Author's Note: Main Character is whatever age you want her to be, providing it is within the high school to early college years range.
Update: 07/29/2013 I made some adjustments to this chapter and all the others leading up to and including chapter 5, such as rearranging some of the wording, paragraphs, and adding minor details. New chapter will be up soon, but be sure to go to my profile and vote on my poll for this story.
Kayla Derringer stood in the open doorway of the antique shop that her Aunt Julia had bought recently, her eyes closed and enjoying the feel of the wind as it blew through her caramel-colored hair. As much as she appreciated the breeze on a hot summer afternoon such as this, she didn't like having it blow her hair all over the place, so she kept it back in a high ponytail.
"Kayla! Can you go find me that antique jade vase in the storage room in the back? I want to place it by the window near the front of the store," Aunt Julia called to her from inside.
Opening her blue-green eyes, she turned and headed towards the storage room. "Yeah, sure," she replied. She dressed casually in expectation of the amount of work she would have to do. She wore a long-sleeved gray shirt that revealed her shoulders with a black camisole underneath, jeans, and black high tops.
As she searched through the boxes of unpacked materials, Kayla found a mahogany chest with carved vines, animals, and flowers along the edges. She held it in her hand and studied it closely, tracing the figures with her fingertips until she came to the lock that kept the thin chest tightly shut.
She found her aunt setting up the drapes for the front windows. "Hey, Julia, what is this?" she asked as she held up the chest in the palm of one hand.
Her aunt's eyes, the same color as her own, widened in surprise and she let out a little gasp as she said, "Oh my goodness, what in the world was that doing out there?"
"What do you mean? What is this exactly?" Kayla asked, puzzled by her aunt's reaction.
"It carries an old family heirloom. I'm so glad you found this Kayla. I'd hate to think that we could have lost this permanently, what with everything else that's out there." Her aunt came and carefully took the chest out of her hand.
"So what's inside it anyway?"
"Well, come with me and I'll show you," Aunt Julia responded as she went towards the front counter. Placing the chest on the counter, she picked out an archaic-looking key from the set she had hanging around her neck on a black lanyard with the name of the shop, Akayama Antiques and Collectibles, emblazoned on it in red. Using it on the chest, it gave a click and she lifted the lid.
Inside the chest on a pillow of indigo satin lay a silver necklace and matching ring. The necklace had a chain that was intricately shaped into that of a vine with thin leaves protruding from them and a pendant with a tear-drop shaped sapphire inlaid into the silver disc at the end, surrounded by small emeralds. The ring had thin double-bands that converged towards the top, where a circular sapphire was surrounded by tiny diamond-shaped emeralds.
"They're very beautiful," said Kayla.
Aunt Julia nodded and replied, "These have been passed down to the women in our family for centuries. These belonged to our ancestor, Elena Friedland, the wife of a wealthy merchant and businessman who allowed her to accompany him on his travels. At one point they were headed for China when they were hit by a terrible storm, washed off course, and ended up in Japan. They were separated for a time, but were happily reunited. However, during that time the ring was lost, and it wasn't found and returned to her until many decades later." As she finished her story Aunt Julia closed the lid to the chest, stood up, and began walking towards the storage room.
"We have a built-in safe here in the back to hold onto especially valuable items. I am going to keep them there until the end of the day, when I can take them home and put them somewhere safe," Aunt Julia told her as Kayla followed her.
"Can I look at them one last time? Please?" Kayla begged while giving her aunt the sad puppy dog look she had practiced since childhood.
"Oh, alright," Aunt Julia said with a smile. She opened the chest so that her niece can look at them for the last time. As she gazed at the accessories, Kayla noticed that the bands along the ring had strange symbols on them.
Just as she was about to ask her aunt about the symbols, the telephone began to ring on the counter in the front of the store. "Oh, that might be someone important. Wait right here, I'll be back in a minute or so," Aunt Julia said to her as she went to pick it up, leaving the chest on a nearby table and closing the door to the storage room on the way out.
When her aunt had left the room, Kayla looked at the jewelry sitting on its bed of satin and decided to try it on to see if they fit, since she may not get the chance to do so again. She picked the ring up with her right thumb and forefinger, feeling the cool touch on her skin and the shape of the strange symbols etched into the bands. Kayla slipped the ring onto her left middle finger, and it fit perfectly.
