Keep On: Cassandra's Tangled Journey

Heart rate intensifying by the minute, Cassandra stepped towards the newly unlocked door on the bottom floor of the Castle of Illusion. She clenched her teeth and squinted her eyes, preparing to be jump scared by whatever whacky shenanigans she would encounter in the first of the five worlds Sabrina had calibrated. However, Cassandra did, in fact, end up being taken by surprise, but not for the reason she was expecting. 

Basing her assumptions directly off of what Sabrina had teased, Cassandra was expecting the area behind the grand chestnut door to be some sort of death trap haunted house or a beach that caused rapid aging, but instead, she found herself standing in a forest, similar to the one she had wandered through merely minutes ago, but still distinctly different. The area seemed darker, the only source of light being the thin beams of sunlight peering through the aspen leaves attached to the branches of the majestic oak trees that made up the woods. Red and white roses populated the space between the olive-green grass that bordered the dry cracked dirt path, which would presumably lead Cassandra through this new universe.

Cassandra took a few steps along the path, elbows pressed against her chest with her hands facing outwards, keeping on-edge in preparation for any more nutcrackers to come flying at her from any direction. But all she could see on the road ahead were some toadstools. Cassandra had never been the biggest fan of mushrooms, she would always pick them out of her food, even as an adult. The reason for this was because growing up, her teachers told her that toadstools were inhabited by fairies and elves, and as a result Cassandra always felt an uncomfortable amount of guilt whenever she came across them and found that they were being chopped up or mistreated. Another reason- the main reason- was the fact that she just genuinely didn't like the taste of them. 

But now, Cassandra was faced with three of them in a line. Her first instinct was to let them walk past her, just like the nutcracker had, but after a few seconds she realised that the toadstools were remaining in one place. They were still alive- or seemed to be, Cassandra knew that they were most likely being controlled by Sabrina. They were just bouncing up and down with the flexibility of a stress toy. Cassandra tried to walk around the first one, just like she used to do when she was six, but found that she physically could not go around the mushroom. It was as if Sabrina wanted Cassandra to go over the obstacle. Come on Cassandra, she told herself, it's not real, there are no elves or fairies living in there, just jump. Cassandra quickly shut her eyes. She couldn't bear to watch the rubbery object with the bright red top and white polka dots stretching up and down with the suction cup sound, it was starting to make her feel sick. With all of her might, Cassandra lifted herself up off of the ground, and firmly landed on the ruby-red hood of the oversized mushroom. 

And so, the giant toadstool disappeared with a pop. But instead of landing softly on the ground, Cassandra found herself being launched further into the air. Guess this toadstool is a springboard in itself, she thought to herself as she got closer to the second shroom. Once again, she was catapulted further into the air, as she was flung towards the third and final toadstool. Cassandra glanced behind her and found that all three of the obstacles had been evaporated, and the path was clear. She wished it was the same for all of the paths ahead, but she assumed that if she can make the illusions disappear just by jumping on them, the the quest to collect the seven rainbow gems would be a piece of cake from here on out.

After scaling a thick log placed lengthways that was blocking the path, Cassandra came across the next of Sabrina's illusions; a tiny timber that was also, of course, alive. As it inched closer to her, Cassandra jumped down from the log and quickly noticed that though tree was shorter than most of the ones in this forest, it was still too tall for her to be able to jump onto from the springboard, so she just decided to take a step back onto the log and then jump on the tree, which disappeared as well the second she landed on its fern-covered head. Three more trees later and one again, the path was clear for a very short distance.