It's all Inside

Chapter 1

The sky is cloudy and the water flows calmly. The trees gently sway their branches left to right. Only my head is sticking out of the manhole from which I came. I hang on to the broken and rusted metal ladder, and my palms run up and down the rust. I'm thinking hard now.

Above me is the connection of branches, and tall silhouettes of trees cut out from the sun stretch out in the distance, taller than anything else I have ever seen. I'm curious to see more, almost eager, and quickly I pull myself up and sit on the grass, these giant trees looming over my head. To my right, approximately two miles away, I can see a butterbur field of bright red. I lay down upon the messy grass and shoot my eyes up at the sky, and I wonder just where... am I? The sound of very animated, moving water faintly navigates into my eardrums and I relax a little. I don't know how long I lay here.

Years can pass, and I think I'll be okay here. Lying by myself and no one around, nothing to keep up or to prove, and no faces to wear for someone else. This truly is nature at it's purest, how I think the world is intended to be.

About ready to doze off, I take a lazy check eye check at the environment around me, concluding that I really, actually, truly, unbelievably, alone. Alone in a forest and probably not on earth, in a place that no one knows. There are no birds, no animals, no nothing. The dead silence of this place is so alive to me. It is much different than where I previously was.

I don't even want to remember where I previously was.

I stomp the ground with my heel, and now I'm on my feet. I can't stay here forever. I don't know where I am. First off, what is this place? Why am I here? Wasn't I at school? What did that box do to me? Wait... now I remember.

I wasn't the only one who got sucked... into... the box?! Where did that come from? Why do I remember this, and how did I know it?

Agh, damn it, where am I?! What happened? What's going on?!

I'm walking down the butterbur field. The entire field is still as florescent red as when I last checked, and the shuffling of the plants as I walk on through accompanies the still-so-real silence. That's when I see it. That's when I jump in my shoes and walk backwards without a second thought.

She's staring at me.

Her head is tilted, her eyes as red as the butterbur. She is holding a red umbrella and wears a long, red dress. She doesn't move even just a simple centimeter as we make eye contact. She doesn't seem alive but I know she is, she's standing right there with a half grin and those eyes just looking at me like... like... a scarecrow.

I get the unpleasant vibe that she does not mean well. Implying if this is even real to begin with. I kind of don't want to be around her, despite this logic. I walk a half circle around her, not once keeping my eyes off of her as I do. She's in the middle of the butterbur so I narrowly and, perhaps a little too slow, saunter past her. I'm behind her now, and I can see she has some sort of symbol attached to her back where the dress doesn't cover. I can't exactly describe what it looks like, only that it reminds me of a catholic cross, but these two symbols probably are nothing alike. I really think she's a scarecrow at this point, and it's safe to say that I do turn around and keep walking.

There is a rustle of noise behind me, and I turn around, only to fall on to my butt and scoot back, paralyzed with fear. She's not a scarecrow. She's not a scarecrow. She's not a scarecrow, and she is facing me the exact same way I saw her before I passed her.

I break into a run, farther and farther down the blood colored butterbur field, and I do not stop. I keep running, definitely for hours, and I do not look back. I don't stop to breathe no matter how much my stomach hurts and my heart is pounding only from the fear, I'm happy to run, I'm happy to be alive, I'm elated to be away from that thing, and I want out of here. Cold sweat pours down my body like ice through my veins but I don't ever stop running, and then something happens.