\The sun rose and alarm clock went off. “Come and play, children! Today is another day! Let’s go play our game. Come on, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” the voice rang through our ears. I woke up startled, then remembering the previous day. That’s right; I had been going through random portals, falling asleep in an enchanted forest which randomly had camping gear and food, and made a new friend, who is suffering with a lot of insecurities about she is. My goal is to make her feel welcomed in her own skin and community. I’m not sure how I’m going to achieve this, but I know that I can help her at least start to feel a little more comfortable.
“Are you guys up yet?” rang a little voice. I looked over at Bethany who was laying in her sleeping bag look as annoyed as ever by the fact that she had been woken up. I gave her an empathetic look before unzipping the tent to reveal Benny looking at us. “I’m hungry,” he whined.
“We all are,” I smiled and walked outside to the cabinet. Inside I found a few eggs and a frying pan. “Looks like we’re having eggs for breakfast! Benny, can you go find some wood so we can start the fire to cook the food?” Benny nodded and ran off, while Bethany slowly emerged from the tent. “Sleep okay?”
“You snore so loud,” Bethany shook her head, fighting a yawn.
“I do not!” I tried to defend myself, but from the look on her face and the amount of sleep it looked like she had, I figured that she wasn’t far off from the truth. “Okay, maybe I do, but how would I know? I was sleeping.”
Bethany gave me a dirty look. “Yeah, I noticed.”
“Why do I snore all the time, you ask? I don’t know, Bethany, it’s just human nature, I suppose,” I shrugged my shoulders.
“You are so weird,” Bethany laughed. Benny came back with the firewood and set it down into the fire pit. Bethany assisted him in setting up the fire and igniting it, which I used to cook the food. We ate our food in peace, which was a nice change, considering the tone of yesterday. All we needed to retain just a bit of strength was silence, all but the birds chirping in the background. I laid myself down onto the ground, not caring how much of the forest floor would end up in my clothes or tangled in my hair. The breeze was cool against my forehead and back, giving me a relaxing sensation, calming me enough so that when I saw a flash of light appear before my eyes, I didn’t freak out.
“Another portal,” I nodded. Bethany was already next to the portal, peering inside.
“Who knows what’s behind that portal. It could be anything- a lion, a dinosaur, our death!” she exclaimed.
I raised an eyebrow. “You do realize that dinosaurs became extinct a long time ago, right?”
She nodded. “At this point, anything is possible, I suppose.”
I laughed. “I suppose that you’re right. Should we go now?”
“Do we have a choice?” Bethany sighed, taking Benny’s hand. With one last look at me, she stepped through the portal. I sighed looking back at our campsite. I didn’t want to leave the comfort of the camp, which felt secure and comforting. I looked back at wistfully, hoping that it would return soon, unless we were to reach home first. For the first time in my life, I began to miss my parents and Lindsey. I even missed Ashley Wince, for the first time in my life. I just wanted to return to the familiarity of ignorance I felt whenever I walked through the school hallway.
I turned my attention back towards the portal, where I heard a scream. “Bethany?” I called, but no response came. Adrenaline dished through me as I ran through the portal. I unwillingly pushed myself forward, and frantically looked around for Bethany and Benny. All I saw was something white and fluffy flying around me, surrounded by blue. My feet felt nothing underneath them, and when I looked down, I saw myself standing on one of those white, puffy things. Trying to get it feel for it, I stomped my foot down on the fluff, and created a whole in it. Just like that, the whole thing began to disperse underneath me, and I began to fall.
I screamed as I was falling, my hands moving about to try and grab onto something. They searched but couldn’t find anything. That’s when I realized that I was falling from the sky. “Help!” I called, knowing that no one could hear me, nonetheless, no where I am. Will I fall to my death? Did this happen to Bethany and Benny? Did they fall? And were they now… dead? A million thoughts of panic ran through me. I tried to breathe, but nothing could calm me down.
“How does it feel?” a voice called out, following a laugh. “To have no one hear you?”
