Category: Short Stories and Excerpts

Herein lies the original account of the dream that introduced me to my muse, Mask Face, on the night bridging January 16 and 17, in the year 2009. This version of the account is just slightly edited to be more coherent to the general reader, as the true original was very rough, raw, and stream-of consciousness, scrawled in pencil on paper. But it’s basically just some sentence structures and word choices that are changed; the essence of it is still there, and the events of the dream all in order.

I am posting this here in observance of the ten-year anniversary of the night I had the dream. (The event of the dream’s occurrence would have been closer to Jan 17 than 16, ha. 😛 )

~~~

MASK FACE: An Epic Subconscious Adventure

I had many dreams that night, but this one is the only one I can remember… well, if you exclude the small snip of running about my school campus at breakneck speed on four legs, not thinking it odd at all. But the true beginning of this dream happened while I was looking at a photo taken by a friend of mine when they had been on a trip. The photo showed a strange location; some sort of town by the side of a canyon, bathed in the orange light of a sunset. I remember a lit torch somewhere, and in the picture my friend and her family were standing by some sort of small stream. But the location as a whole was the important thing… for this photo showed the location of the amazing, magical, and utterly bewildering being I was fated to meet.

How do I know? Well, next thing I knew, I was in the photograph. Not as in my picture was taken too, but rather I was suddenly in the place shown, at the time it was taken. I looked around, but in that dreamlike state of mind I didn’t consider the oddness that should have been associated with travelling through a photograph into the place it showed. I simply began exploring as if coming here was an everyday tourist’s novelty. My friend and her family were nowhere to be seen anymore. I turned about from facing where they had originally been standing to see that behind me was a large town with an air sort of like a carnival or fairground, dry and rocky as it was in a canyon sort of place, but colorful and frivolous. As I looked on, I sensed a powerful aura about this place that revealed a deep, dark, mysterious magic. But the carnival wasn’t as lively has it must have been before, because there were relatively few people around, and the decorations were somewhat strewn about, many littering the ground. Well, the sun was setting after all, and just as I put that together, a voice from the surroundings said something like, ‘the day is done, time to clean up!’ I had just arrived, but I shrugged and began to help with the cleaning.

I scooped up an armful of paper decorations and other such litter from the short stone staircase leading me down into the fairground. Then I headed over to a single-file line under an awning, where people were handing in what they had picked up. Now, people in this place were very strange, especially those who seemed to be running things. The man accepting the stuff people brought up apparently had to sort through and analyze it first. But whatever he was doing, the line took a time to crawl forward. After a while I was still at the end, waiting for my turn to relieve myself of the junk I was holding. As I waited, I decided to look around more. Most of the town was behind me, so I turned around to see what there was to see. But I didn’t get a chance to see look at much of the view, as I was immediately distracted. A strange, shadowy entity had appeared near the end of the line. All my attention was drawn to this being immediately.

She was a young woman, somewhere in her early twenties… maybe 23. She was thin and a good deal taller than me, wearing black and dark-blue clothing, and she had shoulder-length-ish and unkempt black hair. Most notably, her face was like a mask… the kind that someone would have worn on Halloween while lurking in the shadows to jump out and frighten people. Her right eye was sunken and perpetually sealed shut. Her left eye was… strange. It’s hard to describe, or even draw exactly. I can say that it was bright and blue, yet dark and scary at the same time. Most of her face seemed to be tinted with some odd black pigment, which was darkest around her eyes, making her face look even more shadowy and sunken. I even glimpsed her teeth… sharp snaggled triangles, seeming very white in the darkness of her face.

            I blinked when I first saw this face and a sort of sick flash impacted the inside of my stomach for a second. As I looked at her in surprise, she looked back at me nearly instantly, as if to say, “what are you looking at?” But I just acted the way I would if I saw a deformed person in waking life… I smiled and regarded her the way I would any normal stranger. I couldn’t tell her reaction at the time, but in my small act of acceptance, I must have made something of an impression. She seemed to grow a bit fond of me, and every time we saw each other in the carnival-place after that, we both waved and smiled.

            It did not take me long after waking from this dream later to glean an idea for this person’s name… I call her Mask Face, plain and simple. Mask Face probably would have been used to people fearing and judging her because of her face. I say this because at one point while I was in the litter-line, I saw a lady somewhere behind the awning, gathering rubbish. I saw Mask Face facing the lady, but she had her back to me. However, when the lady looked up and saw who was nearby, I could see this lady’s reaction clearly. Upon seeing Mask Face, the lady gasped and said something like “my god!” It was a very shallow and unabashed response from the kind of person who cares shockingly little for people’s feelings. When the lady stepped into line behind me with the litter she’d gathered, I told her that she should try to be kind. For after all, people are people, even if they’re different.

           [I’ve trimmed out a paragraph here because it was just a lot of rambly speculation on my part and probably wouldn’t mean anything to people reading. It just went over how Masky had aspects that, in the beginning, reminded me of several entities I knew, including my cousin who committed suicide, my father, and my imagined soul-mate.]

            But back to the dream sequence itself… for I still had more to see before waking. After the conversation I had with the lady in the litter-line, a sudden scene-change took place. I was now part of a little gang of children, mischievous and seeking adventure. As this section progressed, I, as Sequoia, myself, blinked in and out of existence. Sometimes I was myself, entirely as usual, sometimes I was just an ethereal pair of eyes watching events, and sometimes I was one of the kids in the gang. I even remember seeing at one point what I think was my real-life self walking around, out from the eyes of one of the children.

