Invasive Species (Inspired by Little Nightmares)

Prologue - The In Between Lanes ~ Lyra

                                                                                             .~*~.

When my eyes opened onto the foggy city, I saw the suitcase in my hand and the bus stop sign next to the bench I was sitting on, I remembered what I was here for. This is the day I will leave everything behind, for greater things or what I think is to be better things. I love the foggy days at home.

I missed being able to wait for the bus in the cold cool humid air, now I don't go to school anymore. I place my suitcase on the bench and open it up, it's filled with my favorite toys and on the very top, the princess doll that I got for my birthday, dressed in her nightly garments, hair tied up with a bow on her head, and my mother's hair brush, and what I need the most, my bus ticket.

The only things I need from the real world to come here. I don't really hate the real world, but after hearing about all the bad things that were going to happen, I'd rather go live in a place where I can be anything, where anything can be adventure, where no one leaves me with pain. Maybe this time I can find friends and nicer people to explore with, and so this place isn't as quiet as it is. I hate silence.

The warped looking bus honks its scratchy sounding horn. A jumbled voice calls but I could tell what it meant even with its unorganized speech. I quickly closed my battered suitcase, hopped off the bench and hurried onto the bus as the bright lights of the bus shine on my messy, tangled hair, bruised elbows and my tattered gown.

As I stepped onto the bus, colder than the outside fog. The seats had mushy looking people, yet I could tell who they were. In the front seat, a woman and her newborn, the woman wailing like a baby while her child was silent, almost as if it wasn't even real.

There were schoolgirls and boys crowding the seats near the middle, chit chatting but an old man sitting across from the woman shrieks and slams his cane on the floor, which makes everyone jolt and everyone quiets down.

I look at the warped bus driver stretched face and he asks me in a raspy voice "Where to?" I answered as the ferryman had told me, "Nowhere.." I said shakily, worried the driver might take me to the wrong place. He took a pause and muttered "It's the next stop, Lyra." his sagged mouth squished into an uncanny smirk of fleshy skin.

I quickly gave him my ticket from my suitcase and walked down the aisle, shuddering from the look the man gave me. past the stretched and squashed faces, I walked through the seats quickly and sat in my seat as the lights flickered and a loud horn blared. I sat near the back, a few seats from the students looking at the bench I sat at before disappearing into the fog as the bus drove off.

Even though the bus was pretty much empty, the rickety bus moving was all I needed to not feel as uncomfortable as I was on the bench. I sat there, looking out the window at different benches, with different people, with different items on them. We turned onto a road, the city began to fade out into a darkness, a fog that was incapable of seeing through.

The pitch black darkness covered the windows, as I tried my hardest to look through the dark I heard the bus door open, everyone was gone, no gossiping students, no crying woman and her silent child, not even the bus driver.

I took a deep breath and walked off the bus, as my feet stepped onto the dark black sand of the beach, I heard the door close behind me, I turned to see sand for miles, no streets or city, not even a bus or wheel trails in sight.

As I looked in front of me I noticed a trail of sand, I followed the trail as something was being pushed through the sand, as I did I walked and walked until I heard grunting, and that's when I saw him, the ferryman.

His face was warped and his eyes contorted into slits, even with his scary face I was almost accustomed to his scary look by now, yet I don't know why I feel shivers down my spine and goosebumps in the cool-warmth.

He got to land, pushed the boat onto the soft sand towards the water, right onto the shore. He wore a large trench coat and a hat, with a string tied around his face, or what was once a face. As he finished, he asked me in his deep scratchy voice, "Are you ready to go?" I nod and approach him, he takes my small hand and places me into the boat. He pushes the boat back onto the water and hops in, he takes a lantern in hand and places it on the edge of the boat as he sits to face me.

As I sat on the big seat of the boat, my thoughts began to fog, my memories began to contort and shape into nothingness, as the ferryman said his riddles I understood what my quest was, "To kill the plants, the vines.

Once it is completed you will gain power beyond your greatest dreams." As his smushed face blurred in my mind, my mind was clear, set on the mission, the kudzu. I started to almost fall asleep, an intense sleepless swept over me as he said his goodbyes, more warped than the last time he said it.

As I set my head and my long locks on the boat's seat, I faced the foggy gray sky, a dark fog of nothingness as my eyes slowly closed, after I saw a door in my mind, shining bright with holy light, As I step through the door bells rang in my ears until I couldn't take it, I scratched at my eyes, trying to open them, prying at them with my fingers, as the bells echoed, as my fingers scratched at my eyes, until my eyes shot open to silence and bird chirps, a broken ceiling with light piercing through the cracks.

                                                                                  . ~*~ .