Blue Jay

The Rowing Boat Without Any Oars

A/N: HEY GUYS, I'M SOO SORRYY IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO UPDATE THIS AND I'M REALLY NOT THAT HAPPY WITH THE WAY IT TURNED OUT BUT I HAD TO PUT SOMETHING UP HERE!! SORRY!! I'M SO SO SORRY AND PLEASE STICK WITH ME I WENT TO MY GRANNY'S OVER CHRISTMAS AND SHE DOESN'T HAVE WIFI CONNECTION THERE SO I COULDN'T UPLOAD FOR AGES I'M SO SORRY I'LL UPLOAD MUCH SOONER NOW PLEASE FORGIVE ME!!!?!

______________________________________________________________________

The little girl, with the red cloak and the black shoes, with the brown ringlets cascading out of her hood and tumbling over her chest. She is lost. She stares at the blue jay, transfixed, and unmoving, like stone. The thin layer of snow covering everything looks pristine, like that out of a fairy tale. But it is not a fairy tale. The Blue Jay is a corruption of a once perfect land, an abomination. It is evil, twisted. There is nearly no hope for the little girl. The Blue Jay flutters off the low hanging bough, and starts to flit from tree to tree, shiny blue feathers an unnatural occurrence in the winter wonderland of the white forest. The little girl follows, helpless against the Blue Jays power. Her feet leave shallow footprints in the powdery snow, leaving a barely discernable trail through the cold, icy trees. The soft, green pines soon turn to twisted, bare oaks, their gnarled branches reaching out to the girl, snagging on her cloak and leaving tiny scratches all over her exposed skin. Her once seamless cloak now has rips and tears in it from where it has been yanked through the underbrush. The girl trips on a protruding root, and stumbles, grazing her pale, slender hands. The Blue Jay tugs on the folds of her blood coloured cloak, forcing her on. She gets to her feet and stumbles forward, regardless of the torn skin on her left hand. She follows the Blue Jay down the narrow, winding path, the twisted trees clawing at her cloak and bridging over her head, like a tunnel with no end, filled with strange, unnatural things, weird things, scary, abominable things that feed on fear, on the nightmares that live in the deepest, darkest corners of the mind, replicating them, multiplying them, respawning them, worse and more terrible every time. Like a ten headed dragon, and every time you cut off one head, it grows another, fiercer and bigger and stronger than the one before. Every time you defeat one fear, another appears, scarier and much more overwhelming, until, eventually, one simply cannot fight anymore. Until, exhausted, you curl into a ball and succumb to the terror, screaming as it eats you from the inside. An empty shell. That's all that's left of you.

~ * * * ~

The little girl follows the Blue Jay through the forest of bare, gnarled trees for a long while, until they come to a dead looking lake, with grey, murky water and dry, brown, shrivelled reeds and lily pads that look like they could once have been beautiful, but died, just like everything else in this part of the forest. The pale brown, dead grass and the white bark on the trees give off a choking, musty smell of decay, like the scent of old graves and tombstones. It is eerily quiet, and the only colour this spooky, dead place is blessed with is the girl's own cloak. Everything else is milky white and pale, like ivory, impure and unnatural. The little girl is the only brightness in this dark place, a tiny, flickering candle surrounded by evil, growing smaller and smaller, completely overwhelmed. Leading off the lake is a wide, wide river, and the bird leads the girl over to the mouth of the lake, where the muddy water sluggishly begins to move. Here the river is at its widest, so far across it is almost impossible to see the far bank. At the river bank, a small wooden, very old rowing boat is tied to the shore. Strangely enough, there are no oars, just two little wooden planks across the width of the boat, as you would expect on a craft such as this. The Blue Jay flits over to the girl's shoulder for a brief moment, and then flutters off again, only to land on the stern of the boat. It flies off, and the little girl is left staring at the entrance to the Vicus Damnatorum.

~***~

My eyes snap open, and flick from side to side, taking in my surroundings. The hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up, and the palms of my hands prickle madly. There is no sound, only the murky water slowly crawling down the river. I turn round, and utter a silent cry. There is a colourless, dead landscape stretching on for miles. No flowers, no soft green pines, no brambles or nettles, no startling red berries. Nothing. It is like a graveyard. A horrible feeling begins to creep up on me, an awful, awful feeling. She can't be here. She just can't.  

"Hazel?" My voice trembles. Only the wind answers, and for a second, I think she is not here. 

"Mona," it is just a whisper at first, a breath of wind that you could mistake for a rustling of leaves on the trees. But there are no leaves, this place is like a graveyard. 

"Mona," there it is again, not a gust of wind at all, but a voice, a soft, feminine, calm voice. The voice of my sister. But it is cold, strange, and, in a way, not my sister.  

"Hazel! Where are you?" 

"I am all around you."  

"What do you mean?" I ask, frustrated. 

"I am this place, I am in the trees, in the grass, in the river. I am everywhere." 

"So where am I?"  

"You, my dear sister, are at the entrance to the Vicus Damnatorum." 

She is right. There is a boat, a horrible boat, that will take me to the Vicus, as and when that monster is ready for me. My fists clench, and I begin to shake with fear. My already pale face turns snow white, contrasting brilliantly with my blood red hood. I press my clenched, shaking fist to my lips, trying desperately to stop the tears from flowing.  

"Come back to us." I blurt out. 

A soft, cold laugh echoes all around me, growing louder and louder until I am cowering into a ball with my hands clasped over my ears, whimpering. 

"Come back to us," she mimics in a babyish voice, "how touching. So tell me, dear sister, do you miss me?"  

Tears leak out of the corners of my eyes, "yes," I mumble. 

She simply laughs again, that cold, empty, echoing laugh that hurts my ears, like a needle is being jabbed and forced through them, into my brain, causing me the most awful, wrenching headache. 

"Go home, Mona, I'll be seeing you very soon ..." 

I stagger to my feet and, still crying my eyes out, stumble through the dark, horrifying forest towards home. I am weak enough to look back, and what I see makes something die inside of me, fading away into nothingness. I see Hazel, my own sister, standing between the gnarled trees like a snow queen, her once warm, ocean blue eyes now two piercing snowflakes boring into mine. The Blue Jay sits on her shoulder, and she smiles, and waves goodbye. She is not my sister anymore, and I am no longer a carefree, innocent child. I am lost.

______________________________________________________________________

A/N: I HONESTLY DON'T BELIEVE IN GETTING A CERTAIN NUMBER OF VOTES BEFORE A NEW UPDATE, BUT PLEASE PLEASE JUST TAKE THE TIME TO CLICK THE VOTE BUTTON, OR TYPE A LITTLE COMMENT FOR ME, OR MAYBE EVEN FAN ME IF YOU LIKE MY STORY A LOT?! PLEASE I REEAAALLY ENJOY READING THEM AND IT JUST MAKES MY DAY!! SO PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE VOTE AND COMMENT AND FAN IT ACTUALLY BRIGHTENS MY DAY SOO MUCH TO KNOW YOU GUYS LIKE MY STORY!!!!