            As this bit started out, I wasn’t myself, but rather I was one of the children. The kid I was embodying was one of the only two I could distinctly identify out of the entire group. I was a girl of about 12 or 13 years, same general age of the others. I was a bit of a pauper, wearing shoddy clothes, and too poor to enjoy the fun of the carnival in the canyon-place as much as I might have liked. The rest of the kids and I had managed to find and sneak into a hidden part of this fairground. Of course, this zone was forbidden, and we weren’t allowed. None of the public was, but children most especially were meant to stay out. A bunch of adults who were allegedly authority figures chased us into this forbidden zone, attempting to remove us from the premises, but we hid until everyone went in, and eventually we had the whole fair to ourselves.

            But never mind the public section. For we discovered that the forbidden zone was huge, and extended outside the carnival entirely into a place containing a playground. This playground was enormous, colorful, and inviting, and was set in rolling hills of tall golden grass. There was a swing-set in front of the playground, which I, still as the poor girl, excitedly began to use. This is the part where I thought I saw myself. As I swung, I caught sight of a person nearby, an older female (older, that is, from the 12-year-old’s perspective), with fluffy blond hair tied back in a ponytail. It really did resemble me to a T. But at the time I gave it no thought except perhaps, “I ought to be careful how I swing or I might kick that person.” But I didn’t swing very long, as the swing hung low over the sand, making my feet drag and preventing the achievement of any real height.

            I soon discovered that I wasn’t alone here with only a bunch of kids I couldn’t identify. Mask Face had also followed into this chapter of the dream, this time in the form of a 13/14-year-old boy. He looked the same, otherwise, for he still wore the same clothes and had the same facial deformities… pinched eye, black pigment, and all. Later I found that he reminded me a little of someone else who I hold very dear.

            The next thing I remember after swinging was that I was suddenly my real self again, and finding that the playground was under attack. The same people who had tried to chase us from the forbidden zone before had returned… this time, bearing weapons. And so, the playground became the fortress and the children the soldiers, defending ourselves and our castle from the raid.

            Now still as my real self, I ran up a rope ladder to the castle, all the while avoiding the shots of the adults. I tried to find shelter, thinking “oh god, I’m going to catch a bullet any second now.” I tried to climb up into the playground’s protective walls, only to find that I was a bit too big, being older than any of the children. I passed a group of boys, hiding behind a wall and planning a counter-attack. They seemed to not notice me at all as I tried to climb up into a tunnel, thinking “my, this is cramped.” I envied the children for being small enough to hide so effectively in the playground castle. I remember feeling very estranged from them, and almost like an intruder.

            This whole part smacks of the difference between childhood and adulthood, and the confusion of transition between them. The children, with the freedom; the adults, with the control; and I, caught on the border but quickly growing up whether I like it or not, assimilating with the adults but alienating from the children… losing one but gaining the other, pros and cons.

            My hiding problem was solved quickly, however, for I was abruptly removed from this scene entirely. Next thing I knew, I was inside the playground, as myself, and more surprisingly still, the playground had become a huge old house. The siege, however, was still going on and I was trying to find a way to help. I ran through a wooden door, but I promptly shut it again and locked it at the sight of men breaking in with guns. I turned around and ran, only to find myself suddenly floating above the castle’s towers, bodiless and watching the scene like a movie.

            I found the 14-year-old boy version of Mask Face and the poor girl I had previously embodied hiding at the top of a tower from the attack. This pauper girl may have been some fragment of me, and I could read her thoughts. I found, interestingly, that she had feelings for Mask Face, despite his frightening face. I think, at some point, I became the pauper girl again while she and Mask Face hid from the raid on this tower, ready to see their last moments, and seeing as we were about to die, I, as the poor girl, threw caution to the wind and gave him a giant hug, revealing everything.

            [Another trimmed paragraph of speculation, talking about the similarities Masky and Kado the Songmaker, my imagined mate at the time, who eventually ended up as the main character of The Pantorians. All this romanticy stuff in this part of the dream had made me think of him as well.]

            Back to the top of this tower, where the poor girl and Mask Face sought shelter… the moment of heartfelt revealing was rather broken by the appearance of one of the adults over the edge of the tower. Upon seeing Mask Face, he said something like, “hey, I remember you! You were wearing that same mask at the carnival!”

            And just like that, the siege was over. I don’t know why it ended like that, but I knew it was over because the whole gang of children had left the castle. They were now skipping around outside among the swaying golden grass with glee. It was a happy ending to the battle, for there were no casualties. As I watched the children frolicking from above, now myself a bodiless pair of eyes again, I noticed little Mask Face watching the poor girl skipping happily, and he looked very content.

            The last significant part of this dream was when the children (and me) came across a huge house. Unlike the old one in the playground, this one was new and extravagant. As the children and I ascended to the top floor in awe, we found something very curious. Upon one of the white, clean walls, all of the kids’ names had been playfully carved. But how? They had never been here before, and the whole house was vacant of any other people. It was like looking into the past and the future at the same time. It was like in Narnia, when the kids went back to the magic realm after a year in their world, and found their clothing from when they were adults.

            I scanned the wall of names, looking for Mask Face’s true name, for surely (s)he, as a member of the gang of kids, was on this wall as well. I recognized it among the other etchings when I saw it… I don’t think I was able to see it clearly though. I saw what the first letter was, but now I can’t remember it.

            Over the time that I’ve known this entity I call Mask Face, I have become very fond of her/him. I was never afraid, for (s)he is a part of me, that much is certain. A vague part, perhaps, but an important part. (S)he represents a deep trueness and rawness that rises up against falseness and shallowness. She is the part that says, “Dare to look behind the mask, and you will see the face.”

~,,o

A new little story could be brewing… earlier today I just kind of hacked this out in WordPad. xD This is very rough and un-edited and all out-of-order… basically the first-stage-fetus of what could be a story later, ha. I don’t even know how much potential it has yet but we’ll see. 😉

