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Twice Upon A Story: Chapter 1 |
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Okay everyone. In case you didn't catch it in bO_Ogieman2's journal, here it is. Chapter one, new and improved. Hope you enjoy it!
Twice Upon A Story...
Have you ever had a dream so real that it's hard to believe it was ever a dream; a dream that you can feel and smell and touch and sometimes even taste as though it were undeniably true, as though it were placed in front of you for you to explore? They say these dreams have some significance to what's about to happen sometime in your life. It’s almost like a look into your future, or a warning telling you to take special precautions. Sometimes these dreams may not be as straightforward as people expect them to be, hiding the message deep inside your subconscious thought, but mine was about as straight forward as it gets. The night before my adventure began, I had a dream that a story I had begun to write came to life. This story was about a girl who had created her own little world, a fantastic world with many enchantments and magical creatures and beings, to get away from life's simple problems and escape the madness she had been experiencing in her life. This world wasn't real of course, but it was real in her eyes. Then one night she had gone to bed with her normal expectations for the morning that followed... ...but she had not expected to find what she did when she awoke. She had found herself inside her own creation, in the world where it only existed in her imagination, and there was no way out.
My dream was similar to this, only it was I who was in her place. How very strange. But that wasn't possible. No. There was nothing extraordinary about me; just an average girl, with an average life, in an average little city. I was much too ordinary. Nothing abnormal would ever happen to me.
But as I gained consciousness, this theory began to seem erroneous. The night before, I had fallen asleep on my bed while writing in my journal, lying down on my stomach and hovering over it with a pen in hand, so it was only normal that I would wake up with my head on top of the pages. This was not so. I slowly and sleepily rolled over onto my back in a fettle position and something felt wrong. Very wrong. I reached my hand out to grab my fleece blanket that sat at the foot of my bed, but as I did so, I noticed that it wasn't there, nor was the end of the bed. That’s when things got bizarre. Whatever it was that my hand was on was prickly and crunched when I moved. Do sheets crunch? I highly doubt it. But there was something else that was strange that my senses detected was different. I felt a cool breeze against my face and body. Had I left my window open last night? I don't believe I did. Who would keep a window open in the winter? Besides, if the window was truly open, the air would be bitter cold. This air was warm and crisp, not air that would suit winter weather. My heart began to race inside my chest as I slowly opened my eyes up. So slowly. I was almost afraid of what I might find when I opened them, yet so curious that I just had to know. As a blurred vision of my surroundings came into focus, I noticed that the sun was beaming down on me. At that point I did not need to open my eyes any more to realize that I was outside.
I sat up at a swift pace. My eyes were opened completely now. My long hair flung across my face as I did so. I reached back and pulled my hair back with one motion and glanced around. I was amazed at what I saw. The prickly substance that I had been lying on was fallen leaves tangled in long grass, some of which were still clinging to my hair. I was encircled by a brigade of bare trees and stubbly green grass. I must be in some kind of a forest. The only other thing there was a small pond, only small enough to fit about a dozen and a half fish. All in all, I couldn't have wished for a better place to wake up in. The question was, how did I get there. Even better, where was I? It was obvious that I was no longer anywhere near home. There would have been a foot of snow on the ground if I was. I had to be horribly far away.
I glanced at the scenery to check for any signs that there had been snow, but there was no trace of evidence. The ground was dry and chalky and there was not even an icicle in sight. It was then when I had come to the conclusion that I wasn't going to get anywhere by sitting on the ground, so I stood up, stretched my arms over my head and wiped the last of the sleep out of my eyes. I wonder what time it is, I thought. I looked down to see what time it was and saw nothing but my naked wrist. Oh right! I always take my watch off when I get home from school. This meant that my watch was still sitting on my bedside table where I could not obtain it. Oh well.
