Cp 4.3: Another Test?..

Aria entered the next room.

Kishhh...

Aria looked down. Sand?! It couldn't be! Aria glanced around. It was a sandstorm. Piles and piles of sand filling the room which has no boundaries. Sand was whipped into Aria's eyes, leaving poor Aria in pain. She wiped her bloodshot eyes and squinted to the limit, protecting and shielding her eyes. Everywhere she looked, all sand. She turned behind, the door was no longer there. all she see is just a storm of yellowish brown.

Aria stepped forward, fighting the gust. She struggled through the storm and came across an oasis. The storm was enclosing the space around the oasis, but the oasis was calm. There was a large lake which occupied most of the oasis. Aria ran forward and knelt by the lake. She looked into it and saw herself. She screamed and soon was embarrassed for her own foolishness. The water was cooling. Almost as cold as ice water.

'This couldn't be..'

She looked around. Nothing unusual, no one there. But she could feel as though someone is watching her. Up? No. Left? No. Right? No. Behind? Absolutely not. Down?

Suddenly, she could see bubbles at the surface of the water. Initially it was nothing, but as time passed, she could see more. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

Aria started to step backwards, further away from the water. Aria saw the amount of bubbles growing by the second.

Out of the blue, something rushed out of the water. It's gigantic size dragged a large amount of water up in the air. Water was everywhere, just like in a thunderstorm. Aria screamed and shut her eyes tightly. She gripped the sand as she fell to the ground.

As soon as the atmosphere was dry just like before, Aria opened her eyes. She looked up and her jaws were hung widely. It was no ordinary beast or some loch-ness monster. This was...beautiful. It looked like a dragon. Long beak-like nose, scaly dry skin and a long, long tail.

What caught Aria's attention wasn't it's majestic figure, but the scales on it's body. They weren't exactly scales, but solid and substantial diamonds. They glimmered gracefully in the sky as it passed through the sun. Everywhere on it's body was diamond. It soared through the sky like a phoenix in the dawn sky. Aria had a thought. She quickly rushed to the lake and dipped her finger into the water.

It was warm. No more icy-cold.