~~~

The sun rises through the southernmost hole carved in the stone calendar wall… it is the month of Temphestros. A deep winter month, when the snows fall heavy upon our land and our fur coats envelop us tightly.

So then… where is the snow?

Where is the dewy chill that should be hanging in the air?

Where is the bright silver wool that should be blanketing the heavens?

Jokki squints skyward, standing in the round pool of light cast by the sun shining through the southernmost hole. The morning sky is clear and warm. Two or three dry, cottony trails of empty cloud streak the higher levels of azure. Unusual, Jokki thinks to himself. The snows, if I remember right, should have started falling at least one more hole ago in the stone wall. Maybe even two holes.

He shrugs off his fur-skin coat… the warm morning doesn’t need it. He notes that he’s already growing out of it… only a year ago he was that much smaller. He is still a boy, but growing quickly.

The sunlight pouring through the southernmost hole illuminates his furry knees, and heats them up… heats them perhaps a tad too much. To relieve them he steps aside into the shadow cast by the rest of the calendar-wall. He wishes he could remember his earlier childhood more clearly… he isn’t sure, but he could swear that the sun only ever felt like that in the spring and summer months.

It was only recently that he started paying attention to the weather so acutely. It was the previous summer that finally did it… that finally made him realize just how much summer there has been lately. He supposes he noticed before, but only in the back of his mind.
He remembers last summer with a certain anxiety in his chest, and a concerned backward tilt of his pointed ears. The heatwaves were immense. He remembers the sun pounding down on him, restricting his usual outdoor play. Summers were never that hot before… were they?

Everyone else in the tribe told him he was being too sensitive, complaining too much. Maybe they were right. Maybe the weather hadn’t changed… maybe he changed.
Just to be sure, he came up to the calendar-wall this morning… to be absolutely sure of the month at present. Now he sees it… it is Temphestros. Snow should be coating the ground and sprinkling from the clouds. But there is no snow, and there are hardly any clouds. It does not feel anything like the Temphestros he seems to remember. And now he’s certain that it’s the weather that has changed… not him.

