The Warehouse

#2

The girl landed on a cold, hard metal floor with a thud. 'Why isn't the vortex-thing closer to the ground on this side...?' She complained to herself while rubbing her back.
She stood up and examined her surroundings. About her seemed to be a old warehouse. With many worn down and deserted shop stands around, it seemed as though it had been vacated for a long time.

At first, she simply stood there, not caring about the unsightly old warehouse that surrounded her. She walked over to one of the little shop stands. It had oddly glittering cobwebs and dust decorating it. As she looked closer, she saw a little creature, stirring in a crack.
The girl screamed and jumped back with surprise, realizing that the creature seemed to be... a little person... with wings...?
"Well, hello there dear! Contrary to my usual opinion about such rude awakenings, I don't really mind this one, seeing you aren't from around here, now are you dear?" Said the minute lady with the wings.
"Er-I just was... uhh..." The girl said, looking around unable to come up with any reason as to why she had been snooping around. "
"Quite alright, dear. Now if you'll excuse me..." pardoned the winged lady as she lay back down to rest in her tiny crack in the wood.
The girl didn't want to be rude, so she left the winged lady snoring, and went to look at the shop next to that one.

Suddenly, the girl heard many voices about her. She turned and saw, like a blurry frenzy at lunch hour, a crowd of oddly very pretty people surrounded her, all frantically rushing about, all keenly and intuitively aware of the her presence. Some of them stopped and stared at her with interest, while others just pushed past her, trying to be where they were supposed to be.

A blonde-haired girls seemed to be giving her dirty looks, and what did she care, she was used to it, for many in her old life seemed to have some sort of predisposed idea of the way she was. She realized what she must of looked like, worn out and shaggy, and probably not entirely clean or nicely-smelling. She tried to shrug it off, and for the most part she did, yet a small part of her really wanted to impress this girl.

As she explored the now not so vacant shops and stands, she felt very small in comparison to these people. Not only was she physically shorter than most of them, but also smaller in character, something that seemed completely inexplicable to her.
She too, was aware of their magic, but chose not to say anything about it, thinking that if the warehouse villagers were anything like the blonde girl she'd seen earlier, she had better not do anything to make them upset.

Hour after hour, she passed many people and saw many things. What she saw intrigued her, for there were beginning to be things she took note of. First of all, the majority of these people were very tall (as mentioned before). Secondly, they were all a bit wary of her, but not the harsh, crude, calculating wary like the people at her summer camp were, these people simply seemed as though they were watching her, waiting for something to happen.

As she was walking around and staring at the brightly lit shop stands, the only person who was actually close in height to her that she'd seen the entire time she'd been their appeared before her and gave her a cheesy grin, showing off blue and orange colored braces.
"Howdy there!!" She exclaimed happily. "I take it you are the new one here?"
The girl didn't respond, simply staring and trying to smile back, yet failing miserably.

"Well alright then! My name's Holly. I take it you've met Clare by now by the way she's been hanging around you?" She queried.
Looking behind Holly, the girl saw the blonde girl she'd seen earlier, this time watching her conversation with Holly intently.

Unfortunately, the girl still couldn't say anything. Suddenly, she felt uncontrollably saddened that she  could not speak. Suddenly, terrible memories flooded into her mind as she remembered this happening before. She hated that she couldn't interact with people. Especially people who were so friendly and nice-seeming like this girl was... It felt like a part of her was breaking, bending... bending... she felt torn up inside, like her anxiety was killing her slowly over a boiling pot of depression.
Feeling completely overwhelmed and distantly from reality, she didn't even hear when Holly started talking to her about something... the only words she could make out were "special" and "celebration".

"Well come on now, I'll show you around some more. Then you can come to our little get together tonight." Holly stated contentedly, explaining how tonight was a special night. The girl tried to listen to what Holly said, but couldn't hear her every time she told her the reason why the night was special.

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Hello again! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! 😁 Please comment if you can, I'd love some feedback and criticism on anything. I will most likely update again within the week, so stay tuned if you like! Anyways, thank you for reading chapter 2 of The Warehouse! 🤗