The Quill

Chapter Three: Awake

A darkness unlike she had ever felt set in. Her eyes nagged for her to open them, Abigail refusing for five more minutes. But soon, those five minutes passed, and again they ached to be opened. Reluctantly, she breathed in the air around her and finally woke up.

Abby yawned once - hearing some sort of noise when she did. That noise must have been her alarm.

It definitely didn't sound like her alarm, though.

She blinked once or twice, letting the darkness scatter from her eyelids. But what she saw frightened her quite a bit.

This certainly wasn't her apartment.

Abigail was in a giant, circular room - with nothing else in it but her and the bed-type thing she was laying on. It definitely resembled a bed, but she wasn't quite sure what it was. The walls were completely barren of any hanging thing, and she immediately felt lonely.

A rush of warm adrenaline flooded through her, goosebumps giggling across her skin. A drum-like pulse beat in eighths to her own heartbeat, forcing her to breathe from her mouth. Abigail looked around again, resisting the urge to believe that this wasn't a dream.

"Please be a dream..." She pinched herself, trying to get herself to wake up from this sudden, lonely nightmare; but to no avail. Where was she? What if she didn't show up to work on time? Would Nancy fire her? What about the date she had with Duke on Wednesday? Would she still be able to make that?

Suddenly, she again heard the same noise that woke her up. It made her jump this time, and she threw the sheet off of her - finding that she was in a pale pink night-gown. It looked somewhat tattered and raggedy, but it didn't matter to her. Her only thought was to get out of there as fast as she could.

The noise grew louder as Abigail's heart soared. Her bare feet made fleshy steps on the cold, stone floor, and she ran to the closest wall near her. It was indented with a simple design, but when she looked around, the only door in the circular room harbored the noise that scared her.

"Caw!" The sudden bird call made Abby jump and immediately look up. She definitely heard a bird noise, but there was only a feather falling and a rope left behind. As it dangled down, a spontaneous decision was made. Abigail grabbed for the rope, and, thankful that she took gymnastics as a young girl, climbed up to the opening of the tower.

Once up there, she climbed out of the opening and pulled the rope up; the roof that she stood on vaguely reminded her of a witch's hat. It was hard for Abby to breathe as she looked out on the panorama. An ocean as far as her eyes could reach stood to her left, little islands playfully waving to her from their homes. As Abigail turned her head, she saw huge plots of land - farther than her she could even make out. Rolling hills seemed to somersault in tune with the forests, and trees taller than any she had ever seen sprouted from those forests. In the far distance, she swore she saw snow.

"Where the... Where am I...?"

Finally looking down upon where she stood, she found a giant castle - but not before the waterfall caught her eye. It delved deeper than she could imagine, the bottom impossible to see. The castle waited on what looked like a rock that happened to be in the very middle of the grand waterfall.

"How...How high up am I...?" She questioned, merely whispering. Abigail stood in awe for much longer than what she thought, finding that she somehow sat down on the tilting roof.

The sound of the breeze eased her mind, and she gave up the notion of the scary noise following her up to the roof. There was another noise that played in tune with the breeze, however; and she soon took sight of what exactly was making that noise.