But why does everyone else deny it? Why did everyone around him so resolutely ignore their own panting and perspiring last summer, even as the ground dried and the sky burned? Why is everyone else acting like this is normal, when it is so clearly not?

~~~
“Everyone has always spoken so highly of summer,” Jokki says. “It is the season when things grow, when we plant our seeds and the earth bears the fruits. It is when we take off all furs but our own and dance in the green grass.”

“And what green grass has been available for dancing of late?” Aestra asks him. “How many fruits has the earth born for you this year?”

Jokki thinks, dejectedly… not many. With less rains and dry dirt, the ground yielded less of both fruits and green grass.

Aestra nods. “I thought so. I have observed the same in the land of my tribe. Even there, people praise the summer so resolutely that the cannot fully see the value of Old Mother Winter, or take notice of the ill effects when She leaves us wanting.”

“Well,” Jokki admits. “Winter is very cold, and very little grows.”

“And what good then, my boy, is a summer in which very little grows?”

Jokki bites his tongue. She has a point, once again.

“Without the balance of winter, the summer is worthless,” the feathered old woman continues. “I, for one, have always found winter to be my favorite season. With good storage of food, lack of growth matters not. If you can shield yourself well against the more bitter of the cold, all that remains of snow is enchantment. When I was young a hearty snow fell every Temphestros, and I would swoop through the falling air-weight crystals and among the silvered branches of the forests, my heart as light as the flakes. I know your people do not have mastery of the air. But do you not have similar memories, from your childhood?”

Jokki thinks. Immediately, such memories begin to rise. True, as Aestra said, he and his people cannot swoop through the sky like Aestra’s can. But he recalls how much fun it always was to roll in the snow, dig into it with his paws, leap upward and bite the flakes as they fell. He and his fellow pups would throw snowballs at each other, and speed over the hills and through the trees on their fours, jubilantly stirring up crystalline powder. Winter is, Jokki considers, just as joyful as summer. And he has begun to miss it. He has begun to notice the hole its absence is leaving in his spirit.

“I don’t mean to frighten you, child,” Aestra says. “But I believe this is more than just a fleeting strange bout of weather. I believe something is very wrong with Old Mother Winter. And I, though I am becoming old and creaky, and my flight not as strong… would like to find Her, discover what ails Her, and see if there is not something we may do to cure Her. And you, Jokki, young one with all your life and many possible lovely winters ahead… would you like to join me?”

~~~

Since today is the five-year anniversary of the day that ‘Harahpin’ was published, I decided to share something special with you all (and ‘special’ could be taken in multiple senses in this case xD). I can’t believe that I’m doing this, but I hereby present to you ‘Trouble in Untopia’, the tiny short story I wrote over a decade ago in seventh grade and earliest ancestor of Harahpin itself! Despite the ACHING, GNAWING desire to edit and improve, I am giving this to you as it was originally written, nary a word fudged (okay so I maaay have added an Oxford Comma here and there but nothing else is touched, not even the tense errors xD). Get ready to not know if you’re laughing or crying. :’D

WARNING! Contained herein is some of the very oldest and most under-practiced written material that This Author (me) has on record. Therefore, by continuing on to read these Seventh-Grade Scrawlings, you agree to (a) NOT judge the quality of This Author’s present-day work, in writing OR world-building, based upon this Pre-Pubescent Prose, and (b) NOT to hold This Author liable for any personal damages including, but not limited to: Lost brain cells; reduced IQ; brain lesions; eye bleeding; epileptic fits; PTSD (Post Terrible Storytelling Disorder); The Inability to Un-See; or Disability caused by the overwhelming desire to curl into a fetal position and weep in despair, solemnly swearing never to eat a root read a book again.

This Author shall now hide her head in the sand as you proceed. xD

Trouble in Untopia

The vortex came so suddenly. So suddenly that everyone in Paratopia hardly had a chance to save themselves. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Ganymede, the firefly bat, was the only one in the meadow that morning, doing his yoga stretches. A firefly bat is a medium-sized bat with wings that glow when flapped. When flying at night, they look like fireflies with one-foot wingspans.

Ganymede was in the treeless meadow which was right outside a vast forest. There was nothing in between the meadow and some huge, incredible mountains, which surround Paratopia and are its border. The sun was barely up and giving a slight glow over the mountains. The rest of the sky was misty, pastel blue-gray. It was so peaceful that Ganymede had no idea what would follow.

I bet you’re wondering what the heck is outside those border mountains. It’s the dreaded Untopia, called so because it’s not a topia. It’s one of the most undesired places imaginable. No plants, and there’s monsters, living skeletons, zombies, pollution, and frying heat. And the worst part was that, at that time, the people there were finding a way to break into Paratopia.

Right outside the impressive mountains, an Untopian man was screwing a huge bolt onto a big machine he’d created. The thing looked somewhat like a huge pistol, only more alien-like. And it had a base with wheels that it perfectly fit onto.

“Okay, let’s see if you work,” the man said when he’d finished fastening the bolt. He turned the shooter part so that it pointed over the mountains, and touched a switch. With an evil grin, he surveyed his creation with glee. It worked! So long, Paratopia, he thought.

