Insomnia Wake #Wattys2016

Chapter 25 - Ariel's Bubble Trail: Part 1

"Ariel! Fetch some water please!"

"Ariel! Peel the potatoes for me will you?"

"Ariel!"

"Yes mother," she replied each and every time. It was tough living how her family did, but Ariel had no problem doing her part. Yes, it was tiring, but wasn't everything?

The girl with long brown hair did her best everyday, without a bit of complaining. It's just how things were when you lived at the bottom of the economic ladder. She looked at all her split ends and shrugged.

However complacent she was with her reality, however, was fading away gradually. Her town was gradually all falling ill, and her father was among the victims of the disease sweeping the nation. As much as it tore her apart though, she knew that there wasn't much she could do about it.

Then the day came. The day when the nobility passed through the town. They came unannounced, but certainly not quietly. The loud claps of the horses' hooves on the dirt clod filled streets signalled everyone that something strange was going on. Heads poked out of windows to see what was the matter.

This was the first time that Ariel had seen how the top of the pyramid lived. She looked out at the man and woman in the coach, and saw in comparison to them the disparity that she lived in.

They had clean, beautiful and handcrafted clothing. She had dirty, average rags to call clothes. They had the freedom to travel at their leisure, while the furthest Ariel had been out from town was an hour's walking distance. They didn't look like they were touched by disease's fingers, yet the town around them was rotting away.

And they had all of this at the expense of those who tilled their fields: the people like Ariel's family.

She felt the life drain from her body as she saw how differently she could be living. If the world was dull before, now it was rusty and unwanted.

After they passed, she was feeling empty. While the other girls were admiring the wonderful clothes that the noble woman had worn, all she could see were the worn down rags that she wore.

"I'm going out for a bit mom," she said as she passed across the one room building.

"Okay, but only for a bit. Your father will need some help with cleaning his skin when you get back."

Her father saw the look that Ariel wore though. "Na, I can wait. Give the girl some space."

Ariel nodded thanks to her parents. She wrapped up her hair in the rag that she called her bonnet and walked outside.

She climbed up the hill on the side of town. Up there, at the top, was her favorite spot to go relax, when possible. There was a singular tree at the top, and she would sit under its shade for as long as she could afford too.

She made it to the top and laid back against the tree's bark. She sighed.

Is this all the world has to offer? Where's the fun, the adventure, in life? Why can't the excitement be mine too?

She looked out from her vantage point onto the town that she had lived in all her life. Rundown shacks littered the ground in no particular order, and almost everything was either brown or black. At least the fields surrounding the town had some color, so normally she would look out onto them, but not today. Soon they would be tended by everyone and cleaned of all their vegetation anyways. Instead, she looked at the dreary life she had been dished and closed her eyes.

What's beyond this wasteland?

-----

She awoke from her accidental nap and immediately shielded her eyes from the harsh sun. Her eyes adjusted to the new landscape. She couldn't believe what she was looking at.

She stood up quickly, casting sand to the ground and across it. She was in the middle of a desert.

She whimpered a little, not seeing anything but sand dunes for as long as she could see. This was actually the first time she had seen a measurable quantity of sand, and the feeling of it all was overwhelming. She struggled to comprehend where she was or how she got there.

One thing she knew, and that was that it was hot. She reached up to take off her bonnet, but it wasn't there. Instead, her hair was tied up somehow. Startled once again, she pulled her hair out in front of her. Her jaw dropped.

Instead of the usual shade of brown, her hair was a beautiful shade of blue that reminded her of the color of the sky. She ran her fingers up it to make sure that it was connected to her hair and was indeed hers, only to find that it was. She looked at her shoulder and found something interesting there as well.

Her clothes had changed! She was actually wearing real clothing! She looked at herself up and down, unable to believe her change in fate. She had a stunning dress on, one with shades of blue and white striped about, and it stopped just above her knees. She had never seen anything like it before, but it just kind of felt right. She definitely wasn't jealous of the noble woman that had passed through her town earlier.

On that note of her town, where was she? What was going on?

She yelled for help, but no one came. The glee of her new circumstances quickly wore off, and she grew terrified. She felt like she was going to die here in the desert. She quickly contemplated her possible actions, and settled on the only thing she could do: walk. She would walk until she could hopefully find another human being.

She wandered on the best she could, but she was losing hope. She wasn't getting tired, or, surprisingly, thirsty, but she still felt helpless. She saw a particularly tall dune, so she decided it would be a good idea to attempt to see more from that point. When she got up there, she was amazed at what she could see. Not too far from where she stood, there was a massive crater in the sand, and there looked to be something at the bottom of it.

It was a lead, so she quickly got excited then ran off towards it. It was a strange feeling, as no matter how long she ran, she didn't get tired. It wasn't that she was particularly athletic, as she wasn't, but rather it was something else. She chose to ignore this fact however and charged forward.

When she reached the edge of the crater she practically slipped down the bowl of sand. She slowed down and walked as calmly as she could manage to the figure in the center of it all.

He had dark skin, of which the kind Ariel had never seen, and he wore an exotic orange turban. The rest of his outfit almost blended in with the surroundings. He noticed that she was there pretty quickly.

"Oh hey, stranger! Come to see this crazy display of power too huh? Sometimes I have a hard time believing that someone was powerful enough to do all of this."

"S-someone?!"

"Well, I guess technically two people. It looks to be a decent scuffle. Probably only happened a week or two ago, judging by how much sand has filled in by now."

"People did this?!" She couldn't believe her ears.

"Well... Yeah. Wait, are you new here?"

"Where's here... exactly?"

"Oh," he said, finally understanding. "You just got born into this world. That makes sense why you are confused then." He smiled. "Welcome to Insomnia Wake! I'm Sven!"

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A/N: Hey guys, sorry that I haven't updated in forever and that when I finally did it's a short chapter, but hopefully you at least enjoyed this one!