Mirror World

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

We were running for our lives, trembling helplessly over the bristly thorns and the marshy area. The disinterested party were chasing me and my orphaned cousin Ezabelle as we had been near the Origin again. We hid behind one of the poisonous plants; know as Cassavas, and we have them a lot here Harmenia. 

“That was awesome! Let’s go again, I like vexing those rotten disinters, I mean seriously, the earn a living by stickin' their lousy noses into other people's buisness.” She proclaimed as she gasped for breath. I looked sternly into her keyed up eyes. “Are you nuts? We could have got captured, into the Dwells! I am never going on ‘small expeditions to the Origin again’. Especially with you! And they don't interfere in other people's buisness as you say, they're protecting us from that mountain.” She can be so frustrating and dominant at times, especially because she’s a year younger than me. It would've taken a few more seconds to grab some of them and rout them into Ezabelle's face to release my rising temper, but we were surrounded by approaching footsteps. 

"And what's so scary about a mountain?"

"It has foribidden secrets, load of rubbish but whatever, now do us both a faour and shut up or we'll die before eating another helping of dessert tonight, Mam's saved some from yesterday for us... I guess it's payment worth for my chores... lucky you'll be getting some too." I whispered hoarsely as I heard approaching footsteps. 

"Are you sure you heard someone, sir?" Came a soft, shaky voice.

"Yeah, I'm sure I did." From the hedges came the appearance of a bulky man with a pointy moustache looking stern and somehow irritated, carrying a large rifle over his shoulder.

"Last thing I want is to be challenged of my senses by an abysmal tyro." He added under his breath.

"But sir, I'm sure it was an animal, a squrrial, maybe even a badger, or perhaps it was just a phantasm, the heat's immense you know..."

The other man cut him off, speaking in a rough, deep voice. "I may be fifity-nine and retiring next year buy that does NOT MEAN I CANNOT SEE, YOU FOOL! I've never had any kind of phanyasm or halluciantion or deliriium or any kind of that fantasy in my life. I'm sure I saw a girl here somewhere, blonde hair Kieran, look for blonde hair, should be easy to spot here." 

Ezabelle ducked down and hid her hair looking worried for the first time since she stepped into the forest.

"A GIRL? In the forest, sir? You really think girls have enough guts to be roaming out here? We're wasting time sir, I have training this afternoon, we're merely wasting time."

"Being more qualified and experienced than you Kieran, I advice you to do as I order, stay on track and STOP CONTRADICTING ME! That is if you want to hold onto this job, we've got countless applicants to serve for the Carthim." The man named Kieran looked taken aback and contined to search.

The man and what seemed to be his apprentice scoured the area thoroughly while I clutched onto Ezabelle; my heart my banging my chest, beating like a drum so loud I wondered whether they'd hear the sound of my heartbeat. There was no way out from here, they were searching around and around in the same spot where the old man had said he saw Ezabelle's hair.

About fifteen minutes had passed but the old man was still determined and Kieran was still complaining and trying to convince him that there was nobody here. At last, the old man commanded him to move on and search other areas of the forest, or his job would be "in serious peril", at which an exasperated Kieran rolled his eyes, muttered a few offensive words and carried on.

There was something wrong, and I was grasping on to Ezabelle's hand even tighter now. Kieran, intead of walking straight ahead to where the old man had told him to search, looked around to check if the man was facing the other way and crept towards our direction.