Meanwhile in the meadow, Ganymede was looking at the horizon. The sun was in the midst of rising, but something wasn’t right. A large, glowing circle was forming over the mountains. It looked nothing like the sun. Since when does the sun swirl in place?

Next thing, the circle shot right through the huge, invisible force field that protected Paratopia. Ganymede was being pulled.

All of the paradise was engulfed in glow. Everyone grabbed something… everyone but Ganymede. There was only grass to grab in that meadow, which snapped out of the ground as Ganymede frantically clutched it.

The vortex was so bright that Ganymede couldn’t see anything as he was sucked through it. He tried to flap his wings to gain control, but the vortex persisted in swirling him around. He suddenly felt a sharp pain in his left wing.

Just when Ganymede thought he would be sick, the glow died down and he landed with a smack on hard concrete. He found himself before a man with an evil expression on his face.

“Where am I?” Ganymede asked in a small voice.

“You, my friend, are in Untopia,” the man chuckled. “Where are the rest of you Paratopians?”

“What? There are none here.”

“There were no others in the vortex with you?” the man inquired.

“Not that I could see.”

“ONE FIREFLY BAT!” the man bellowed. He looked back at the very man who had caused the vortex. “Is that all you could nab with that contraption of yours, Satan?”

“I-I don’t understand how my machine could have failed, Despot,” Satan stuttered.

“It’s faulty,” Despot said. “Paratopians are weak. We need all of them to enslave.”

Ganymede gasped in silent horror.

“We’ll throw this bat out. I guess we don’t need him. He won’t survive a millisecond in Untopia.”

Next thing he knew, Ganymede was seized and chucked right out into squishy mud. The mud sucked on him, as if it had a mind of its own.

Ganymede managed to get himself out of the mud. He was suddenly aware that his left wing was hurt. It had hit a tall rock while he was in the vortex.

He couldn’t fly. He had to find shelter, to rest for a few minutes. Ganymede did find a cave, but as soon as he entered, he saw the bone-chilling grin of a bloodviper.

Bloodvipers are large, black-scaled lizards that live in Untopian caves. When in the dark, all one can see is their eyes and evil smiles, lined with stained, razor teeth. Next thing you know, you’re food.

Well, Ganymede ran out as fast as he could. He would have flown, but couldn’t because of his damaged wing. The bloodviper chased him, but amazingly, he got away.

The heat was beginning to fry Gany. He saw a river, and it looked red with clay. No matter, he thought. I can still swim in it. But when Ganymede got closer, he discovered the true reason of its ruddiness.

Blood.

The whole river was made up of blood. Ganymede had heard of the Untopian Bloodriver. Whenever an Untopian dies, his or her blood is given to the river. Every day, more is added.

Disgusted, Ganymede turned away, remembering that water was very rare in Untopia. As he walked away, he heard a loud growl behind him. He looked back and in terror, found that it was a homing gator. A huge, long-legged, large-headed reptile, almost matching a triceratops in size, that hunted and ate humans as its main diet.

But Ganymede knew that it would eat anything, including him. He stayed put, not knowing if it could cross the wide Bloodriver. But to Gany’s astonishment, the homing gator leapt right across the river of death, despite its bulk and size.

Gany ran, but he knew that on the ground, he was no match in speed for the huge croc. Flying, maybe, he could escape, but his wing was still sore. The last thing he saw before tripping and hitting his head was the enormous reptile closing in on him.

Gany was awoken by a loud, rumbling din. He was disgusted to find himself on a slimy, throbbing surface. It was dark, but Gany could dimly make out a veiny, red, enclosed wall all around him.

Eaten!

He’d been eaten by the homing gator! He was in the stomach, but he hadn’t yet been digested. Thank Zephyr, he thought, that I am small enough to be swallowed whole. If he’d been chewed, he’d really be in trouble.

He scanned for an escape. He thought of one, but he’d have to wait a while, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to go that way anyway. He looked up and saw the esophagus. His wing felt well enough to fly.

He flapped his wings and lifted to the hole. But when he did, he wished that his wings didn’t light up when he flew. The whole stomach lit, and Gany could see all sorts of bloody things that the homing gator had eaten.

Nauseated, Gany kept his eyes on the hole. When he reached it, he stopped flying and started crawling. The light died and he was glad. He worked his way up the esophagus, holding his nose, for the stench was awful.

Luckily, the homing gator was asleep. And luckier still, it was sleeping with its mouth open. Gany ran out as quietly as possible and stopped holding his nose. He was glad to be out of the damp stomach.

It was night time. The homing gator had walked a while and gone to sleep after eating him. Then Gany noticed something. He could see the Paratopian mountains! He was closer to home.

