Fields

Chapter One

I sat on my fluffy red comforter. A glowing black phone was positioned in front of my slender nose on the bed. It was opened up onto Instagram. I was currently scrolling for hilarious pictures of cats and dogs to reshare to my distant internet friends. A dim light was positioned over my head. It was night in central England; snow decorated the steep peaks and rolling valleys like icing on gigantean cookies of land. The cold was biting at pedestrians, chasing after them deliberately as they ran away. I lived in a flat above an old timey gray tiled road. My flat was a boring shade of brown with dull green metal gutters running along the top edges into vertical rectangular tubes that loaded the water into brown plank barrels encircled by binds if gray metal. A few windows decorated the box-like building. My bed looked out of the window, so I could see the rusty passing cars.

I belonged to a poor family consisting of my mother alone. She was a plump woman of about forty years. Her expression was soft but her face was rigid. She had amber hair pulled back into a lazy loose bun, much like my cinnamon hair dangling down in flowing locks. Her eyes were brown, but mine were a stunning peppermint green. She was a pretty lazy person; a procrastinator. My mother worked as an importer from North America, usually bringing in glorious cheese crackers, succulent chocolate cookies, and several orange wafers that tasted like cream. That's right. We're going on a business trip next Friday. I sighed and rolled my eyes at no one. Pulling out ridiculous hot pink headphones, I plugged them into the audio jack and blasted my consulting music. It calmed me a little. The business trip was no doubt a boring, lagging trek that I would not appreciate. Good thing I had this music. I lifted my lower legs up into the air, swaying them to the beat of the jostling tune.

"Cassandra!" I heard a startling yell from downstairs. I yanked out my headphones and bolted down the waxed stairs, almost slipping violently. I emerged in the filthy kitchen. Dozens of newspapers littered the room, some neatly stacked on hidden chairs and some crinkled into deformed lumps on the smooth tiled floor. Dirty cups and plates covered the wooden countertops. A tiny table for two people stood in one corner. My mother stood patiently by it, hand on the rough wooden surface. "What?" I replied tersely, my hair hiding my face. "You need to pack for the trip," she explained, nodding towards a small closet that contained a dusty hard-shelled luggage. I strolled over to the door, opening it and withdrawing the stiff luggage. I popped back to my room and started to pack my clothes from a dark brown dresser. It was quite a boring process, for a trip I didn't want to go on. I finished after an hour or so and lay back down on my bed, staring blankly up at my white ceiling. After a while I fell into a light sleep, still seemingly half awake.

I was positioned at the end of a dark hall. Dark oak planks landscaped the floor. A table cloaked in shadows stood at the other end of the tiny hall. The ends of the narrow room seemed to be solid walls of ever changing swirls of darkness. I seemed to be frozen in fear. As I hesitantly took a single step forward, an eerie cloud of darkness puffed out of the wall and grasped my torso. I screamed as it dragged me slowly into the mouth of blackness. Darkness wrapped around me, engulfing me in a thick, black liquid. My breath faltered. Deformed circles that were bubbles hung suspended in the thick jelly. The liquid flowed up my nostrils, causing me to cough. My hair billowed out around me, seeming oblivious to the jelly surrounding it. Suddenly the dim bubbles swirled around my body, disturbed by something. I squinted, my eyes burning wildly. The bubbles headed in front of me, forming a lizard like creature. It appeared to be standing on two legs. A wicked grin appeared as the horrifying creature smiled. It rushed towards me, a daunting blizzard of flowing bubbles. It reminded me of carbonated soda. The bubbles whipped past my face, some making contact and stinging my skin. I screamed again, inhaling gallons of the black jelly. White dots lined my eyes. The monster reformed and stampeded at me again.

This time I dodged readily, sinking deeper into the dark muck. Bubbles stormed over my head. I swam through the liquid, trying to reach the distant hall. Light filtered through the liquid as I neared the room. The angry bubbles turned around and rushed towards me once again. They hit me solidly and I flew out across the chilling boarded floor of the hall. I whipped around. A smooth face made of black jelly stared back down at me. It was an alien face, with wide, flat horns decked in top of its head. The head was a bit flat and was triangle shaped. The face had no eyes, nose, or ears, but had a large drooping opening that was a mouth. It almost touched the floor. A thin body supported the head. It was hunched forward, looking down at its prey. Shining black claws folded inwards toward the palm. Huge clawed feet supported thick legs.