The Darkened World

Amåm

Sarah was walking, big surprise there, when she heard a sound of something falling. It almost sounded like a bomb coming at her. Looking up, she saw a large, dark shape heading at a rapid speed towards her. She was just about to spring away when something barreled into her and knocked her out of harm's way.

Just as she hit the earth, the large object did as well, apparently it had been falling faster than she thought and, if someone had not saved her, she would have gotten flattened by what appeared to be a heavily armed bird...or something that vaguely resembled a bird. She was unsure if it was actually alive or if it was something that had been thrown out of the goblin castle. 

"Damn you, gravity!" Cussed the bird like creature, which answered her question if it was alive. The bird thing appeared to have no feathers, but small hairs under an assortment of items that looked like feathers and appeared to be held on to the creature by a foul smelling glue. While the stench was not quite as bad as the bog, it was still terrible, but bearable. The only way Sarah could think to describe it was to say that it smelled as if someone had lit a used diaper on fire and then used that fire to summon Satan. 

"Gah! Got outta here!" Shouted a familiar voice and, for the first time, Sarah gave thought to her rescuer. The rescuer who was a short, familiar dwarf with a net of baubles hanging from his belt. 

"Hoggle!" Sarah cried, with delight, as the dwarf shooed the bird away. The bird, while looking disgruntled, began to take off. Or tried to, apparently, it was a poor flier and took several practice runs before it actually made it off the ground. Sarah instinctively ducked as it took to the air and prayed that she would never have another encounter with such a creature.

"Hoggle, what was that?" Sarah only wanted to know so she could avoid ever meeting another in the future.

"It was a amåm. They are terrible flier and almost alway fatal if it lands on ya." Hoggle said as he helped Sarah to her feet and she dimly realized she had, once more, fallen.

"Oh, thank you, but how did you find me?" Sarah asked as she looked at her friend. She had thought that he was outside the labyrinth.

"I was tending to the blasted fairies in the glass garden when I saw the damn bird and then some of the garden gave way and I seen you." Hoggle explained in his gruff way as he motioned for her to follow. Sarah, who had been about to follow anyways, hurried after as he led her out of the large garden.

"I know you told me not to come back, but I didn't have a choice and now I have to find something that I lost last time." Sarah said as she followed after the dwarf. He didn't smell as bad as she thought, but there was a definite stench that hung about him. Yet it was not nearly as bad as the bird thingie, which is what Sarah had decided to call it since she could not bare to call it whatever Hoggle called it. Such a creature did not deserve a name, even a strange sounding one. It should just be called the heavily armed devil bird and be done with. 

"Shushs! Don' say anythin until I says so!" Hoggle ordered as he took her hand and led her through the hedge maze and towards a little hut. Once inside the hut, Hoggle shut the door, and walked over towards a small wardrobe. He moved the wardrobe and motioned her into the smaller room that it hid.

"This is...kinda creepy, Hoggle, I'm not going to lie." Sarah said as she watched Hoggle close the wardrobe behind them and then took a seat on one of the small benches that filled the small room. The room, though tiny, held three small benches, a cabinet, and a small store of what Sarah could only assume was dried fruits. It was, through and through, a dooms day bunker.  

Sarah wondered if, when she got back to her world, she should invest in such a thing. Toby could help her dig it in the back yard and she could make him run through drills of what should happen in case a vengeful Goblin King appeared on the front porch. Good gods, Sarah would pay to see the Goblin King be pitied against Karen, it would be, almost, worth having to tell her parents about how she knew him.