I walked over to the edge of the pond, peering down into it. I found myself staring into filthy black water. It was absolutely grotesque! There was no doubt in my mind that any sort of creature would ever live in something so dirty. I couldn't even see a single thing in the water. The only visible object I could see was my own reflection. I glared at it as though it were a mirror. Oh God! I really did look like I just woke up. I pulled the rest of the leaves out of my dirty blonde hair and tried desperately to fix my attire so I didn't look so horrid. If I was going to walk around, and I happened to run into somebody, I don't want to look ragged. I peered one more time into the water. "Well, I guess this will do for now" I said to myself. It's a good thing I had fallen asleep in my clothes. I would look ridiculous walking around in lime green pajamas. How embarrassing. I took one last look at the forest where I had woken up, absorbing the scenery as much as possible. Then I straightened up my gray sweater and brushed the dirt of the rest of my clothes. With one single huff, I ventured down a slender pathway hoping it would lead me to civilization. I was out on my own now. There was no turning back. _____ _____ ______ _____ _____ ______ ______ _____ _____ _____ _____ ______ _____ _____ _____ ______
The dirt path that I had decided to follow seemed to go on forever. I had been walking for about an hour at this point, and there wasn't a soul to be found. I was also starting to get increasingly bored with the environment. It was just miles and miles of vacant trees and short grass. The worse thing was the unbearable stench of rotting that hung in the air. It was making me sick. Although I did not know what it was coming from, I did know that I couldn't take it any longer. I had to get out of the forest. I had to do it now. So, I began sprinting down the path, the dirt flinging into the air as my heels hit the ground and shot back up. I must have ran for half a mile before my breath was shortened and I had to stop.
I paused only briefly, just long enough to catch a breather. As I leaned against a small tree, I heard something moving in front of me. I jerked backward away from the source of it and tried to find what it was coming from. My gaze fell upon two huge, yellow eyes lurking behind the bushes. It was staring at me contentedly. What ever it was, it did not move. It just stood there. I couldn't make out what the creature was, but something told me that I didn't want to find out. I froze in position, waiting for it to make a move. I half expected it to leap at me. It did not. It was like stone. What was I supposed to do? I didn't want it to come out. I had no idea if it was dangerous or not. Curious to what would happen, I slowly took a step toward it. The eyes gleamed at me and the creature moved back about an inch. The beast's piercing yellow spheres narrowed. It knew that I was up to something.
Impressed at my success, I took another step toward it. This time it was not so friendly. It growled and hissed, showing it's razor teeth at me and began to make a fuss. At the risk of being attacked by it, I started running again. This time I ran faster and harder and I did not stop. I could hear the snarling of the creature as I ran passed the cluster of trees. I thought to myself, 'Why? Why is this happening to me?'
My though process was abruptly interrupted when my foot crashed into something hard, hurtling me off my feet and onto the ground. I landed on my hands and knees with my head tilted downward at the dirt beneath me.
"What in God's name was that!" I yelled out loud. I gazed back to see a huge rock bulging out of the ground, which was now knocked out of place from the force of my foot. My foot, however, was now numb from the impact. I pulled it around to see if any damage was done to it, moving it around to make sure it wasn't broken. Luckily, the pain wasn't too bad, but I wanted to be sure that it was still functional, so I carefully stood up and flexed my ankle. Then I set it on the ground and returned to a full standing position. At least I could stand up.
I shook the blades of grass and dirt clumps off of my pants and glanced upward. I now found myself standing dumbfounded where I was. I ogled at the scenery, eyeing every inch of it. I was out of the forest at last, but what I saw was out of the ordinary. It was truly a sight for sore eyes. The rolling hills were aligned with thick pillows of white clouds. Bright colored flowers, red, purple and yellow, were scattered across the ground for as far as the eye could see. A brilliant blue ocean sat at the far right gleaming and sparkling under the light of the sun. And there, down the hill to the left, was a small village. Everything was like something out of a crazy dream. I had never seen anything like it ever in my life.
Despite the beautiful view, I knew what it was that I had to do. The message was clear to me and there was no question about it. I had to go to the village. Maybe there, I would finally find some answers.
It was for that reason that I started down the hill toward the little community. The hill was very steep . It wasn’t easy to walk down and it took me a while to get the hang of it without falling backward. That was a complicated task for me, but once I caught my balance, I could maneuver easily enough to get down in one peace.
Now I could see the village more clearly. It was an old sort of place with wood and straw houses and dirt roads coated in pebbles. It very closely resembled a town from the medieval era. This place must be very old, I thought. I wondered if anybody lived there. Probably not, but nevertheless, there was only one way to find out.
