In Winter's Grasp

Where Am I?

I tuned to face him.  He wasn’t crying anymore, but I could see that his eyes were still watery.

“Um, if you don’t want me to be here you can just say so, and I’ll go.”  He didn’t respond at all.  What is with this guy?

I stood on my tip-toes, so I could look him in the eyes, and all he did was look out into space.  I started to wobble after a few seconds of doing this, and I knew I was going to crash.  I started to go back down, but before I could I fell.  I was expecting the thud if flesh on flesh as I crashed, not me hitting the ground.

I lay there disorientated for a minuet, waiting for something.  How did he move so fast, and why didn’t he help me?  I looked around trying to find out where he moved to.  After a few seconds of this, I gave up.  I flipped stomach up, and closed my eyes.  I slowly started to massage my temples, protecting myself from an approaching headache.  I let out a groan, and a few choice words.  I think I have officially flown the coop.  God short-changed me and made me a few cents short of a dollar.

I groaned, again, at the unfairness of it all.  Nobody else saw things that weren’t there, nobody else hallucinated that they were in a magical field. 

I opened my eyes and screamed, The man’s feet went right through my stomach.  I stuck my hands out trying to do . . . something.  I am not quite sure what, maybe to try and get him off me.

Then my hands passed right through his legs.  I was shrieking, now, a high pitched whistling sound.  I crawled backwards and his legs just kept going right through me.  I got up, and started running.  I had no idea where I was going, but it was anywhere away from here.  I tripped over a log, or stick, or something, and I fell to the ground.  Hard.  My hands had deflected most of my fall, but I still felt a throbbing pain in my nose.  I felt ad though someone had punched me in the gut, and left me gasping for breath.  I also felt a burning pain running up the side of my calf.  I reached down and felt a wetness.  I pulled my hand up and I saw my fingers stained with my own blood.  I felt lightheaded, and the world spun for a minuet, and I couldn’t feel my fingers or toes. 

My hand started trembling, and I let it fall to the ground with a resounding thump.  How did I even cut my leg like that?  After the world stopped spinning I laid my head gingerly on the ground, and I tried to stand up.  It was a slow and painful process, but I finally got to the point where I didn’t need to hold anything to support myself.

Okay, so I’m not crippled, so where am I? I thought to myself.  I looked around, and saw that I had run into forest.  It was a sparse forest, but in my book, since I could see nothing but tree’s this was a forest.  It was a forlorn forest.  It spoke of death, and decay.  It hid the sun from my eyes, which made the whole “dark and ominous” factor raise a couple of notches.  Then I noticed that there was no birdsong.  There was no sign of any animals anywhere.  I mean, I know this place is creepy and desolate, but there has to be something besides tree’s here.

Just then I heard a branch crack behind me.  I whirled around, but I couldn’t see anything out of the norm.  I heard another branch crack, and I got prickles at the back of my neck, that indicated that I was being watched.  I started to slowly back away.  Then I took off in a dead sprint.  Again, I had no idea where I was going, I only wanted to escape whatever was watching me.  But I was slowing quickly, my hurt leg giving out a steady burn.  My limp slowly grew worse, and the feeling that I was being watched increased ten-fold.

All the sudden, I heard a growl.  But, it wasn’t really a growl.  It was a like a snort mixed in with a growl.  It was a very strange sound, like a pig trying to be a tiger, or lion.  It would have been funny, except for the fact that I was practically scared shitless.  I slowly turned around and found myself staring horror in the face.

It almost looked like a panther at first glance, but once you looked harder, it clearly wasn’t.  Sure it had the body shape and head of a panther, it just wasn’t a panther.  Actually, it looked like a cross breed between a spider, a panther, a dragon, and some kind of insect.

It had the head of a panther, and the same general shape, but I had the tail, and armor of a dragon.  It’s scaled skin gleamed sickeningly at me, and I saw the light play off of membranous wings, veined like a dragonflies.  It had for wings, two on each side, and you could see little rainbows reflecting off of it.  It had multiple legs, four on each side, much like a spider, and multiple eyes.  It opened it’s mouth to snarl at me again, and I saw that it’s mouth opened like that of a carnivores plant.  Triangular flaps of skin peeling out.  The skin in the mouth was green, and it’s saliva looked purplish.  It let out and ear-shattering scream, and I saw it back legs bunch up behind it.

I was going to die.  I was going to die.  It was the only thing I could think of, and it wouldn’t leave my mind.  I shut my eyes right before I saw it pounce.  A million thoughts crashed around in head.  I waited there for some time, and then I realized that nothing had happened.

I opened my eyes to see that the thing was frozen, in mid-leap, it’s eyes glowing a furious red, it’s gleaming fangs ready to snap shut.

Then I felt like a vacuum was sucking on me.  The world started spinning, and I couldn’t help but let out a yelp of terror.

All the sudden I was on the floor of Ernie’s, no bloody gash in my leg, and no strange creature about to eat me, frozen in mid-air.

Ernie himself was right above me, and he immediately asked, “What’s wrong sugar?  What happened?” in a concerned, almost fatherly voice.  I have known Ernie since I was little.  He was like a second father to me.  Except for the fact that he was British, or Australian, I could never tell which, and therefore it actually sounded like “Whut’s wroong shuga?  Whut hahpenned?”  I saw the guy standing away from me with a very confused expression on his face.  No purple skin, no fangs, and no extra limbs.  And no insanely long, pointed ears.

I was worried now.  This had never happened before.  Before it was something that was not really there.  Now it’s people morphing into horrible monsters.  And seeing magical scenes.  That is one huge leap after another.  When I was little I realized that no one else saw what I saw.  I knew that if I told someone then there would be issues.  I think now it’s time to tell someone.  This is getting out of control.  I wiped the tears off my face, stood up, and left.  Without explanation, without looking at that strange guy, and without knowing whether or not I was going home.