Fable

Chapter Four

When Ella came to, her body was flushed. For just a moment, she felt the itch of warm sweat on her skin before she realized that she was actually, in fact, quite cold. The library isn't cold, she thought. She opened her eyes and found gray sky where the ceiling should have been. In the distance instead of bookshelves were dark, snowcapped mountains. Directly in front of her were several large men murmuring amongst themselves, and behind them were hundreds of others - men, women, and children of all ages - just staring at her.

Ella screeched and felt the ground move as hundreds of strangers took one giant step backward at the unexpected sound. The men in front shoved one of their friends forward and Ella's chest heaved faster than she could catch her breath. She could feel herself beginning to faint again.

No... you don't know what they'll do to you if you pass out again. She focused on trying to catch her breath and watched as the man the others had pushed forward turned around to argue. Her ears were still ringing from the threat of oncoming unconsciousness, so she had no idea what he or anyone else was saying. Ella breathed as slowly as she could, repeating the mantra "in through your nose, out through your mouth" in her head over and over again. It was one thing to calm herself down from a panic attack over something minor - but passing out and waking up somewhere totally different, surrounded by complete strangers was enough to make the calmest human alive freak out.

"What the fuck happened," she said out loud, beginning to feel the hardness of the dirt and rocks beneath her, and a steady ache throughout the majority of her body. She began to hear words and comprehend what the group in front of her was saying. Things like "are you sure she didn't sneak in?" and "you really saw her fall?" were being repeated often, along with "what should we do?" and "I'm not doing it."

Finally a man - the smallest of the group, but still towering compared to her - stepped forward with hands held out as if she were a cornered animal. His shirt billowed away from his body, making him seem even larger, and Ella had the insane notion to find its resemblance to a pirate costume amusing, despite everything else going on. His pale hair was lopped off at the shoulder and tucked behind his ears like a girl's, and Ella couldn't help but decide he didn't exactly look like someone who would do terrible things to her.

Her panic eased a fraction of an inch away from hysteria.

The man kneeled in front of her, careful to keep his distance but also remain close enough to hear. He reached into a pocket in his shirt and handed her a handkerchief with flowers on it; Ella held it white-knuckled in her hand. "Do you have any idea what happened?" he asked. "Do you know where you came from?"

"I passed out and woke up here!" she screeched, causing everyone but the blonde pirate to take a step backward again. "Please. I don't understand." She started to blubber, her panic reaching another high.

"What happened before you passed out?" he asked gently. Ella snapped back to reality then, remembering the music and the book's strange behavior.

"It was the picture book," she stated, and the man's eyebrows creased. "It was making music. It snapped at me the other day, and I thought it had decided it liked me because it was playing music. I went to go see why and I touched the page and-" Ella stopped, realizing how ridiculous her story sounded. "What happened?" she whimpered, the incredibly odd reality that she was very, very far from home beginning to set in.

The murmurs of the crowd behind the man grew louder as they collectively inched closer once more. The words prophecy and chosen one reached her ears, louder than all the rest. Ella could feel the energy of the crowd shift from fearful to frenzied as they began to close in on her and the man in front of her. Their voices rose to a deafening level as people began to touch her.