Had the homing gator helped him on purpose? No. Nothing in Untopia is helpful. But Gany silently thanked the gator.

Even though Gany could see the mountains, they were still a distance away. He could fly, but dangerous things would notice him, and he could not be noticed by anything.

So he walked, keeping his wings close to him, so they wouldn’t glow. It wasn’t long before he ran into a rock that was… HAIRY?! A breathing, hairy rock! Gany thought. He stood stock still.

Then the “rock” lifted its shaggy head and looked at him with bloodshot, orange eyes. It bared its jagged teeth and growled. A deathwolf.

Deathwolves are evil cousins of the Paratopian pyne*. Gany knew that if one was bitten by a deathwolf, they would be victims of the black plague. And Gany didn’t want to be eaten again.

“Oh, um, sorry,” Gany said weakly. “Is this your spot? Sorry, I’ll just be go…”

But as Gany started to walk away, the hyena planted her paw on Gany’s tail, stopping him.

“You’re not going nowhere, bat,” the deathwolf said. Gany wanted to say that that meant he could go, but he decided that it wasn’t the best time to be a smart alec, or to correct the hyena’s grammar. The deathwolf continued, “Me and my friends will rip you apart and share you!” Just then, ten more deathwolves appeared behind her, fangs dripping and cackling with hunger.

Think, Ganymede, think! Gany racked his brain. Then he had something. He kept his back to the hyenas, but turned his face toward them with a sly look. Deathwolves aren’t very smart, and he knew he could trick them.

“I wouldn’t eat me if I were you. If you do your insides will catch fire.”

The hyenas stopped laughing.

“And why is that?” one asked.

“It’s magic,” Gany replied.

“Magic…” A whispering conversation went between the deathwolves.

Suddenly, Gany whirled around and flapped as hard as he could. He shrieked as his wings blazed with light.

The deathwolves’ expressions turned to fear as they were lit with the glow of Ganymede’s wings and heard his terrible screams. Gany’s captor released his tail. She ran, and the others followed, thinking it a good idea.

Gany rocketed into the sky and flew straight for Paratopia. It wasn’t until later that he realized with horror he was flying, and his wings ablaze. Just as this thought sunk in, a huge, winged shape descended upon him, almost knocking him down. It nearly deafened him with a screech. It was a pterodactyl bat.

The giant bat chased him toward Paratopia, and the chase seemed to last forever. They were very close to the massive mountains. Ganymede saw something below that made his tummy lurch.

Satan, the man who had been the cause of all this, was at the base of the mountains with his machine, ready to try and capture the Paratopians again. Gany couldn’t let that happen. He flew right over the machine. His giant cousin crashed right into it, shattering it. Satan took a while to figure out what was going on. Then he saw the firefly bat that he and Despot were sure wouldn’t last. Then he saw, in terror, the pterodactyl bat.

To make sure that Satan wouldn’t repair the machine, Gany flew over Satan. And the big bat, right behind him, grabbed Satan in its mouth and swallowed.

Satisfied, the bat no longer chased Gany. His heart racing, he flew over the mountains, which no Untopian could pass over. Gany’s breathing slowed and so did his pulse. And now it wasn’t so hot anymore. Below him, he could see grass and water. Trees everywhere and a deep canyon. He was in Paratopia. He was home. He couldn’t wait to tell his sisters, Luna and Charon, about the day he would never forget.

Takeaways! (and shortcuts for those who can’t bear to read it all directly, lawl)

• Bats can do yoga apparently
• Giant Weapons of Mass Abduction specifically designed to capture everyone in a community only work if no one has something solid to hold onto at the moment of activation
• Baby-Untoria had humans, who apparently named their children things like ‘Satan’ and ‘Despot’, because EEEEEVIIIIILLLL!!!   Also, skeletons and ZAMBIES, because… IDK, Spoopy Halloween Thrills?? x’D
• The humans made not only machines shaped like giant pistols, but also poured concrete
• They uncreatively planned to enslave all Paratopians and destroy their world, for no real evident reason, except… EEEEEEEVIIIIIILLLLL!!!
• Even the MUD in Baby-Untoria was evil.
• Untorian ‘Moglasks’ were once ‘Bloodvipers’, big evil Cheshire-lizards that would shoot you a creepy grin from the darkness before devouring your face. Also, no explanation is needed as to how tiny, injured, inexperienced Ganymede ‘amazingly’ outran one. Suspend your disbelief, I command you D:<
  
