The Key

part one

       *okay so this is my first story to ever have posted on any website. There is a lot more to it but I'm only going to post it if you guys like it. so please comment and give me some feed back (positive or negative) thanks!*

        She turned the key nervously in her hand. It was the only key she had that actually mattered. She still wasn’t sure she should be where she was. The graveyard was completely empty… but that was what was to be expected when it was this early. The sun was about twenty minutes from breaking the horizon. She just stood in the same place she had stood all those months ago when she first found the door. The last time she went inside she had to leave in a hurry, but promised to come back. She wasn’t sure she should enter…

            She slowly raised her hand, shaking ever so slightly, she put the key into the knob, took a deep breath, and turned. There was a soft clicking of the locking mechanism. She withdrew her key and slid it back onto the chain that rested around her neck. It was comforting to feel its slight weight on her chest. With another deep breath she twisted the knob.

            The door opened with a creek, as dozens of stairs going down loomed up at her. She took a moment to steady herself, then made the first step down. It seemed to take forever, the stairs were never ending. She stopped for a moment to rest, and turned to look back up to where she had been. She could only see a faint light from the space under the door. She resumed descending, and as she went deeper into the earth, the stairway grew darker. Soon enough it was black as night, she had to walk with her hand extended in order to feel in front of her.

            Suddenly the stairs ended, sending her stumbling into a solid dirt wall. As she stood in the darkness she thought back, and remembered that the tunnel turned. She could feel a breeze in the tunnel coming from her left, so she began walking toward the direction it was coming from. As she walks she can feel the tunnel becoming bigger around her, until the tunnel it’s self is gone completely.

            She can feel grass cowering under her feet as she walks through what she now believes is a forest… or once was. The darkness has gave way to light that is barely noticeable due to the fog that is emanating from all around her. She can hardly make out the shapes of trees…burnt trees. Ash covers everything she can see. She inhales heavily, and coughs a little as is became difficult for her to breath. “What happened here…” she whispers into the clouded air.

 She walks to a break in the trees she saw in the distance, and she looked out at a field that once held a village that wasn’t in ruin. Most of which was burned to the ground now. She steps forward and looks around. “This can’t be the same village… all the people…” she let out a little sob and dropped to her knees. She knows, somewhere deep down in her, that this was her fault. Her dark brown hair tumbled into her face as she looks down at where she sat. Her tears fog her vision and drop onto her glasses. Suddenly she raises her head and wipes her eyes. She looks around at the devastation surrounding her. “I have to find her… They probably went after her too…” she rises to her feet, and begins running. As she runs through the abandoned ruined village she tries not to think of all the lives lost here, and only of the one she must find.

She runs into the other side of the forest dodging trees, and boulders. She ran until her lungs burned for air. When she stopped, her breath was coming out in sharp bursts as she rested against a large tree trunk. She looked up at the sky, full of dark clouds, as rain begins to pour from the heavens.

There she stood, looking at a sky that seemed to be crying just as she was. She stood there letting the rain clear her mind, until she couldn’t handle the cold bite of the wind any longer. She began walking in search of shelter, and came across a cave. She went inside, where it was mostly dry and crouched down to huddle against the cave wall. She stared out into the rain and thought back to when she first found the key to the door that changed her life.