I continued forward. The grass was longer and thicker at the bottom of the hill and it tangled itself in my shoelaces. I nearly tripped twice because of this; once catching myself in mid-air, and twice, in which I was not so auspicious, twisting my ankle and falling against a patch of colossal rocks. This was more difficult that I had planned it to be. Much more.
When I had finally made it to the nearest dirt road, after my struggle on the way down the hill, I was surprised to see people strolling about. They were minding their own business and going about their daily lives . Odd. Why were people living in such old houses? It took me a minute to notice that these people were dressed in outrageously ancient clothes. The only time I've seen clothes like these were in history text books or old plays. Compared to them, I stood out like a blind man at a poker match. Nothing was making any sense!
I pondered for a moment, thinking about what I was going to do. Then at last, I took a deep breath and marched up to the closest person. It was now or never! I wasn't going to waste any more time. I was going to find some answers to this madness if it killed me! ____ _____ ____ _____ _____ ____ _____ _____ _____ ____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ ______ _
I had sauntered up to the first person my eyes fell upon. This person was an elderly man with long gray hair and a small puffy beard. He didn’t seem too happy to see me coming his way. Attempting to avoid confrontation, he abruptly turned around and began to stride away in the other direction.
"Wait!" I yelled as I ran up to him.
He did not stop. He just walked faster.
"Wait! Please! I need your help!"
I ran up the hill and planted myself in front of the man to block him from moving forward.
"Go away!" he mumbled under his breath as he turned away from me.
"Please, sir. I just want to know where I am. I’m lost. Can you help me?" I asked, trying my best to sound as pitiful as possible.
"No!" he said coldly. "Go away. I don’t know anything. I just want to go home. Move out of my way!"
He vigorously pushed me to the side, and waddled down the road to his tiny home. What a rude old bat! He couldn’t even give me some directions. Was that so much to ask? Perhaps I should try asking somebody else. As I proceeded to find another person for help, everyone on the street looked away. They were all trying to avoid me! Had I done something wrong? I mean, I knew I looked different compared to them, but that was completely irrelevant. I just wanted some guidance. Couldn’t they understand that? I started to walk in the opposite direction. I could feel their stares pierce me as I turned away from them. I glanced around one more time, but as I did so, they all turned back around as though I didn’t exist. This was hopeless.
Then I felt a hand touch my shoulder. Petrified, I screamed and whipped around to find out who it was. I found myself facing a scrawny, black-haired man with a bandage on his cheek. He jumped backward in shock.
"Oh my! Did I startle you?" he said in a seemingly worried voice.
"Kind of…" I replied, my heart pounding furiously in my chest. "…I guess."
He smiled at me. "I’m so sorry. My fault." He cleared his throat and continued. "I do believe you are in need of some assistance. This is a bad place to come for that. The people of Bartibell aren’t very pleasant to strangers."
"Bartibell?" I asked, confused.
He raised an eyebrow. "It’s the village you’re standing in. You can’t tell me you didn’t know that."
I bit my lip. I had been under so much stress the whole day and I wanted to yell at him, but he was only trying to help. I held my breath and tried stay calm. "Excuse me, but I haven’t really been here very long. I woke up in the middle of a forest and have no idea what’s going on or where I am."
He put his hand on his cheek and rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers. "I see. Where in the forest?"
I shrugged. "I don’t know. It had a nasty little pond and a path connected to the area."
His eyes widened, gleaming at me with a very peculiar stare. "My God! An off-worlder! I never thought I’d see one"
This was very perplexing. "A what?"
"An off-worlder. It means that you’re not from around here. It means that you’re from a different world."
My heart stopped. "A-a-another world!?" I said half shouting.
He clamped his hand over my mouth. "Shh!" he hissed. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. "That is not something you want to be yelling out loud, young miss!"
He glanced all around him as if he were going to cross the street. It’s was almost like he was looking to see if any cars were coming so he didn’t get run over. But there weren’t any cars around, and it’s not like he was afraid of getting hit by pedestrians. I was pretty certain he was just making sure nobody was listening in.
But then he grabbed my wrist. "Come!" he demanded. Immediately, I took offense to him treating me like a dog. I can’t stand it when people treat me like some sort of animal. It’s just not polite. I ripped my hand away from him in anger.
