At what? Matt asked walking quietly into the room, What is it now? It s there, again! What s there? It s that thing! It s back I exclaimed looking amazed at what s there.
Sam, saying it and thing doesn t help to describe anything, you of all people should know that since I constantly have to remind you. I know! But there s just no other way to describe it! It s just a thing!
Whatever I was looking at seemed peculiar, most likely because I d seen it once before, but also because it had the feeling that I d seen it in some other famous place before, like it was a gift to me or someone just dropped it there.
I tried to look as far back into my mind as I could, trying to remember what this mysterious object was.
Oh, I almost forgot, how rude of myself I never told you who I was. You re probably reading this thinking who the heck is he? Or something similar. Just to familiarize ourselves, I m Sam, your typical 15 year old kid, however some say that sometimes I can be a little strange, but I can get used to it. Somehow I seem to have my own little world that I visit quite often, a lot can happen there, it s much like the words you are reading right now, a story.
I enjoy writing, which is most likely one of the reasons you re reading this, if I didn t like writing why would I even bother? I wouldn t. I m one of the few people who still like to write, and I m fortunate enough for you to pick my writing instead of the next old fellow down the Isle of the store (or wherever you are). But enough said about me, I still have to finish that crazy memory I was just telling you about.
Where was I? Oh, Right Mysterious object. It was big; I can still remember clearly, about 6 feet tall and made from clay or some other sort of pottery. It looked somewhat old, sort of rusted, although it was not metal. The green slime reflected the years and years of its past, right before my very eyes. This was when I finally remembered, not fully but only partially, I had seen it before, in a book or somewhere, and the only thing I knew, is that, it s old, Very very old.
The next day when I woke up and traveled a mad dash to the bathroom butt-naked, I saw it again, out of the window, obscured. I ran back into the room, put on some clothes and dashed to the garage, where the figure was still waiting for me. IT stood there, begging to be studied, examined, touched, and to be alive once again. History has always fascinated me, but not by far to this extent before.
The statue has so much, detail and a great texture to it. Whoever made it, made it Perfectly, as if someone was sculpted around it on the inside. I always knew there was a possibility for everything, but even this sounds a little bizarre, even IF I am an imaginative teen.
I spend the rest of the day looking for some kind of note, directions or place of origin to tell what this was. The only evidence I found was a small engraving near the head called: China, for more come and find us . What was this supposed to mean? I m 15 years old, and I m meant to travel from the USA to China? I didn t like the sound of this idea very much, but history intrigued me, so the balance stayed even. I d have to think about this one, very carefully. I d have to make a pro s and con s list, I could only think of the many ways to die if I went on this trip. Let alone learn things or write In essence, none of it seemed possible, just hazier to me.
I awoke the next morning with a blurred memory of what had happened the previous day. I felt sickened by something, whatever it was, it wasn t normal. It felt kind of like a hangover, you know the feeling? You were drunk the last night yada yada yada. But whatever, it was just another day, a plain old boring day. It was only in the kitchen when I really felt like a train just plowed me down. Everything was silent once again, and you could only hear the wind rustling through the trees, as if it were trying to make a tune to put an end to the prolonged awkward silence, but to be honest It only made it all the more awkward to be around. As many people would, I ignored it and continued with my daily activities, except today, it had an eerie feeling to it. The feelings as if somebody is going to pop out and suddenly shoot me through my cranium, but once again it was ignored by my brain. Ignored, ignored and ignored. See, that s the thing you ll never understand about me, nor will I ever understand about myself, I m just weird like that, I learn to ignore.
At 10am I walked back into the kitchen, the morning fog obscuring the beautiful morning glories at the end of the driveway. Fog. That s another thing to add to the list of eeriness. I d seen some things in my time, but none as weird as this.
At about 10:10 the fog started to clear, leaving the one thing in view I did not want to see today. Yep, the statue. How did it get there this time? It wasn t there when I woke up, am I imagining it? Is it really real? I guess I d have to look and find out once again. To my regret it was standing there like it usually does, staring, motionless as if it had a message. Was it: I m here to kill you ? Or Help! I m old? or Come with me, I want to show you my past . Whatever it was, I didn t really want to find out that it was the first, 2nd or even 3rd. Not knowing the consequences. If only I did now about it s past, who made it? When? Where? How? And why? All the typical questions any kid would ask.
It just isn t fair! Yelled my brother as he storming into the living room trying to find my father. Why does he get to be the boss while you re gone? I ll end up with my head down the toilet by the end of the week! Because that s just how it is, my father replied nervously.
I have to admit that flushing my brother s head down the toilet did seem like a good idea at the time, I wasn t in the mood to be killed by my parents, however, with them out of town it would give me an opportunity to head on over to the library and find out some things about the statue STILL SITTING ON MY LAWN! That s if there is actually and records on it.
