My Golden Life

Chapter 6

For most of that night, I cried myself to sleep, praying that all of this was nothing but a dream. As much as I tried to stay warm, the hash winds would creep its way in and brush against my skin; the rain made it ten times worse. I awoke to the morning sun striking the side of my face. I steadied myself up to get an idea of where I could be. The sounds of what appeared to be a market place rang through my ears.

Unsure of where I was, I got up and walked towards the barred windows; I began to jump up and down to try and get a glimpse of my surroundings. From what I could see, there were lots of people; many were in chains and cages. I could feel my heart pounding as I pulled myself from the window.

"Where am I?" I thought. "Where have they taken me?"

The door to the wagon then suddenly flew open, causing me to back myself against the wall. Rusty metal chains were gripped tightly in one of the men's hands.

"Don't make this hard for us, girl," he growled, "The sooner we get this done, the sooner I get my money."

"Don't you dare touch me!" I yelled.

He then lunged at me, trying to grab both my hands. I put up a good fight, but then the other man came running in, and in a matter of minutes, my hands were cuffed together.

"Fiesty one, ain't she?" the first man laughed, staring at me.

"Guess that's why she's Goldilocks, huh." the other added.

They pulled the remaining chain and dragged me out of the wagon and into the scorching sunlight. I was now able to accurately see what was going on around me. There were so many people around just like me in chains, pulled in all kinds of directions. As we continued to walk, I spotted several familiar faces as well as creatures.

In the corner of my eye, I saw the seven dwarfs chained up, walking in a single file. I then saw several witches, elves, and... Pinocchio? Was I going insane? Nearly every single fairytale creature that I had ever heard of was there. We then ended up in a queue and was waiting behind an older woman with a donkey.

For a brief moment, I could have sworn that I heard him pleading with her to give him another chance, but I just figured my mind was going a little crazy due to my ordeal. We continued to wait in the line; I was frantically trying to find a way of getting myself out of the cuffs. It then occurred to me that I had a few bobby pins in my hair, and from my thieving days, my dad had taught me how to pick a lock with pretty much anything. I let out a deep yawn and stretched my hands up towards my head, scratching the spot I knew I put the pins in.

"Bingo," I whispered, hiding it from sight.

I knew I had to hurry, as we were now one person away from me receiving my impending doom. As I started to configure the lock, my ears picked up the conversation that was happing in front of me; the older woman with the donkey was trying to convince the soldier that it could talk.

"Well?" questioned the soldier, his face didn't seem amused at all.

"Oh, oh, he's just... he's just a little nervous," fidgeted the old woman. "He's really quite a chatterbox. Talk, you boneheaded dolt-"

"That's it. I've heard enough. Guards!" yelled the soldier, beckoning them to move the woman along.

"No, no, he talks! He does," she persisted, grabbing the donkey's mouth and imitated it talking. "I can talk, I love to talk; I'm the talkingest damn thing you ever saw."

Honestly, it was one of the stupidest things I had ever seen.

There was a brief moment of silence; the soldier looked at her blankly. "Get her out of my sight."

Two guards then came over to the women, grabbing her by the arms and pulling her away, but she wasn't having any of it.

"No, no! I swear!" she screamed. "Oh! He can talk!"

As she was struggling out of their grip, her leg kicked a small cage out of a boy wearing full green's hands, which had a gold fairy inside. It flew high into the air, and onto the donkey's head, shockingly, it then started to float into the air.

"Hey! I can fly!" the donkey gasped.

"He can fly!" the boy in the green get-up exclaimed.

"He can fly!" I shouted.

The soldier stood there in utter shock; his mouth hung open as he stared upwards. "He can talk!"

"Ha, ha! That's right, fool!" the donkey chuckled. "Now I'm a flying, talking donkey. You might have seen a housefly, maybe even a superfly, but I bet you ain't never seen a donkey fly."

While all of this was occurring, I had managed to pick the lock and slowly removed the cuffs from my hands. The donkey's new flying ability was starting to wear off, and he was beginning to float back down. He then landed on the ground with a loud thud.

"Seize him!" the soldier screamed, causing the donkey the run. That was my chance to escape, as well; it was now or never. I dropped the chains and ran too, cutting through the many guards in front of me.

"Hey!" I quickly waved at the Donkey, "Over here this way!"

He turned to my direction and ran towards me. We then dashed into the woods, our hearts beating through our chests. I could hear the sounds of men running after us, and that pushed me to keep on going, Donkey kept looking for somewhere to go when we bumped into someone. A large green ogre, to be exact.

I stared up at him, his brown eyes looking down on us. He seemed pretty intimidating, but not that scary to be honest. We then heard the guards heading our direction, and so we quickly hid behind the ogre.

As soon as the soldier and the other guards came towards us, they immediately stopped in their tracks, quivering and shaking. The soldier slowly took out a scroll; his hands weren't able to hold it properly.

"You there," he stuttered. "Ogre!"

"Aye?" he bellowed.

"By the order of Lord Farquaad," continuing to stumble over her words. "I am authorised to place you three under arrest... and transport you to a designated... resettlement facility."

"Oh, really?" walking forward towards them, gradually bending down towards them. "You and what army?"

The soldier turned around to see that his comrades had fled without him, he turned back towards the ogre who was smiling down at him. He then ran off, screaming, possibly heading back to where the other guards were.

I stared back at the ogre; he was a pretty cool guy. He could frighten fully grown men and scare them to the core. I knew that if I wanted to stay safe, this was the guy I had to stick to. That decision to stay with him and Donkey led to a series of events happening in my life.

Some of them were unforgettable, some that broke me to the core, and some that ultimately changed my life forever. I wasn't ready for these things to happen to me, but I can certainly say that I went on one hell of an adventure.