Tears stung my eyes as I struggled for my voice. “My whole life has been filled with that. Why are you taunting Bethany and me with these memories of our past? Why can’t you just leave us alone? I mean, what have we ever done to you?”
“Nothing,” the voice tittered. “But I’m going to make sure that I make your life just so great.” The voice continued about in its mocking tone, which only made me want to cower about in fear. I had done nothing wrong to the person behind this voice. I do not deserve such treatment, and neither does Bethany. We were both as innocent as could be when revolving around this mysterious voice. We were only but the victims at this point, due to our ignorance.
I kept falling, wondering if I would ever land. I felt like Alice from Wonderland at this point, just continuously falling, feeling lost and somewhat hopeless. Not that I wanted to lose any sort of faith in myself or where I was heading, but it would be nice to know that I would eventually land and that, when I did, I would be completely safe. Although I never really had any time in my life where I felt completely secure, I prefer the idea of it rather than the idea of insecurity that I’ll never land.
Bethany and Benny, please be safe, I pleaded. Just please be safe. I don’t care what happens to me. If anything, you two deserve to live the most. You guys have a place in your life to land, while I have nowhere to go after this journey. I’ll be stuck at home, crying because I have no one to talk to, complain to, or hang out with on the weekends, let alone after school. Just please, please be safe, guys.
My eyes began to well with water, and I started to feel somewhat dizzy. It’s not like I was wishing death upon myself, but if one of us were chosen to die, I feel like I deserved it the most. Bethany and Benny were the only people I ever felt really close to, and I’ve only known them for less than a day, which says something. Outside of our immediate close-bond, I’ve never felt close to anyone, or had anyone that I cared so much about before. After this little journey and we return back home, I’ll have nowhere to go. I’ll stay the little loser that no one loves, unlike them who will return home, loved and missed. I wonder if anyone back home even noticed that I went missing?
Finally, with a hard thump, I hit the ground, falling onto my back. I groaned with pain, and sat up looking around for someone to help me. Only there was no one around. I was half expecting Bethany and Benny to jump out and come to my rescue. Unfortunately, they were nowhere in sight, which left me to think of one inevitable conclusion; they were in the same condition as me, if not worse. I only hoped that they had landed together, and that we weren’t all completely separated. Imagine little Benny running around all by himself. The thought was too depressing to think of, so I brushed it away from my thoughts, not wanting to get too involved with all the possibilities that could or could not happen. Although I never am, I needed to remain optimistic.
Not knowing if I’m okay or not, I tried to stand up, but immediately fell back over with my feet obviously not being stable enough to hold me up, yet. It was quite a fall from the sky, and I definitely needed time to recuperate. However, being the stubborn soul that I am, I refused to give myself any sort of resting period. I needed to find Bethany and Benny to make sure that they were okay. After all, we were all in this together and needed each other to get out of it. We needed to figure out the secret that brought us together in the first place.
Sitting, I closed my eyes and breathed deeply a few times. After about ten minutes, I decided that I had given myself enough time to recuperate, and re-opened my eyes, trying to figure out where I had landed this time. I looked up and saw stalks of corn towering above me. I sighed, Great, now I was a child of the corn field. This thought made me alert; I stood up and looked about with fear. It wasn’t possible that I was going to die in a corn field, right? Maybe Bethany and Benny weren’t coming to find me because they had already died in the field. A shiver ran through my spine and I began to run. I had no idea if I was heading in the right direction or where I would end up, but I ran, my legs shaking the whole time. I needed to find my friends.
The sky was dark, like there was a storm approaching, not because of the night. I wasn’t quite sure what time it was, seeing as I never carry a watch on me, but I was perfectly aware that it was not yet night. It seemed too lively around, even if all I could see was the surrounding stalks of corn and the sky. That was all I needed to show me that it was still daytime, even if it weren’t directly the daytime. Perhaps it was morning or the afternoon, but it was not the nighttime. That was not possible for it was too bright in its’ own dark and eerie way.
