(·.·´·. ¸.·;Summer Days·.¸.·´·.·´)
•.¸.¸.•´•..¸·.¸.(¨· Chapter One·´¨)·¸.•¸.•´•.¸¸.•
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It was the first day of summer and so far it has proven itself that it was going to be the warmest day. Thick, white clouds hovered low in the light blue sky, causing the heat to be trapped close to Earth. It had rained earlier that week, and it was easy to tell with all the humidity hanging around. If it weren't for that, it could have been a nice day.
A young girl rested on a back porch. Small beads of sweat descended down on the side of her freckled face, and just as it began to trace her jaw, the beads would fall into her lap. With the back of her hand, she wiped all perspiration off of her brow before scanning the woods. She didn't know what she was looking for exactly, but she did know it would be something interesting. Or at least she hoped so. With her arms placed behind herself, the teen leaned back and sighed, wishing she was back at home.
Her family decided that it would be nice for her to visit her grandparents over the summer when she was free from taking any summer classes. Last year she took a history class, something that she actually missed for a split second. In the class she knew people and there was a working air conditioning unit, a luxury her grandparents lacked. Her grandparents' home was a questionable age, roughly one hundred years old but, even she could not deny that it had a cute, old time charm that attracted her.
Becoming bored of her current surroundings, the teen decided to take a small walk through the surrounding woods. She sat up and marched off towards the front of the house and continued to her room so she could pick up some things, such as a water bottle and book-bag, before venturing off into the woods. A bit of exploring would help pass time until dinner, she thought. With loose fist at her sides, she stepped through her bedroom door.
Once she was in the center of the room, the teen made her way over to her closet and began to rummage through the small, tight space in hopes of finding her bag. "I know you're in here. . ." she mumbled aloud before placing her small hand in the far corner of the closet, a place she was certain spiders nested in, waiting for some unsuspecting human. She was pleased to find her school bag and, more importantly, to find it free of any critters.
A few minutes of packing went by before she made her way back out to the front of the house. She was more than pleased to have not run into her grandparents so far, but as she stepped down from the front porch her name was called out from somewhere nearby.
"Riley!" A gruff voice called from somewhere within the house. When she recognized it, Riley rushed back into her grandparents' home, dodging the old fat cat her grandmother adored along the way, and jumped into the kitchen. Her grandfather, who she often addressed as Boss - she still didn't know how that started - was holding up a large, metallic bowl in his right hand while a wire whisk was held in the other.
His head snapped up to face his granddaughter and a wide smile stretched up to his blue eyes, creating more small folds. The smile even managed to curl his thick white mustache. "Where do you think you're going, young lady?" He placed the bowl down onto the counter and dropped the whisk into it, fortunately not bringing up any batter while doing so.
A bit stunned, Riley fumbled over her words. "I, um, was going-"
"To the woods?" The smile had disappeared. "Don't you remember hearing those news reports? About all those missing people?" For a moment his frown deepened before the smile reappeared, much wider than before. Slightly amused from her reaction, which consisted of Riley freezing with wide eyes, her grandfather gave a wheezy chuckle, and told her just to keep watch of the time and to be careful. "I'm making something special for dessert and you won't get a bite if you arrive late for dinner." He raised a thick, silver brow. "Got it?"
A small sigh of relief slipped past Riley's lips. "I got it, Boss."
She stepped over to her grandfather, who already had his arms opened up, and gave him a quick hug. He, knowing just how much Riley hated this, ruffled up her auburn hair, and made sure to add, "This is your favorite and I won't leave anything for you if you don't show up on time. Me and grandma will eat it all!" with a sinister laugh.
Slightly irritated with the gesture, Riley pushed herself away, grumbling softly about his immaturity and such. She made sure that some distance was made between her grandfather and herself, just in case he planned on repeating the act, which would come as no surprise to her, seeing that he has done it in the past.
Riley made an attempt at smoothing out her short curly hair as she, in a matter of fact tone, said, "If you are making my favorite, then there's no way you two can eat it all."
Her grandfather chucked lightly. "We'll see."
He went back to work, humming softly to himself while doing so. Just before she left the room, Riley made sure to grab a few water-bottles from the fridge and some small snacks from the pantry. Just as she was stepping out into the hall, she was almost certain her grandfather said, "You'll spoil your dinner!" in a singsong tone.