As she admired the look of the ring on her hand, she felt a cool breeze blow softly through her hair and her ears detected the hint of a whisper from a voice that she did not recognize. What the heck? Did I just hear something, she wondered to herself as she looked around. That's weird. Did I really just feel a breeze right now? The windows aren't even open and the air conditioning isn't on either. She paused a moment to see if she could feel it again, but there was nothing but silence, except for the muffled voice of her aunt as she talked on the phone.
Shrugging her shoulders she thought, Oh well, I guess it was just me then, weirding myself out again. It wouldn't be the first time, either. Just as she was about to try on the necklace, she heard the whispering voice again, and this time she could detect where it was coming from. She looked down at the ring on her hand, and it began to pulse while the symbols on the ring began to glow a dark purple. The wind she thought she felt before picked up again, only this time it was much stronger as a dark gaping hole appeared in the floor directly beneath her.
Oh crap! She barely had time to think as the wind's pull on her was sucking her in. She had just enough presence of mind to desperately make a grab for the leg of a nearby dresser as she was going down, but her fingers could not hold on for more than a couple of seconds before she fell through. She screamed as she fell through utter darkness, but the wind snatched her screams from her so that she might as well not have uttered a sound.
When next she woke, she felt the warmth of sunlight on her face and the sound of birds chirping. She opened her eyes to find herself peering up into a blue sky with a few stray clouds floating listlessly across it. As she sat up to better get her bearings, a dull pain throbbed in the back of her head and she rubbed it to relieve the ache. Looking around, she found herself in a clearing in a forest, and through the trees to her right there appeared to be a road.
Now I know what Alice felt like after falling down the rabbit hole, Kayla thought as she stood and brushed herself off, feeling the slight bulge of her cell phone in her pocket. Taking it out, she tried to call her aunt to see if she could get some help, but the call failed and she was left with no other recourse than to see if she could find someone in the area to help her.
Seriously, first I fall through some random hole in the floor and now I have no reception? What the hell? All I did was put on the ring to see if it fit, and I wind up in some forest which, knowing my luck, is probably in the middle of freaking nowhere!, Kayla thought to herself as she made her way towards the narrow, winding road beyond the trees.
A thought occurred to her, and looking down at the ring on her finger she said, "Hey, this thing brought me here, maybe it can send me back."
For the next few minutes she tried everything she could think of to try to get it to work. She tried rubbing the ring. She tried "Abracadabra" and "Open Sesame!" thinking that maybe it will open up the hole that sucked her in and spit her back out where she came from. Finally, she closed her eyes while picturing her aunt's store in her mind and saying under her breath "There is no place like home" three times. Sighing, Kayla made her way onto the narrow path she had spotted earlier and tried to figure out which way to go from there.
The earth began to rumble beneath her feet. Great, just what I need, a frigging earthquake, Kayla thought to herself when all of a sudden something broke through the trees along the path just behind her. Turning, she saw an enormous centipede chittering at her, waving its pincers in the air.
"Oooohhh sshhiiittt!" Kayla shrieked as she took off down the road like a bullet out of a gun. She could feel the earth thunder with the sound of the centipede's many legs as it chased after her, and she knew she could not keep up this speed for long.
Dammit! Of all the times to be out of shape! Mom told me to spend some time working out over the summer, but nooooo, I couldn't be bothered to spend an hour a day walking around on the track at school!
She made a sudden veer to the right, zigzagging her way through the trees. The centipede followed her, and she could hear the crashing noises it made as it rammed into trees in its effort to get at her. Good, it sounds like its slowing him down, she thought, and she chanced a glance back behind her. In that instant, the centipede made a sudden leap through the trees straight for her.
The next thing she knew, Kayla was on the ground and there were bits and pieces of the centipede all around her. As Kayla stared around her at the remains that were left behind, she gave herself a minute to catch her breath and collect her thoughts. What just happened? That thing was headed straight for me. I should be bug food already.
Some pieces of the centipede had landed on her clothes. "Ick, gross," Kayla said feeling as she picked the pieces off of her.
As Kayla stood on unsteady legs, she heard the voice of someone call, "Hey! You there! What did you just do?"