"How dare you treat me like…." but I didn’t have time finish what I was going to say. He snatched back my arm and pulled on it, hard.
"Come on! We can’t talk here. It’s dangerous!" he hollered.
Dangerous? What did he mean by that?
We ran all the way back down the road, my wrist enclosed in his fist. We ran out of the village, Bartibell, across the field of flowers and down another hill until we reached a small valley. Unlike the rest of this world, at least the parts that I've seen, the valley was hideous. It was covered in ugly-looking shrubbery and had barely any grass. There were patches of it here and there, but most of it was brown and dried out. The ground was as dry as a bone with cracks and small craters embedded in it. It looked like it hadn’t rained in ages. No wonder this place was so repulsive! Other than the shrubs and dead grass, there stood one nasty looking thorn bush that sat in the middle of it all.
He dragged me over to the bush and pulled me down behind it. I felt very strange crouching down behind an ugly bush with creepy middle-aged man. I was starting to get a little nervous.
Without even thinking, my questions began pouring out of me. "Why are we here? What’s dangerous? What are we doing behind this bush?"
He put his finger up to his mouth. "A little quieter, please. Do you want the whole world to here you?."
I took a breath and tried to calm myself down a bit. Then I spoke in a softer tone. "What in the world are we doing?"
"Look…" he said quietly. "…I’m not quite sure how you got here, but the truth is you don’t belong here. There haven’t been any off-worlders here for centuries, meaning that you either came here by accident or you were brought here by somebody. There has to be reasons behind it."
As I listened to this, more and more of the whole concept made less sense. It was like being trapped inside of a video game or an abstract cartoon. Or both. I had always believed that anything was possible, and this was a tad bit extreme, but I was full of questions that needed to be answered and now was a convenient time to start asking.
"So what reasons might those be?" I inquested.
He shrugged. "I have a hunch but I can’t be sure. You’ll need to talk to someone who is a lot wiser than the likes of me. Someone with experience. A sorcerer, perchance."
I grinned at the word. "A sorcerer? You mean like Merlin?"
"Who’s Merlin?"
I laughed out loud. "You’re not serious?"
He frowned. It was then that I realized he wasn’t joking. "Uh… he’s a sorcerer. Actually I’m pretty sure he’s just a myth. Just a made up character you read about in stories and fairy tales."
He said nothing. He simply stood there baffled.
I blushed a little in embarrassment. "I’m sorry. That was completely random. You probably wouldn’t understand that." I explained. "Please, go on"
He blinked at me with annoyed eyes. I felt abashed at that moment. I shouldn’t have said anything.
"Anyway" he continued. "I know where one lives. He lives just a short distance from here. I can take you there if you wish. You could probably find some answers. Other than that, there isn’t much I can do to help you."
I contemplated it. Should I go with him? Or should I try to find my way by myself? If I went with him, would he really take me to where I needed to go? There were so many questions buzzing around in my skull. But, if I didn’t go with him I’d probably get lost, or run into somebody a lot less friendlier than himself. I didn’t have much of choice. So, in spite of my desperate situation, I agreed to go with him.
He stood up, holding out his hand to help me up. I grabbed it and he yanked me up with one hard tug. He must have be quite strong. It would take a lot of muscle to do that, unless of course it was just because I weigh very little.
I noticed he was smiling at me. "You won’t be sorry, miss. You did the right thing." he said, assuringly.
"I sure hope so." I said feeling a little hesitant.
Then, something came up in my mind, hitting me fast. It was like someone had turned on a light switch. I still had a question I needed to ask him.
"Mister?" I called to him.
He turned around to face me. "Yes, Miss?"
"What is your name, sir?"
His smile grew about an inch. "My name is Horris." he said, bowing "Horris Greyhorn." His eyes glancing up at me as if he were waiting for a reply.
"Oh! I’m Eden. Eden Dawson." I replied, bowing as well.
Horris extended his body to his upright position. "Well then, Miss Dawson. I suggest we get going."
I nodded and followed him out of the valley.
Kushalyn · Fri Aug 03, 2007 @ 02:05pm · 0 Comments |
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