I had a letter waiting for me the next morning, with an old sort of handwriting to it, it seemed rather, Ancient. The paper had he same look and feel to that of a piece of paper that had been dipped in coffee, was I being scammed? Or was this real?
I carefully opened the envelope to the letter making sure that nothing was about to jump out and kill me, and to my advantage there was nothing. I read the not over to myself once, then twice and then thrice. I just couldn t believe what I was reading. It said:
This statue has come a long way on an epic journey from its homeland, I am glad that it is safe and in some bodies responsible hands (I hope).
This figure you are seeing makes history real, if only you could see them at their best. If you would like to see the truth please come to China and search.
Them? Does that mean that there is more? My brain somehow replied to this saying: I suppose.
I was never really a searching type of person and I most likely never will be, but this was the adventure of a lifetime, who knows how many people were trying to find this mysterious thing. If maybe they did find it, how gutted would I feel? But life would go on, and I now had something I needed to do, something very, very important. If I didn t dint this, I d miss a great part of history; I just hope this isn t all bogus.
The note said I needed to go to China; I m in the USA, that s a long flight. China is a massive country, how am I ever supposed to find a small thing in such a big country like this? I am hoping that there s gonna be clues along the way, here and there to clear the situation.
I ve always had a grudge against puzzles, and puzzling events, but they happen so much, what am I supposed to do? Just sit and watch? I made a list of what I d need for China, but of course, I d need money, so I took my parents credit card that they left on the counter, and a note saying that I d be back and I left the house, just like that. Step one was complete, Step two, airport.
I met up with matt, my friend and we managed to grab a taxi, but two random kids showing up at an airport and wanting a ticket to China wouldn t be the easiest thing. We would need a way around, people to be able to get on that plane, at first I thought of being unaccompanied minors, but then I realized we would need parents for that, my other idea was taking a boat or something similar to China. I could cross to Russia at the tip of Alaska and then down to China or I could spend all my parents money and they d be pissed at me. I d always been a rebel, so option two seemed like a better one for me.
I finally thought of a great idea, if I could get some random guy to buy the tickets, I d be able to give him the money for the flight and the plan can move on, however, all I had was a credit card, which meant I d have to visit the ATM But I must say, a 15 year old taking out over 1,000 dollars would look only a little bit too weird for any reason. I d have to stay there for a while, although it s only 10+ 100 dollar bills, ATM s don t have them, so there s no point.
I finally found a helper 2 hours later, however he needed $50 to do it, he bought the tickets and gave us each one, sitting next to each other.
Window, We both called in Unison. As we both said it, let s compare tickets to see who has the real window. Matt and I put our tickets next to each other, and sure enough, he had the window. I ve always hated the isle seat, I d get hit by the drinks cart in the elbow, it s never fun but to be completely honest, I ve never liked planes period. What if they crash or blow up and kill us all? There would be nothing, just a world without me and about 150 others.
We reached the gate with about 5 minutes to spare, so we asked the stewards if we could be seated early, and sure enough, we could.
Matt and I started talking about what s going to happen in China, however I knew the whole plan from when we touched down. First thing first, we would try to get some American food, after that we would need a rental car, followed by a hotel. The next morning we would ask locals about the statue to see if they knew anything about, No would not be taken lightly. We d also need rope to tack back and a gps to tell where we are/where we are going. Sounds simple doesn t it? No, it s about to get much worse for us.
We heard the announcement about boarding the plane while we were getting situated into our seats. They were at the back of the plane, where luckily no screaming babies were sitting or it would have been HE-double hockey sticks. We had a 15 hour flight coming up and for every hour we traveled, the time zone would change. It was a Tuesday evening at 4pm, we would arrive in Shanghai at 9am on Thursday there.
It would be the longest flight I have ever been on, and would be the furthest away from home I ve ever been since I was born, and would be a looooooong trip through many mountains, many miles and many, many days.
At 4:17pm we finally jerked back into our seats as we left the gate, we taxied out into the line up amongst the other jets, there was no turning back now, no way of getting around this, we were going to China and we were going for one reason, to finish what we started, to find the mystery of the Clay man, and his threats to us.
We waited in a queue of for what seemed like an eternity, and at 4:30 it was finally our turn. The airplane engines gave a low deep roar as we pulled onto the runway and stopped.
It was time for final checks before the 15 hour flight to Shanghai, Wings Check, Flaps Check, and Tail I don t know! It s behind us.
Suddenly we were thrown into our seats as we bolted down the runway, the plane lifted about 30 degrees, and we were off, on our way to China
To be continued.