Gwen

Disclaimer: This is a short story so I decided to publish it in one part. It is long and I would say takes about an hour to read. The word count is 8113 and in google docs it is 32 pages long.

My name is Annalise Griffin and I did not think I was going to die like this. 

(Rewind 60 years.) 

The sun is streaming in on my face and I know I should get up but.... I try to roll over to try and get away from the light and feel someone beside me. This discovery brings me a little further out of my sleep stupor and I open my eyes. It is just my best friend Gwen. I try to roll the other way and feel myself falling; I land with a thump on the floor of the living room all tangled up in the blankets . We must have fallen asleep on the sofa. Gwen rolls over so she is laying on the edge of the sofa and looks down at me. "Why are you hogging all the sheets? '' she says and tries to pull them off me but I am very tangled and she only succeeds in pulling herself off the couch. Gwen lands on the floor beside me and lets out a little wine. "What time is it? "she asks. I look over at the clock but my sleep clogged eyes can not make out the numbers on its face. We lay there for a few moments. Gwen has managed to pull some of the sheets off of me and is trying to make herself comfortable when my mother comes in. My mother is a beast of a woman. She is tall and imposing this effect is made even more prominent by her insistence on wearing a 1869 style dress and wig. In the Mirror Realm (that's where we live all the other world circle around use The Mirror Realm is the center of all the know universe)all styles of dress are used all the way back to medieval times but my mother still takes things to a bit of an extreme. My mother stands with her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. You young ladies are far too old to be laying on the floor like children. My mother takes no nonsense from anyone, even my father will bend under her stern gaze. I wish I could stand up to her to tell her what I want but I know I will never do that, I am a coward and I know it but I do fear my mother. I lay on the floor for a few more seconds and then push myself up. My mother sees that I have obeyed her turns and walks out the door and back into the kitchen. I sit with my back against the back of the sofa and Gwen sits up and puts her head on my shoulder. I have known Gwen since we were 4 years old. We met in school. I saw her for the first time across the classroom. She was in the process of throwing a tantrum over the fact that she must share the blocks. I knew at once this was a girl I wanted to be friends with. She seemed so determined and like she knew exactly what she wanted and where she was going. So the next day I walked up to her and put out my little chubby 4 year old hand and said "my name is Annalise and I am going to be friends with you". I am not going to lie and say we were bosom buddies from then on. Oh no that first day when I asked her to be friends with me Gwen threw a toy at me and told me to " get lost "(her words not mine). I was a stupid little blighter and persisted and in the end she just stopped refusing me. From then on we continued to have our fights but I think that's what made our friendship so strong we could say all sorts of horrible things to each when we were mad, but other if another person did even the slightest thing to upset Gwen or I; even if we were having the worst of fights we would always be there for each other. And in the end we always made up and kept right on being friends like nothing had ever happened.

I got up off the floor and walked across the plush carpet and into the dining room. The servants were just finishing putting the last of the breakfast out. Gwen and I fell on it like hungry wolves. A night of laughing, playing games, and drinking will do that to a body. Once we had satisfied our hunger we walked up to my room. My family lived in a large house by anyone's standards. My father was a rich man. All his wealth had been inherited from his grandfather 20 years ago, before that my mother and father had been dirt poor. I have never known the life of someone who does not have anything and I know I am very privileged. I try to have sympathy for people with less, but I just can't. I know It makes me a rotten person but I can feel little sympathy for them; If they just tried a little harder they could have all the things I had. My room is large and full of clothes. I have clothes from almost every decade of fashion. Gwen helps me get into the 1765 style of dress. I then help her pick an outfit she ends up in a 1831 style with the large puffed sleeve's that fall from the shoulder. We then head back down the stairs to where the rest of my family is waiting. Today we are going to the Flying Circus. In the Mirror Realm there are all kinds of things that would be impossible anywhere else. This is because the laws of other world's do not apply here. If you can convince yourself and a few other people that something is possible then it is. We have flying boats and magic. Our planet is a large flat disk with a huge lake on the surface. The water is always pouring off the side but through some magic the water never runs out. Underneath the floating island is Undertown; this is where anyone not rich enough to live with their betters on the surface lives. Undertown hangs suspended underneath the island with a series of chains, ropes and pulleys. Scattered around the huge surface of the lake are 25 islands of varying sizes. These islands are so far apart that most people take a teleporter that brings them from one island to another in about 5-15 seconds depending on how far the island is away. And the island's themselves are huge and there are still parts of them no one has bothered to explore because there is no reason for it. Those unexplored parts of the islands have become very dangerous and deadly because of the Dorgons. Dorgons have a vaguely human shape but they have huge black eyes, and huge gaping mouths with rows of razor sharp teeth. They are unnaturally tall and they seem to have no joints and move in a very loose and swinging fashion; there movements are  more frightening than if they had proper control over their limbs, and stalked towards you like a wolf. I had at this time only seen a few Dorgons and never seen them attack much less been the victim of an attack. The Dorgons almost never attack the Abovers, the Dorgons go for the people in Undertown. It is a pity really but not worth dwelling in or you make yourself sad and there is really nothing you can do about it, or that's is what my mother says.