!" Joe looked at his Digimon like he was looking at a blood-ridden shirt.

Oh, puh-LEEEZE, Gomamon Matt thought as he leaned against the railings and shut his eyes.

Or at least, he THOUGHT that he leaned up against the railings.

He felt himself falling backwards. He opened his eyes and tried to grab onto something.

Tai yelled and ran over to where Matt was and tried to grab his arm, but he missed and nearly plunged off the rail's end himself.

Matt knew that he wasn't going to be landing anytime soon, because as he looked down, he saw that the floor was rushing up at him.

T.K. was yelling for his brother.

He could hear Gabumon warp-Digivolve into MetalGarurumon and rush to catch him.

But there was the sickening crack as his head hit the floor.......

"Matt?.....Matt? Wake up, please."

I'm dreaming.

"Come on, Matt, open your eyes!"

Nobody is there.

"He's breathing, at least."

Huh?

Matt opened his eyes.

"I'm still alive?" Sora's releived face looked down on him.

"If MetalGarurumon hadn't caught you, you would have been dead. This floor is hard."

"How did the railing disappear like it did?," Matt could hear Agumon saying to Izzy.

"I haven't figured it out yet. Don't worry." T.K. was watching Matt. Matt sat up and rubbed his throbbing head.

When he pulled his fingers back in front of him there was blood covering them......

"AHH!!!"

"MATT!!! What's wrong?" Matt looked at his fingers again.

No blood.

Huh?

"There was.......blood on my fingers." Sora looked at him, then at his fingers, then at him again, confused.

"There's no blood on you."

Suddenly, a scream came from across the hall. Matt looked that way.

Kari was being held in the grasps of one of the stone dragons who had mysteriously come alive.

"Kari!!!," he yelled as he struggled to get up.

"What is it, Matt?," said Kari. Matt blinked.

Kari was standing below one of the statues, obviously not in one's grasp. Matt blinked again.

"What is it, Matt? Is something wrong?," the little girl asked again. Matt shook his head.

"I'm hallucinating.....but sounds? Does this have something to do with the temple, Izzy?," Matt asked his currently typing computer companion. Izzy didn't look up.

"I'm not sure. But right now, I don't see anything wrong with the temple."

"Nevermind, then."

"Well, what did you see?," Gatomon asked Matt. He sat down and shut his eyes.

"Well, first, when I fell off the railing, I thought that I hit the floor. I could feel my head crack. And when I said there was blood on my fingers, I swear that it was there. And then when I called Kari's name, it was because she was caught in the claws of one of those statues." He pointed to the dragon that had come alive in his hallucinations. Nobody said anything.

"Well, it's all over now, and we should eat and get some sleep!," Gabumon said to break the silence. Everyone nodded their agreement and they all sat down and ate.

Even Matt had an appetite. But he kept on wondering what all these hallucinations were about.

The fish he was holding, which had no head, suddenly started to flop around and bite him. Matt, startled, squeezed the fish. Hard. It stopped flopping and biting. Just another lousy hallucination Matt thought coldly. He finished his dinner and started to doze off.

In five minutes, all the kids had eaten and and were fast asleep.

Dark.

Matt looked at the door in front of him with wonder. This wasn't here before. Why is it here now? he thought. Curiosity overcame fear as he opened the door and looked inside.

Inside, the walls were made entirely of long slabs, first perfectly smooth obsidian, then pure white quartzite. Black, white, black, white, and so on. The carpet was covering the whole floor, and it was a deep, deep blue. Midnight blue, lined just barely on the edges with gold.

And in the very back of the room, right in the center, there was a five foot tall statue of a python, very large, and completely white. It was detailed very well, and, gripped in it's front teeth was a real black rose.

What's up with the rose? It's black, Matt thought with wonder. He walked up to it, slowly, and put his hand on the snake's nose.

Nothing.

He took hold of the black rose and pulled his hand back instantly, for he had been cut by one of the rose's thorns. After letting the skin heal, he carefully pulled the rose out of the snake's mouth.

A hiss erupted from the snake.

Matt jumped backwards, still holding the rose, and headed for the door.

But it was gone. There was no door there.

Scared, utterly frightened, Matt turned back around and watched as the white python came alive and morphed into a huge, white anaconda and slithered toward him.

He was stunned into silence.

The snake slithered nearer, hissing, bearing it's teeth.

Matt tried to move, but he couldn't. He tried to scream, but his mouth wouldn't open. He tried to hit the snake, but his arms were glued where they were.

As he stood there, watching the white snake come forward, the snake jumped on him.

It slithered around his feet, up his legs, pinned his arms to his sides, and started to wind around his neck.

That was just about when the feeling in his body came back.

He screamed.

Tai woke up with a start; someone had screamed. He looked around. Everyone was here - except Matt.

"Hey guys!! Wake up! Matt's gone!"

All the other children jumped up and ran up the stairs, where the screams were echoing from.

They suddenly stopped. The screams, I mean.

Matt tried to gasp for air, but the anaconda was tightening it's grip on his neck.

The door pounded.

Oh no..

He couldn't think anymore.

The door burst open just as his body and mind failed him......

"Matt?.....Matt? Are you awake?"

What?

"He's near dead. That snake did a good job..."

WHAT?!?!

Matt whipped open his eyes and tried to get up, but he couldn't.

"T - The snake did a good job?!," he said angrily to Tai, who fell backwards.

"I meant that it did a powerful job on you! I didn't mean that it was GOOD that you nearly died!," said the shocked boy.

Matt felt sore. He tried to move, but he couldn't.

"You got poisoned. But it wasn't that bad...," said Gabumon. Matt shut his eyes and groaned.

"Well, at least I'm alive...but how did I survive?"

Kari proceeded in telling the story about how the other seven kids heard Matt scream. They ran up the stairs, their Digimon digivolved, and they broke into the room. Matt was just about to die when they killed the anaconda and brought Matt down here.

"We thought it was too late."

So did I, Matt thought bitterly. He struggled to get up. This time, he succeded.

Dark.