• The bloody rivers were originally NOT the result of a Curse but of people dying so damn much that all that blood had to go somewhere… evidently.
• Dispordils used to be called ‘homing gators’ (and apparently did not possess gag reflexes since any prey that they happened to swallow whole could just crawl back out through their esophagi without even waking them up)
• Someone who has been swallowed whole and is soon to be slowly digested alive is somehow in LESS trouble than someone who has been chewed up and thus quickly killed. Also, if you have an injured wing, being thusly swallowed apparently miraculously heals it. How convenient!
• Penamogs were ‘deathwolves’ once (they aren’t even WOLVES wtf). Also… the black plague. I’mma say no more about that. >_>
• *Paratopian pyne: Ancestral Gizdimon, pronounced, I think, like ‘pena’ (current Untorian word for any hyena-like creature), even though the spelling looks like ‘pine’ (don’t ask me I dunno)
• ‘Pterodactyl bat’. I don’… I jus… xD Look here, seventh-grade-me, if you MUST insist upon that kind of a dumb name, ‘pteranodon bat’ or even ‘quetzalcoatlus bat’ would have been more appropriate… pteranodon and quetzalcoatlus were the big pterosaurs; a pterodactyl was actually smaller, ha
• Ganymede originally had two sisters. … ….What ever became of them? õ_ô

This is a short narrative clip I whipped out the other day on a whim. It details what it’s like to step into a certain house known as the Playground, which has great significance in a certain story of mine.

~~~

You are standing on dark, moist, crumbly soil, with short golden blades of grass poking up around your ankles. To your left, there is a tall and abrupt drop-off, and beyond that, a vast vista rolls away, the hills billowing with more gold grass, out there tall enough to pass your knees. To your right, there are more such shimmering gilded hills, this time rising upward in a gradual, undulating slope, and at the top, you can see a towering purple wall, part of the one encircling the Kingdom. You can’t make out anything of the Kingdom beyond the wall, save for the pair of rocky spires sticking out a ways from each other, one containing the resplendent Royal House at its peak, the other one bare. Behind you, there is an old, crumbling well, which has not seen water for years, sitting beside a small, broad-topped tree. One of the tree’s branches seems to have a bit of old, broken rope tied around it, as if a swing had once hung from it. And in front of you stands the house.

The Playground is an ancient structure, huge and haunted-looking, made of damp, splintery wood planks, cracked stone, and half-shattered shingles. Its roof is many-tiered, with platforms of shingles ascending higher and higher almost like broad steps, but with no regularity. And highest of all is the thick stone tower at the side, which reaches up toward the sky, looking like the turret of a castle was somehow misplaced onto this old creaky house. It looms before you, engulfing you with its wide dark shadow, creaking as the wind blows through gaps in its wooden walls and crackly glass windows. It seems eerily to study you, its haunted creakings singing wordlessly of times too old for you to know.

You look down to the single door at the front, which is made thickly with old wood and adorned with a tarnished and old-fashioned handle. There is one small, shuttered window to the left of the door and several much larger ones lined up on the wall to the right of it, which are too dim and dusty for you to really make out anything through them. You head toward the door and, once before it, you take the cold metal handle into your hand and press the lever down. You push the door inward and, after what almost seems to be a moment of conscious hesitation and consideration of your worthiness to enter, the heavy slab of wood creaks open for you.

You step into a wide, dim room, your eyes adjusting slightly to the gloom after the bright sunlight outside. There is a wide window on the left wall overlooking the drop-off outside, and though the tattery dark curtains flanking it are not drawn, the light filtering through the glass is surprisingly dim. No one seems to be home at the moment. You step fully into the room, the floorboards creaking under your steps and a few small mice scuttling out of your way. You close the door behind you and the dimness is now absolute.

You glance a moment at the newly-closed door behind you and behold something etched into the inside wood of it. Names are carved there, and they read as follows:

‘Mysteria Gray’. This looks like the oldest carving of the lot.

‘Sol Windspell’, in a different hand.

‘Solen Gimpstrings’. The first of the two names is crossed out, with the second written in yet another hand.

‘Sage’, written in the same hand as the first name.

Then, below the lot, something that could have once been a fifth name, but which seems to have been rather viciously scratched out, well beyond readability. Beside this is instead a little symbol of sorts, looking like a short dash, a pair of slanting vertical nicks, and a circle. ~,,o

The overwhelming scent of this space is dust, and you can see why…_; it coats most surfaces. You hear a small, high sound coming from the corners of the ceiling and look up. There are ample spiderwebs up there and the spiders to go with them; the little fellows seem to be playing little melodies on their web-strands with their eight dexterous legs.

Despite the relative largeness of the room, there isn’t too much in it. Immediately to your left as you turn your back to the door is a tall coat-rack, empty of coats for the moment. Just beyond that is the shuttered window you’d seen from outside. To your right is a large wooden cabinet, its doors sealed shut by a few metal clasps. Under the single wide window with the dark curtains is a rickety bit of padded furniture, most resembling a couch, and an ancient one at that. It is, of course, dusty, and over its top is folded a tattered bit of material which looks just like the curtains, but seems to find its use as a makeshift blanket. After all, the resident of this house does tend to curl up there most nights.

At the far end of this couch-like bit of furniture is a small wood table needing repair, which is adorned only with an oil lamp. The lamp is of course not lit at the moment. Beyond that table, in front of the back wall, is another article of furniture more like a regular chair. And leaning upon that is a large musical instrument. You walk toward this instrument to inspect it more closely. It is a cello, big and stylishly asymmetrical, and definitely handmade. It looks rather old too, but unlike its surroundings, it appears to shine. Indeed, it seems to be the only object in this whole space that looks well-cared-for and not covered in dust and cobwebs. Its dense wood is colored deep gray with a purplish tinge and fetching swirls in its grain. The four silver strings, through of different thickness between them, all gleam with the same bright luster, almost in defiance of the dimness surrounding them. The instrument definitely seems to carry its own spirit. Beautiful as it is, the resident would probably prefer you did not mess with it.

On the wall opposite the single window is a door, smaller and lighter than the outside door, but with a similar old-fashioned handle. You walk over to this and peek into the room beyond it. There is the row of large windows you’d seen outside, now dimly glowing with dusty shafts of light from the wall to your right. The rest of the room is filled with a miscellaneous smattering of objects, from damp-warped wood dressers and tables to sealed trunks and crates and musty moth-bitten piles of quilts. This seems to be a storeroom from ages past. Atop one crate not far from you, you can make out another oil lamp like the one on the table behind you. And visible beyond this, beneath one of the windows, a table sits draped with a bit of cloth cradling another musical instrument. This time it’s a fiddle, a smaller counterpart to the cello behind you. The dusty light rays hit the strings, which, thought they twinkle, are clearly rusted and underused. This instrument seems a bit lonely, as though it is sitting in waiting for a player it has not seen in a long time.

You back out of this room and close the door. Looking to your left, you see a flight of wooden stairs, which incline upward for a rather short space before turning sharply to the left. You can’t see beyond this turn, but you can make an educated prediction of more dusty gloom on all upper levels of this house. You put your foot on the first step.

Wait!

Stop.

Don’t go upstairs.

Unless you feel up to gambling your life (and most likely losing), don’t go upstairs.