Kind of like the voice. I knew that I was being forced to trust the voice, lest I lose my life or some other evil act that the voice could commit. The voice was dark, mysterious, creepy, and horrible. However, it had this undertone of life that made you want to listen to him/her, and trust them. It gave you a sense that nothing bad could ever happen with that mysterious voice around. However, through previous experiences, I knew that was so far-fetched from the truth, no matter how hard the voice tried to twist her words into making me believe that she is the good guy.
A dog barked from somewhere behind me, which only caused me to run faster. All throughout my life, I had a fear of dogs, ever since that one vicious dog chased me while I was bike riding one day when I was only five years old, and I had been alone. Ever since then, whenever I heard a dog barking, my heart sped up and I run the other way. This was one of those times. What if it were a dog that had killed Bethany and Benny, if they’re even dead? What if the voice was just that of some magical, talking dog who was capable of seeing into people’s minds and kill them by teasing them with the shards of their past, or a literal shard of glass?
What would I even do if I found Bethany and Benny’s bodies just lying around, decaying and bloody? Do I try to carry and bring them back to the real world, wherever they are from and hope that their relatives collect the body? Or was that too morbid to do? Should I just leave them there to decay and rest in peace? And, if I did that, would the voice take their bodies and do something horrible? It would probably be horrible of me to leave the bodies there, but what would I do with them? When I returned to the real world, I would probably return to my hometown, not theirs. What would I do with these random two bodies in my town, not knowing where they are from? Everyone in the town would think that I had murdered them, and it would sort of make sense. Just picture it; quiet girl goes emo, disappears for a while, and then returns with two dead bodies that have never been seen in the town before. That probably wouldn’t help my case.
I panted, searching for breath. Looking around, I only saw the corn field around me, and it looked exactly the same from where I had landed. This corn field was filled with endless twists and turns, making me wonder if there was even a way out. Then, again, I was brought here by the voice, who could make absolutely anything possible. The voice could certainly find a way to make me stuck in a place that has no escape, or is completely impossible to find. If it’s impossible to find, then there is no way that I would be able to find it; I can’t even solve basic algebra. At this point, I’m beginning to question what algebra even is. Or who I even am, at all.
I heard a repeated laughter, making my heart pound even faster. How was it possible that my heart hadn’t exploded yet? Or how I hadn’t died from that lion? Maybe you can’t die within this little “game”, as the voice calls it. Maybe we are immortal and on a hunt just to find out whatever secret the voice is trying to make us uncover, for whatever reason. The laughter continued, taunting me with every single move I made. Maybe the more and more wrong turns I took, the more the laughter grew?
The laughter became louder and faster as I turned the right corner, and saw a flash of light at the end of the turn. Knowing what that flash of light must be, I ran like the speed of light to the end, and when I reached there, I saw the portal. I looked around and still saw no sign of Bethany and Benny. Had they already gone through the portal? Perhaps, I should wait around a few minutes to see if they would appear. I waited for about ten minutes when I saw someone rushing towards me. “Bethany! Benny!” I called out, but as the figure approached, I saw that it was a man, blood running all over him with a spear in his hand.
Screaming, I knew that I had to make a choice fast. That man looked like he meant business, and since he was all bloody, my mind couldn’t help but jumping to conclusions; was that Bethany or Benny’s blood? I shuddered and once I realized that neither of them were coming, I ran through the portal. Maybe they were just waiting patiently for me on the other side. They were probably there safe and sound, waiting around nervously, wondering if I was already farther than them and if they should try to find me. Or if they should run back through the portal to save me from the field.
I stepped through the portal and didn’t look back when I heard a girl call out, “Kaylie!”
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Author's Note:
I am less than 5k words away from my goal, but my novel is far from done. In order to have an ending that makes sense, and isn't rushed, I'm going to have to exceed the word goal. Unfortunately.
Okay, no, I love writing, but I'm worried about finishing if I know that I'll have to exceed the word goal. Oh well.
The story itself is coming along well, and I'm enjoying getting to know my characters the more I write about them and think of plot points. (I'm sort of following an outline... Keyword being sort of..)
Feedback? Loved to hear!
Ali xoxo