UnLunDun (Demi/Heeba)

Chapter One: Falling

The Umbrella's danced so gracefully that night.

Swooping and diving, loop-the-loop-ing and twirling, faster, faster until she could only make out the colours red and black. Her head slipped from it's perch in the cup of her hand and hit the window with a thud.

She jerked awake and looked for the umbrellas dance once more but they had fallen from the sky and lay littered on the floor, like the abandoned and broken umbrellas that they were. She had sighed and slid her french window open all the way and stuck her head out into the cold autumnal air. She breathed deeply and blinked the sleep from her eyes. It was her favorite time of year; The crisp air that put a glow in your face and a spring in your step. The ice hadn't set in yet but you could feel it: dark, looming and oppressive. Not too dissimilar from the adventure of a life-time she had had five years before.

The umbrellas moved once more but slower this time, as if their batteries needed changing. Her little red-and-black-spotty umbrella flapped up to perch on the edge of her sill and the black one did the same on her closest friend's. Zanna. Shwazzy. The chosen one.

She missed her, the real her. The Zanna from before the Smog had nearly killed her. At least she was being watched over and protected by one of the two umbrellas that still stayed loyal to them.

Five years was a long time and she still wasn't sure if she hadn't just dreamed it.

A shuffling sound made her whirl around. Curdle, her pet milk carton, had toppled over on her desk. Swooping him up in her arms she noticed that he no longer felt like you every day run-of-the-mill milk carton; he felt as it he had a life of his own. The feeling passed as quickly as it came. But it's intentions didn't. Without a moments hesitation, she had changed from pajamas and into her jeans and thick, leather coat, and dug her rucksack from under the bed. With Curdle nestled safe in her pocket, and out of harms way, she was ready. Her eyes took one last sweep of the room and she noticed a scarf she had tried the make out of her favorite book. She picked up and tied it around her head. Now she could go.Two quick strides and she was by the open window and at the point of no return.

'It's now or never,' the voice in her head pointed out. And the she was balancing on the wrong side of the window on a ledge that was only a few centimeters wide. She slammed the window shut and had a split second view of her peaceful bedroom and she thanked her lucky stars she remembered to write the note and leave it on her bed.

And the she wobbled precariously before plummeting to the ground. But instead of screaming she whistled a long and wavering note and, just seconds before impact, the umbrellas caught her.

They struggled, flapping their canvas-y wings and ascended into the blue-black midnight sky.

The umbrellas seemed to understand where she wanted to go and had tried to keep their altitude but she was too much for just two umbrellas. The black umbrella rustled impatiently and dipped ground-wards, giving up on the task. And then out of no-where a bright yellow umbrella appeared and hooked on to her clothes. Next came a green-and-white stripy golfing umbrella that hooked onto her feet and flapped until she was in a sitting position. They kept on coming in a steady stream until there was a crowd of at least twenty and she had laughed as they climbed up, high above London's skyline.

Through a tear in a pink lace parasol, she could see a cloud - no, a group of grotesque and misshapen birds, lolloping and stuttering across the star-less sky. The closer they got the more she could see and the more the 'birds' looked like black or dark coloured umbrellas. All too late, she realized that that they were going to collide. She braced for impact and when none came she wondered why not. The other umbrellas couldn't have swerved out of the way in time. There was a faint pattering sound and a clicking as if the spokes of the umbrellas were jingling coins. She tried but failed to look through the tear in the parasol as there was a black canvas on the other side. 'That's odd...' she thought. There was definitely something strange going on with the other umbrellas.

For what seemed like an age later they began a quick descent as a whirring filled the air. A beam of white hot light pierced the cocoon of flapping canvas and everything went into slow motion.

She was free-falling through the inky, black night and Curdle had slipped out of her pocket. She yelped and reached for her beloved milk carton but he was just too far away for anything to reach him.The umbrellas swooped up past her head in a tight formation, seemingly to have forgotten her completely. She shut her eyes and wished herself home just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. And then a strange sensation lifted her out of her revelrie. Hooks and spokes gripped her clothes and hair and pulled her sharply up.

And into an abandoned building. She quickly looked around and searched her pockets, but a hollow thud confirmed her suspicions.

Curdle was gone.

There was a sense of urgency and panic among the umbrellas. The helicopter had tailed them and was searching there where-abouts. One of the umbrellas from the other pack took charge. It seemed to be giving orders to his team of 'stealth umbrellas' and then the ordinary ones. There was a flurry of colour as they hung themselves up in the rafters and criss-crossing their long poles so the smaller or more damaged umbrellas could hide there. The ones that couldn't fly crawled hastily along the dusty ground and created a ladder up to the nest of umbrellas. She understood what was going on as they had almost finished. "Wait! Please, one of you! Curdle fell out of my pocket and fell to the ground! Will one of you get him?!" The urgency in her voice carried the message clearly through the building and small storm-proof umbrella dived out through the open wall. As soon as the lone umbrella was out of sight the rest of the team was in there place and all that was left was for her to find a hiding spot. There, right in the corner was a heap of rubble and broken electrical wires. Without a second to lose, she ducked behind the tip and hid, shaking. The whirr of the blades was almost deafening and she prayed that the hiding spot was enough protection against the harsh beam. She squeezed her eyes shut as the white searched her out. The nose of the helicopter dipped forwards and she heard the noise of the pilot speaking over the insistent whir of the blades. "UFO...Lost sighting...Missiles..." She strained to hear anymore but then, to her surprise, it left and doubled back. 'It must have followed us the whole way!' She thought, 'We need to leave soon, otherwise...' she left the thought unfinished an sprang up from behind the rubble. The umbrellas were all ready on the move and she had to run to the other side of the building to keep up with them. They had formed a sort of seat a few floors down and were willing her to jump. She hesitated and they grew impatient. She took a deep breath, shut her eyes and ran into the nothingness, a small scream escaping her mouth. She fell for much longer than she thought she would but they managed to catch her in a safety-net of spokes and canvas.

'We need to leave as fast as we can!" she shouted to the fluttering material that was holding her aloft. The umbrellas moved as one and shot towards the outskirts of the city where the forest was. She had never been- her parents said it was too dangerous for such a little girl. But she wasn't so little any more.

The entered the dank forest, tumbling through the foliage at such a rate that it seemed they would crash. But, astonishingly, that didn't happen and she began to trust the umbrellas more. At all the times that it seemed they were going to crash or leave her falling through the air, they hadn't let it happen. It was darker in the forest, and still they managed to dodge all the white beech, rough bared ashes, looming elms and gargantuan oaks. The forest floor, whipping by, was covered in moulding leaves and schwelching mud. And then the air opened up, free of the trees, as they came to a clearing. She wasn't sure whether it was the dark, but the floor seemed to disappear beneath them. Then they fell. Everything lost altitude and her stomach was left in the leafy canopy, the sun-rise creeping through the green. Beautiful.

The black had no end.

Just falling. That was all she could feel. The scream had died in her throat minutes ago. She wasn't sure it she was unconscious or dead but all light had disappeared with the umbrellas. Where was she?