Marion's Hideaway

Chapter 10: Climate Change

My face was buried in snow, however, the cold didn't sting my face. I slowly raised my head to get a look at my surroundings and found that even the weather wasn't all that cold, just kinda breezy. I looked over at Tuck; he was attempting to remove his newly acquired shoes. "Well, these Moon Shoes as you call them definitely did the trick. We've made it to the other side." Tuck announced. Indeed, we had made it. No longer standing on rocky, dry terrain, but hills and mountains of frosty white. I looked at my feet, which were fashioned with the spring-equipped footwear. "Dude, I want my boots back!" I yelled, exactly three seconds prior to having said boots hit me over the head. Tuck's shoes fell from the sky soon after except, well, they managed to land in his arms. "Oh, yes. Thank you, old sauna guy!" I heard the crackle of a speakerphone and a "You're welcome!" from the volcano, which was now above us.
"God, could this place get any weirder." I moaned as I massaged the newly formed bump on my head. Tuck responded with a shrug.
Like seriously, what kind of place was this? It seemed that the longer I ventured through this mysterious land, the more outlandish things became. Just that day, I had already fought through an army of murderous stuffed teddies, survived the attack of a strange insect-like creature with tentacles, rode an elevator up a volcano, discovered that said volcano was actually some huge community sauna, and now I had just endured being launched into the sky only to land in a completely different terrain. "Okay, seriously Tuck. Where am I?" I questioned. Tuck looked at me and sighed, "Uruthyn is kind of...", he paused to think of the right word, "...unbalanced at the moment. It's been this way for a while, that's why we'd been instructing the Forest citizens not to leave. It just isn't safe in its current state. However, when the...well, incident happened between you and the.." "Yeah, I know what happened." I interrupted him, "So, what you're saying is that perhaps this worldly unbalance, so to speak, actually affected me; maybe it was even responsible for the incident, and those weird night terrors I've been experiencing." I said, trying to wrap my head around this whole hullabaloo. "Yes, that's what I'm thinking. Our goal is to get up there." Tuck said as he pointed up to a ridiculously tall, snow-covered mountain. I stared in terrified awe, "Oh. Well, um, isn't that something. But, what awaits us up there? How will getting there help us fix things?" I asked. Tuck scratched his head and looked at the ground, "Well, it's pretty hard to explain, and to be completely honest, I don't even know if it will work. But it's the closest thing I have in terms of an actual plan." "Huh, well your certainty definitely gives me a boost of confidence." I said with an irritated tone. I looked again at the mountain, its peak hidden behind thick clouds. "So, how in god's name are we supposed to get all the way up there? There wouldn't happen to be an elevator, would there?" I said jokingly. Tuck groaned in annoyance, "Unfortunately no", he motioned towards the mountain, "I'm afraid we'll have to take the stairs." I felt my eye twitch, "Stairs. You have got to be kidding."