Description:
You are wandering back home. You block out the noise and the bustle of the people around you by putting your earphones in your ears, and turning on your favourie pieces of music. The rush around you disappears, as you relax and settle into the music.
A cool breeze blows in your face, and as it is a warm day, you welcome its softness on your skin.
'Come to the edge of the forest, at midnight...' the breeze whispers. You jump, and yank out your earphones. The busy noise of the people around you returns to your ears. You look around, to see if anyone else had heard the voice. No-one had.
You shrug, and stick your earphones back inside your ears.
'Come...' whispers the breeze. You stop where you are going again, and look around for the second time. Once more, you take your earphones out.
"Hello?" you call. "Who are you?"
You realise that a man and his daughter are looking at you funny from across the road. You curse yourself for talking seemingly to no-one, and you carry on walking home. You turn off your music.
When you get home, you go straight to your room. You dump your heavy bag on the floor, and lie down on your bed. You consider whether you should go to the edge of the forest at midnight or not, whether it would be worth it. You look at the calendar. March 27th.
MARCH 27TH! The day that British Summer Time starts. And the clocks would change at half-past eleven. One hour forwards. Which means that there is no midnight. No midnight. So how would you get to the forest at a time that doesn't exist?
You go anyway. Quarter-past eleven, you set off. Five minutes later, you arrive. The edge of the forest looks dark and forboding. You wonder why you decided to come out here in the first place, and look for somewhere to sit down.
Ten minutes later, a breeze blows from the inside of the forest. You brace yourself for the whisper, but it doesn't come. Instead, an invisible force slams into your torso, knocking you back a good ten feet. You haul yourself back to your feet, and rub your head. Your shoulder is throbbing, your ankle screams in protest as you stand there. The breeze brushes past your ear from behind, ruffles your hair, as if it were encouraging you to go forwards towards the rippling air.
'Step through the threshold, and behold around you the world you have deamed of, the world in which you are meant to be...' it whispers.
You frown in confusion, as the air stops moving. A small speck of light fades in from nowhere. You laugh.
"Is this a joke? Is that the threshold I must walk through?!" You laugh again.
The small light grows brighter and brighter, until it is blinding to look at. You laugh dies away, and silence settles in. An ominous silence...
BANG
You jump back as the small light explodes. You cover your eyes and turn away, as the light is so blinding. Moments later, the light dulls, and you are able to look back at the source of the explosion.
To anyone else, back in town, it would have looked and sounded like an unexpected storm, the bang being thunder, and the explosion of light being the lighning. What actually happened was that the small speck had exploded and ripped a hole in the fabric of reality, opening up a gateway to another world.
You step forwards hesitantly, and reach out with one hand. The portal's circumference sparks and cracks loudly, and you snap your hand away. You take two steps back, and turn around.
A droplet of water hovers in front of your face. You reach out to touch it, and it melts around the tip of you finger. You peer closely into the darkness of the night, and spy out hundreds more of these drops, floating in mid-air. You look up. Not a star in the sky. Which means that the sky would be covered in clouds, which means that these little droplets of water must be rain.
The breeze flows around you.
'Time is stopped, and it will resume once again when the threshold closes. It is now midnight, you have not much longer until this opportunity is wasted...'
The portal crackles loudly again. The breeze blows in the direction of the portal, urging you forwards. You hear the faintest sound of people talking in hushed voices coming from the gateway. It rumbles and cracks and sparks. You notice that the rain slowly starts to move again, and you whip your head around to see the now very active threshold start to contract. The rain starts to fall faster, and the breeze turns into a powerful wind, and you stagger forwards. You quickly think up your options.
You could stay here, with no family, and be bullied constantly. Die slowly, regretting that you never went through the rift.
Or, you could quickly step through the rift and enter another world, where you are supposedly meant to be, where you would no longer be bullied, or would be killed quickly and painlessly by some wild, ferocious animal that wanted to feed its children.
It is a simple choice.
You run for the portal, and leap through. You land on the forest floor. You get up hurriedly, and turn around, hopelessly, in time to see the small speck disappear.
You cry out into the night, and fall to your knees, sobbing. You think to yourself, over and over again, you could have had a better life, but you threw it away, you could have had a better life, but you threw it away.
You stop blubbing, as you can hear a snarling behind you. You stand up, and turn around, to see two yellow eyes staring back at you.
Message:
Welcome all! Make sure you keep your weapons close at all times, and try to head towards a settlement as fast as possible. Have a great time!
Fame: 2005 Views: 11388 Average Quest Rating: 4.15
2005