Thoughts of a Sprite

Thursday, June 30, 2005

A World Not Her Own

After a really wierd dream, and some prompting from a good friend, the begining of a short story I have to share. Hope you enjoy... will get to working on part two soon.

It started out an ordinary afternoon, school in the morning, work there after, and a bit of channel surfing to relax at the end of a long day. Not really paying attention to the whirls of color flipping by on the tube, Alyssa was mindlessly pressing the channel button while contemplating life, and just how mundane it has become. The voices talking out from the boob tube, never got to finish a sentence before new voices rang out. Alyssa's thoughts dwelled on how routine everything had become, and wished for a bit of an adventure. Careful what you wish for.

All of the sudden Alyssa cried, "Ouch," a weird pain with no apparent source radiated through her body, and the world as she knew seemed to disappear around her, in a blur of colors, and a swirl of confusion. New surroundings, darker and somehow scarier, rushed towards her becoming clearer and clearer until at once she knew she was in a forest of some sort, but where and how? Looking around, she knew in the pit of her stomach that she was not safe, that she was not anyplace that she had ever been before. In her hands she still gripped the television remote, so tightly that her knuckles were white. She does not know why, but somehow this remote has taken on new important characteristics. Perhaps this is just her imagination running wild, or maybe because it ties into where she was before this crazy fiasco started. "It is just a dream. I must have dozed off on the couch..." Alyssa thought, though she knew in her heart it was not.

Quit confused, Alyssa sees the blurry outline of two other figures appear out of nothing, not far from where she first came into this strange yet fascinating place. A boy and a man, looking as startled as she felt, now stood before her. "Where are we?" asked the boy. "I... I am not sure," answered the man in a bit of a panic. Just as they were about to address Alyssa with this question, when there was an eerie, lonesome, yet somehow hungry howl in the distance. Alyssa got chills, and immediately identified this as the fear she felt when she first arrived in this strange new place. She looked at the little boy and said, "Run!"

Without looking back, or even knowing what it was that she was running from Alyssa took off like a shot. She clutched her remote in her fist as she ran, feeling the weight of importance that it possessed. Not knowing where she was going, she kept running, as fast and hard as she could. More howling arose, a little closer now, and many more in number. There was a clearing in the woods up ahead, and when she got there she stopped dead in her tracks, for this was the first she could see of the sky. It was then she knew she was no longer in her own world, for there in the sky she could see three moons. In a flash Alyssa forgot all about the impeding danger. She had never seen a sky so beautiful.

One of the moons, was as full as she had ever seen, and it glowed in a breathtaking blue huge. It looked as though God had hung a huge blue sapphire in the night sky, and was holding a light behind it. This moon illuminated everything in sight as though you were looking through blue lenses. The other two moons were partially hidden by the tree line, one appeared to be just rising, and the other an hour or so ahead of it, they were huge and beautiful in their own right. Snapping back into reality, she heard a painful scream. This time it was not a howl, but a human scream, a young one. She knew that whatever was chasing them had gotten the boy. Heart pounding, feet slapping the damp earth beneath her, Alyssa realized she was running again. The moons gave off ample light, but it was hard to hear anything but raw fear rushing through her veins. It is unknown how far or how long Alyssa ran for, but soon enough she can to a stream.

Quickly, thoughts flew through her mind, "Well if they are wolves, then I must go into the water, they will surely loose my scent." She knew it was more than wolves that hunted her; but she dove in the water anyways. "I should swim upstream, because they would expect me to swim with the current... they who, wolves cannot think like humans, Alyssa get a grip, you are losing your mind woman, snap out of it." Fighting the current was not hard for Alyssa as she had been a swimmer all her life, she would not even break a sweet. Alyssa's thoughts drifted to the girl's swim team she was currently coaching, and she wondered if she would ever see them again. "Of course I will, keep it together now!" she thought to herself. After swimming for what seemed an eternity, she was creeping up on a quant little stone bridge that crossed the stream at what seemed its most narrow area. Along the bank Alyssa noticed reeds, hollow and tall enough that she could breathe while under water. A plan was forming in her head.

Just in time, she breaks the read as close to the root as possible, gives it a couple of good blows in case a bug had made its home inside, found a nice rock to anchor to, and hid herself in the shadow of the bridge underwater. She could hear the howls of the hunting party getting closer, and they were soon visible along the bank, rounding the curve that she had minutes before swam round. "Impossible," she thought, "how can they have kept my scent, I swam so far..." There were only a few shadowy figures coming near the bridge. "Just scouts I bet" she thought in a relief. From far away, they did indeed look to be ordinary wolves, but as they drew nearer, she could see that they were larger and more beautiful, and threatening all at the same time. Just then a cloud drifted in front of the large blue moon, giving her the cover of darkness as well. Though she was under water, she could hear everything, the current pushing past her, the crickets chirping, the wind rustling in the trees. She thought her breatingh must be as loud as the thunderous crash of a water fall.

The creatures were so close now, Alyssa was sure that they would see her, and then they stopped. What happened next, amazed her so, that she almost gave up her position. The large silver wolf turned to the other and spoke, "Ah, we've lost her Drezdin! Why is it we always get sent on the impossible routes? Everyone knows the girl swam with the current, she'd cover more ground that way, sides 'umans can't swim like fish."

With a low throaty growl the brown wolf replied, "Shut up Smite and put your snout to good use, you heard Adrenzia, no one sleeps or feeds until we find the other two and we haven’t got much time left for the full moon sets. "

"But I'm hungry, and we lost her scent a mile down stream.." Smite mumbled as they headed upstream.

Just then, another blood curdling scream was heard echoing through the forest, and Smite and Drezdin took off towards the scream, back the way they came. "Two down, one to go," thought Alyssa miserably. She drug her self out of the water, the sweet air bursting into her lungs has never felt so refreshing. Scanning the tree line in front of her, she found a thinner area of the woods, all the while contemplating, "How in the world did these beasts speak, and with some type of reason?" Her thoughts reeled back to the conversation she heard, and it hit her. "Werewolves, they must be werewolves, what with all the talk of the full moon. But how? There is no such animal, only in fairytales." She knew that she as safe for the moment, but should stay on the move. Looking down at the remote still clutched in her hand, she realized that it must be ruined now, but still she felt it had some importance. Silly really, perhaps it just reminded her of home. Putting the remote in her cargo pocket, she jogged towards the woods.

To Be Continued...

shes_a_sprite @ 2:48 PM.

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