Hello, please read the author's note at the bottom.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Underland Chronicles. Suzanne Collins does.

Chapter One: The Tortuoring Nightmares

"Come on, Gregor, we almost have him," Ripred called.

Gregor blew a huff of breath. He knew they almost had him. He was not as stupid as Ripred gave him credit for.

"I don't understand why I couldn't fly with Ares and let Ripred let search on foot through the ruins of the starshade field." Gregor thought as he stumbled over trampled ant carcases that were splattered with harmless purple goup.

As if reading his mind, Ripred yelled to the ever falling behind Gregor, "That idiot bat of yours would have been a lot of help to you, considering you can't even keep pace with a crawler."

And it was true. As a massive wave of thousands of crawlers swarmed him and the Gnawer, they over came Gregor with ease. Something caught Gregor's eye. When he turned to look he almost fell over with how quickly he stopped. Out of nowhere, his younger sister, Boots, was riding on the back of a familiar cockroach with a bent antenna.

"Boots what are you doing here on Temp?" Gregor questioned through the never ceasing wave of crawlers. "You need to get out of here! It is dangerous! I thought I left you with Duclet?"

Boots, who was suddenly her two-year-old self, screamed gleefully "Ge-go, play ball wif Temp and me!"

Out of the blue the giant hisser, Frill, reared out of nowhere on it's hind legs displaying it's multicolored ruff it opened its monstrous mouth and a rubber ball shot out, covered with hisser spit, and hit Gregor squarely on his chest.

Gregor was no longer chasing after Ripred in the ruined field of starshade, but now found himself freefalling over the edge of one of the boats that had been taken on the journey to kill the Bane. With a thump, Gregor landed on the back of a large black and white striped bat, Nike.

"Do not fret, Oh Mighty Warrior, the Princess of the Fliers has willingly saved you from your ultimate destruction." She announced pride swelled her voice making it loud enough to be heard across all of Regalia. She swept him up to a cave in side of a long dark tunnel. It was dank and smelt of rotten eggs.

"Egghh" moaned Gregor as the sulfurous liquid dripped down the walls. He needed to get away from this. The fluid was horrible and could bring disease in days. Gregor had to get back home. Back to Regalia. Back to Ripred. Back to the rat, and with those thoughts, Gregor found the ground melting away from his body, leaving him erect within the air for a few seconds before the sensation of falling could be formed.

Plummeting, twisting and turning in the air so he would land face down on Ares. He could reach a glimpse of the sharp and jagged cliffs and rocks racing towards him form the bottom of the gorge. He wished that Ares would hurry to catch him. He waited and worried as the distance from the sharp rocks waiting to impale him, halved.

"Ares?" Gregor called. "Ares, where are you? Don't leave me to die!" With the last word, it hit him.

Die. Dying. Death. Dead. That is what Ares is. ARES WAS DEAD. And Gregor was soon to join him.

"NOOOOOOO!" Screamed Gregor as his chest split in a million pieces, coming in contact with the rocks.

It was just a dream. Another Torturing Nightmare.

Hello, I am AssassinAuthor.

I want to say I will always have the author's notes at the bottom. This is a short chapter, I know, but I will try to update once a week. I will not beg for reviews but they are nice and I will consider everything said in them. Plus I will update faster :)

Thanks for reading,

~AssassinAuthor