Riley couldn't help but to feel a bit guilty for wanting to leave. She honestly enjoyed visiting her grandparents, especially her grandfather. He was funny, completely insane at times, and an amazing cook. Nearly everything he baked was by memory, or so he said. She could recall watching him bake her sixteenth birthday cake back at her home. He made everything by scratch and, if she was correct, never had any assistance. He simply was the best.
She tried to remind herself the reason why she disliked staying so much, but she drew a blank every time. Shaking the thought away, Riley jumped down from the front porch, which was a relatively unimpressively small jump, and headed straight for the woods. It was much cooler, that she could tell right away. The air was damp, and smelled crisp and clean, as if it had just rained.
Taking one long, deep breath, Riley continued to walk further into the woods.
Older and nearly completely rotted trees would occasionally block her path, but she was able to climb over them or walk around the rotted wood with ease. It was the patches of damp leave piles that were the problem. They were nearly everywhere, causing many cussed to flow out from the teens mouth as she slipped through the slick spots. Not only that, but small pesky flies swarmed at these spots, buzzing madly.
On occasion a small animal, like a squirrel, would scurry by, startling the girl; they always pass by so quickly and so suddenly that she had little time to process what it was that ran by. But when she looked over to a nearby tree, most of the time Riley would find said creature climbing up to the safety of the upper branches.
When a large patch of light came into view Riley smiled to herself, dimples forming on her cheeks. It was wonderful to feel the warm rays of the sun run over her freckled arms and face. After being in the shade for so long, Riley actually began to feel chilled.
For a moment, the girl had debated on staying in the patch of light to take a break, but she was far too excited to sit around when there was an entire forest to be explored. Riley began to pick up her pace once more, and began to make her way to the other end of the large clearing when a sudden force was met with her face, earning a loud curse from the girl.
"Shit!" she cried, falling back onto her backside. A moment later she was attempting to rub away the pain that burned her nose, but the throbbing simply would not go away. Tears stung her eyes and threatened to fall, but she bit them back as she tried to figure out what just hit her.
Standing up to her full height, Riley looked around the clearing, trying to see if anyone, or anything, was out there, but all she could see was the occasional bird or squirrel. There was no possible way anything could have hit her and gotten away without her seeing. At least, nothing human could have.
Riley took a few hesitant steps forward, calling out to whoever attacked her. "Show yourself!" she yelled, but she couldn't help but to feel ridiculous doing so. There clearly was no one there.
But suddenly, she felt the force again, and froze in place. Every bit of her body was now stiff, and a cold sweat began to break out over her body. This unseen force was pushing against her front side, just barely brushing against her body. There was a moment of hesitation before Riley spoke, her voice low. "What the. . .?"
She took one step back, trying to see what it was that was there, but all she could make out were the trees of the forest, and the grassy ground, highlighted by the golden rays of the sun. However, when she reached out with a shaky hand, she could feel it, whatever it was.
The best way she came to describing this unseen force was warm metal. Feeling more bold, probably due to her slowly increasing curiosity, Riley reached out with another hand, and began to feel around, trying to get an idea of what was there. Everywhere she felt was just warm metal, but a dip in a rather large section caught her attention. Around it almost felt like some sort of framing. Perhaps a door, she wondered.
Feeling around this area, someplace a bit higher than she had previously explored, her hand brushed against something. A loud beep sounded - a sound which she couldn't help but to think of as sounding angry - startling her enough to momentarily cause her to lose her balance.
Thankfully it was quick, but even after it was finished ringing, she didn't get a chance to calm her nerves. Suddenly there was a loud whoosh, and the invisible door opened, leading into a very strange, and very alien environment to the girl. Everything inside gleamed with a metallic sheen, and the technological devices Riley could make out from the inside, she knew very well were far beyond that of the capabilities of a human.
It was then that an inner battle began to rage on in the teen. Part of her wanted to run all the way back to her grandparents house, to a place she knew and was safe. Then the other half craved adventure, and was dying to explore this strange thing, and to possibly find out why it was there.
Stepping forward, Riley decided it was time for a change in scenery.
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A/N: I should stop starting things, hahaha X9 I hope this was alright. I actually wrote most of this a year or two ago, but never decided where to go with it. . . If anyone is curious as to helping me edit or even think up ideas for where to go with this, please PM me! Don't forget to drop in a review to let me know what you think so far!
