Through the Cracks

~ Prologue ~

Evening wind felt chilly, making Elian rub his arms for a second. Spring was a tricky time - so warm and pleasant during the day, tricking you to wear light clothing, while evening wind bit down on exposed skin after. It did succeed in making Elian pick up the pace. Well, he was already a bit late. Mothers call had reminded that he was late for dinner, no, he couldn't eat out, and tomorrow is school.

Well, the novel he was following should of updated by now as well! Teen looked forward to reading it after the meal, to see how protagonists face-slap another 'unlucky', arrogant opponent with his wits and skills! The thought itself made teen break out in a smug grin, before he turned around a corner and disappeared into an alley between houses. It was a darker stretch of road - encased on both sides with tall fences, some trees peeking over them. Old and broken pavement stones indicated that it was truly a footpath. However no-one had put on a proper maintenance for it for ages, weeds sprouting through cracks and some trash strewn around here and there. Luckily - it wasn't completely dark - street lights shining in some way through from both ends. It did cut Elian's route from friends house to his by quite a bit! So teen calmly fixed his gaze to the light at the end of the trail.

However something blew out the light.

Blue-white lightning seemed to snake over Elian's vision, blinding teen for a second. He took a step back. Sneaker slipped on the old stone and there was nothing underneath.

"AAAH!" with a startled scream Elian fell.

~ ~ ~

Sky peeking through the trees branches was dark, but not yet claiming itself for the night. Something between dusk or dawn. More like dusk. Elian couldn't tell, as the scene seemed quite foreign to him and ordinary at the same time.

He was sure he had fallen. However now he was lying not on the broken footpath, but on a soft grass. Above his head trees had spread their arms, branches swaying in a light wind.

Alright, Elian had to admit that had never watched the sky while taking the short-cut home, so he had no idea how it looked. But a small voice inside him said that this was not the place he fell.

"How long are you going to sleep?" a light, although small voice nearby caused teen to jerk back to the current moment.

Turning head left and right he tried to see who was speaking, however there was nothing. It looked like he was in a forest. Trees on the left, trees on the right - nobody in sight.

"This lord is here, you doof," the same voice continued in aggrieved tone.

Elian looked up. It sounded like voice might be coming from somewhere above his head. However he was simply greeted by more trees. A seemingly straight alley-way that faded out somewhere far away in the evenings shadows and mist. However there was no person there.

"Tch," in seeming impatience the voices owner clicked their tongue.

Something shimmering in grass caught teens attention. It looked like a pale green light, weak like a firefly, although bigger. Well, his first thought was glow-in-the-dark phosphorous green figurine, as it seemed to be dark enough for the effect to show. However looking upside-down was hard, so Elian rolled around to see it better.

It did appear to be a glow-in-the-dark figurine. He had a few skeletons and ghosts a couple of years back during the fad. He still brought them out for Halloween last year as well. However he never had seen a figurine like the one in the grass in front of him. About as big as his open palm, figurine looked well made - carved to look like an elf or fairy. Long straight hair, pointy ears old-fashion, but very noble looking clothes as well. The overall image was slightly put odd by sci-fi looking wings behind it, and it glowed somewhat differently as well - not like the figurines he was used to.

Furrowing his brows, Elian continued to stare at the figurine rather confused. It looked well made and rather expensive as well. So what was it doing ... here? (wherever here was)

"Are you done admiring this lord?" the voices owner started to sound ticked off. The voices owner started to look ticked off.

"— Eh!" Elian drew back in surprise, staring wide-eyed at the figurine. He was wondering who would make an elf or fairy glow-in-the-dark figurine that looked annoyed. Crossed arms, furrowed brows and the likes. What he didn't expect was for the figurine to move its head to look straight back at him and open its mouth to speak.  

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A/N: Welcome to my first story! Hope you will enjoy it! Still learning formatting on here, so might come back to change some things in time.

English is not my first language, so fair warning - there might be odd sentence structures and lots of mistakes ahead. 

Either way - enjoy! 

-- All artwork and text used here is mine, belongs to Vilkuss Endo. Do not copy, re-post or re-upload it anywhere else. --