~~~

(c) Copyright to Sequoia the Storyteller, 2015.

I’m testing out the posting of short stories on this site, with a bit of lore from the world of Esmeralda. It includes an illustration too (which I’ve also included in the Art page gallery). 😀 So without further ado…

~~~One day in our good land of Willowyn, many generations ago, a lone fisherman by the name of Wegny was fishing in his favorite spot. It was a secluded wood platform that stood tall over the water on its stilts, deep within the swampland and far from Wegny’s village. Wegny had taken his little raft out to the platform and was trying to catch fish for his family as he did often. And as he sat up there, his feet dangling over the edge of the wooden planks and his fishing rod held out over the water, a Riddlemaw swam into sight and looked up at Wegny, watching him as he fished. The scaly creature just bobbed there in the water for some time, staring at Wegny, seeming fascinated. Wegny became annoyed… how was he to catch any fish, with the Riddlemaw lurking down there and scaring them off?

The Riddlemaw just would not leave. Eventually it even began to swim around the base of the platform, circling, and emitting grunts and gargles. But these were not the regular grunts and gargles of Riddlemaws… they were, as Riddlemaw-grunts usually are, arranged in poetic rhythm, but this time, they were words! They were words that Wegny could understand!

Now Wegny was the one who was rapt. He listened and listened, until he had no doubts that he was hearing clear words from the Riddlemaw’s toothy mouth. Over and over the Riddlemaw recited them, having found inspiration in the sight of Wegny and delighting in its new poem. These are the words the Riddlemaw spoke:

“Wood go up,

Dry over low swamp.

Funny-skin sprite,

There sit top.

Holding stick,

Fish then eats…

What funny little there that seats!”

And soon, when satisfied that Wegny had heard it out, the Riddlemaw swam away. Wegny remembered the words and took them home to his family. Word soon spread… for the first time in memory, a Riddlemaw had spoken in Whimsy-tongue! The words of the Riddlemaw soon became legend here in Willowyn, the Bog of the Bards, and came to be known as the Anthem of the Bog.

~~~

I’ll surely have many more where this came from, and not all of my short stories are THIS short. 🙂

“Anthem of the Bog” is copyright to Sequoia the Storyteller. All rights reserved.