The Twilight Zone

Chapter 1

Ellie stood up. She observed the space around her. The walls around her were made of a lustrous white metal, and the floor was hard, gray tiles. The hall was empty, except for a small window. She gingerly stepped to it and looked out.

Black.

Below the window was a small metal strip with five words written on it.

Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

Her hands followed every twist and turn of the walls until the metal turned to hard stone. She was looking down a slope of damp, slick, rock. The moss on the walls swayed in the breeze that came from down the canal. There was a sort of eerie light, dim but just bright enough that Ellie could see the moss moving from side to side.

She took a deep breath and inched her foot out into the hallway, going as slow as she could. Tentatively, she followed the warped wall until she felt like the emptiness had dragged on forever, that every figment of life had decided to disappear.

Then, her foot gave out. She slipped on the smooth flooring beneath her, and the incline of the room grew even steeper as she fell.

Ellie tumbled out of the channel, limbs sprawled in all directions. The earth around her was unfamiliar and void of any life. She could feel the floor and a breeze trickling from somewhere in the empty world around her.

She couldn't see anything. Even the bit of light that had been in the sloped hall earlier was gone. She took careful steps forward, her hands outstretched in front of her. Every step into the earth underneath her was slow and antagonizing.

The floor sank as she stepped—it was almost squishy. She retracted her legs from it, trying to step on it as lightly and nimbly as she could without flying off the earth. Being in this dark space made her feel claustrophobic. Somehow, she knew she was alone, but she couldn't shake the horrid feeling that something was watching her, and she couldn't decide which was scarier—being utterly alone, or with an unseen being.

She broke out into a full-on run, sprinting until she had to clutch at her sides and her breaths become gasps of agony. She could see the light up ahead, pulsating and flickering. Ellie just had to make it there, but her legs seemed to be moving in slow motion—she wanted to be faster, the destination so near, but she wasn't getting anywhere closer. 

Until she was, and the light was directly in front of her face. It was a streetlight, a lamp in the utter darkness. It was so odd that Ellie rubbed her eyes to make sure she hadn't hallucinated. When she opened them, the lamppost hadn't vanished.

A girl had appeared, leaning on it with a sly, knowing smile on her face. She had glasses with a greenish tint to the lenses resting on her head. Her outfit was drab and simple, a brown dress—like garb with a frock at the tip.

Ellie gulped, not knowing if she should be as scared as she was just then. The girl got up, and the light turned off. Shivers ran down Ellie's spine-she didn't know where the girl had gone, or why she was even there in the first place.

The lamp turned on. The girl looked over Ellie's shoulder at her.

"Hi."

"H-Hi."

"My name's Amelie."

"Okay..."

Amelie strode back over to her lamp.

"It turns off sometimes." She looked at Ellie funnily. "Why are you here?"

Ellie thought to herself why she had never questioned it since the length of her time in the Twilight Zone. How long had she been there, anyway? Hours? Days? Weeks? It felt like forever. She knew why she was there, stuck in new, unexplored terrain. She could remember the trial, and being found guilty for something she hadn't done. She remembered taking the blame for her younger brother, Oliver. He was only eight, and she felt responsible for what had happened.

She remembered that she had been Exiled to the Place Of No Return.

The Twilight Zone.