Page 104 of Barbie: Dreamscape

There’s nothing you can do.

A smile begins to crawl across my face.

Because that might have worked before… but I’m a different person now.

“No,” I say out loud. “Nothing can tell me what I am or what I’m not.” My voice grows stronger still, even as the water overtakes me. My neck strains, and I choke out the last few words. “Fate isn’t final. Neither is failure. Neither are you,” I tell the darkness.

Then, with all the focus and strength and confidence I’ve uncovered these past few weeks, I fill myself with all the things that make me me, and make life strange—

And I unleash.

Pink magic shines from every inch of my skin, through the armor, cutting right through the impending night, and the metal shackles—they shatter. The water evaporates, turning into mist.

The darkness scatters. I break through all the shadows left until I’m soaring to meet Robin, gripping her cold hands with my own, giving her some of my warmth.

Her eyes are still wide. Still fighting the chaos within.

“Release your hold on magic, Robin,” I say as scraps of shadows start growing again, their edges coming together. “Release it. Release us all.” My voice breaks. “Please.”

With my focus on Robin, I don’t see it coming. It’s too quick. Too quiet. The darkness rallies and attacks from each corner, all at once, in a final, brutal strike, and by the time I notice, it’s too late.

Four sword-shaped shadows are hurling toward me, their sharp edges aimed for my chest, as if to split me into pieces. My grip on Robin’s hands loosens. I close my eyes, waiting to feel the avalanche of pain. The light within me finally going out. The rush of regret.

It never arrives.

I open my eyes again only to find Robin’s arms raised, trembling with strain. The shadow swords are just inches from my skin, quivering in defiance. Trying and fighting to reach me.

She’s saving me.

The wind roars behind her; the shadows rage. The school shakes, rock raining down, the fell magic taking one last stand.

It wants to ruin. It wants to destroy. If it can’t control Robin and her magic and her school and her land…

It would rather see it all turned to dust.

No.

My friends are up there, keeping the birds at bay. They helped me, even when it would’ve been so much easier for them to just leave the second they had the chance.

My mom. She didn’t cower. She fought for the place she loved. She gave her life to save everyone else. To save me.

Now those same walls she fought to protect are coming down. I hear it, the crumbling of stone high above. Have entire floors been reduced to rubble? Have all the towers fallen?

Robin’s eyes flash with fear. She looks terrified now, the fell magic banished from where it had taken up inside her head. This is her school; everything she loves. Her own magic is now taking it down, brick by brick. She’s trying to regain power over it.

It isn’t working.

A vein bulges on her forehead, the strain too great. The darkness too strong for her to fight alone.

But she isn’t alone.

I lift my arms now, too, until our palms are just inches apart…

And between them, a deeper, more saturated shade of pink begins to form, one born not just of cotton candy paradise and perfectly shaped dreams, but of reality, of the nuances of everyone and everything and every shade of what life brings.

It bleeds bold and fierce, glimmering brightly, until it spreads beyond our hands, into a cloud of power encapsulating us both.

The shadows and storm launch forward, hitting us with the force of a thousand blades.