Alisha jumped eagerly out of the red (and very dirty, in her opinion) ute as soon as it stopped moving.
"Yay! We're here! That ride was long," she grumbled.
Her mother laughed. "Alisha, dear, it was twenty minutes."
Alisha shrugged. "That's still long. Can I go now, Mom? Please?" she whined.
Maria smiled. "Of course. Off you go, love."
"Thank you!" Alisha squealed, and scampered playfully away from the vehicle. She wandered across the wide, grassy field to an old picket fence, where she ducked under the rusty wire and into the edge of the forest.
The girl never strayed far from her parents; she always stayed close enough to hear the rhythmic chopping of her father cutting fallen trees into pieces for their wood heater. She walked around aimlessly, just enjoying the peace and quiet of the place. Alisha chased leaves, tried to sneak up on birds, and just loved being alone, which she rarely could be.
After a while, this started to get boring. Alisha began to walk a little further away from her parents, searching. Searching for what? She didn't know. Adventure, excitement, anything entertaining or out of the norm. Unfortunately, she didn't find any aliens or hidden wonderlands. The closest she came to exciting was a rock. A large, rounded stone with funny colors, to be precise. It was knee height, perfectly smooth, and Alisha was intrigued by its colors. She knelt beside it and ran her hand over its light blue surface, tracing the dark blue specks with her fingers.
She'd never seen a blue rock before, certainly never one this smooth (well, except for those little round pebbles she'd found in the garden), and she was captured in the gorgeous dark blue patterns and swirls. Alisha stayed in her trance-like state for nearly an hour, hypnotised by the stone. She kept her hand pressed against it; it almost seemed to emit a warm, soothing glow.
In the back of her mind, Alisha registered voices.
"Alisha. Alisha!"
"Stop being silly, we have to go."
"Alisha, darling, what's wrong?"
"Hello?"
Distantly, she recognised the two voices to be her parents. But she didn't care. Nothing mattered. Nothing mattered, except for the pulsing warmth she got from the stone. She could hear her own heartbeat and it made her feel alive.
Then she was jerked out of her reverie by her hand being pulled off the stone. Subconsciously she let out a whine, opening her eyes to look into her father's worried ones.
"Alisha, get up. What were you doing?" he asked.
"I was...I don't even know," she replied honestly. "But can I take the pretty rock home? Please? Look how pretty it is!"
Mark frowned. "Really? What about, you know...a smaller one?"
"Oh, Mark, let her keep it," Maria laughed. "She's fallen in love with the thing."
"Yay! Thanks Mom!" Alisha cheered. She jumped up and hugged Maria.
"Dad, can you please help me take it to the car?"
By the time a week had passed, the stone was forgotten. It sat against the edge of Alisha's bed covered in dirty clothes.
"Alisha, you need to clean your room tomorrow," Maria said, straightening out her daughter's blanket.
Alisha groaned. "Okay, Mum. I will. Good night!"
Maria switched the light off. "Good night. And I will be checking your closet too!"
