When Muses Live
Chapter One:
...okaaaay...
Tap. Click. Click-tap. Tap. Tap...taptap, click. Click, click, click-tap-click. Tap...
"Blurg." I muttered and hit the left arrow key a few times, backspace, typed in an 'e' instead of an 'i.' I hesitated staring at the word on screen, my finger hovering over the 'end' key on my laptop. I made a face at the parigraph, re-reading what I just wrote and soundlessly mouthed the words.
Whack!
"AH!" I jumped, jarring my laptop and looking up. A just as startled bird was hopping back to its feet and flew off my car. Twitching slightly I put a hand over my chest in an attempt to get my heart to calm down.
That's what I get I guess. Sighing I sat back in my seat, reaching down and fumbled a moment to pull the lever that would let me adjust the car seat back a little. Balancing my laptop with my knees at the same I looked out at the rain and after a moment I closed my eyes. The sound of the falling drops on my little car was soothing and I took advantage of it to ease my nerves again.
I opened my eyes again and looked at the black screen in front of me. I poked the mouse pad and wiggled my finger tip on it to dispel the blackness known as a screen saver. Suddenly I giggled as the symbolism of that and what I was writing showed through.
Toa driving out the shadow sickness in a 'black Toa' that was once a Kora...Hard to write.
Click. Clicktapclick-
"Arh." Making a face I deleted those words since it was in the middle of another word and the sentence before poking the end key and starting again. Humming a tuneless song I got myself back into a writing zone, now only using a portion of my attention to listen to the rain. The bulk of my mind's attention was on the scene in my head, trying to get in words as much of the 'senses' as I could.
From the mixed sounds of rain (influenced some?), a distant river roar, the clang of metal on metal and screams of someone demanding freedom and promising darkness. Softer voices and a deep male bass ordering his sister to calm down so he could help her. The smell of frost and humidity that overlaid scents of flowers and grass. The haze of the rain muting and softening the edges of the armored, towering figurs. The grip of Toa holding hard onto struggling wrists, ankles and another set of white hands pressing down on a chest and middle as-
Someone screamed outside and snapped me out of my concentration.
Letting out a sound along the lines of, "Haarrrrmph..." I saved my document, closed my laptop, pulled out my jump drive so it wouldn't get hurt as I used one arm to hold the computer to me and unlocked my car door. I'll put up with my mating-season insane iguana inside, I can lock Dragon out of my room after all. As I got out I reviewed what I wrote to keep the mental image alive, trying not to keep going but have that image frozen in time.
Closing the car door I hit the button on the beeper, tested the door and turned around.
...........where did the parking lot go?
I blinked.
Turn around.
No little dark green Saturn.
Turn around again.
Yep, the rocky landscape was still there, a beach a short distance away and a mountain I didn't know behind me. No old cracked blacktop of my apartment complex's parking lot, framed by the building on one side and a row of evergreen tree on the other, that's where I was park. That's where I was a moment or two ago.
Did I just snap or something from too much thinking and writing? Was that even possible?
I closed my eyes, I didn't trust them and reached behind me. My car should be about five inches behind me as most... Nope my arm was fully stretched out and—Holyfreackingcrap! Where was my laptop?!
I looked down (no laptop) and lifted a foot.
At least I still had my flip-flops on.
"What...the hell?" I said, asked, aloud but didn't expect an answer. There was none anyways, just a whole lot of empty air and grey rocks with little puffs of grass. "Tundra?" I frowned looking around. Tilting a foot I poked around with a tow, the grass was sort and although far softer then rock it wasn't soft like it should. Or rather like it was at home, I lived in a temperate rain forest after all...
I turned slowly to look all around me, taking it all in and as I did so it was like I just became aware of the feeling of the stone I was standing on. Of the rounded cracks and unbroken parts through the thin soles of my flip-flops. The air that came into my lungs was clean and crisp like up on Mt. Baker, only it was...cleaner. Though there was stone all around and a patch of open dirt that was clogged with grass or tiny pink flowers here and there, there was no sent of rocks and shall.
Hesitantly I took a few steps to the water that spanned out to the horizon. How far off what that again? I knew the horizon on water was closer then it was on land, since water curved with the planet. Three miles? Two? Five?
Ugh. I need to look that up.
...er...
I stopped and watched my tows wiggle for a moment trying to think of... of... bees? Quirking an eyebrow I turned to fallow the sound. Ah, there they were. On the pink flower—those aren't bees. Making an eeping sound I left the strange neon green and orange bugs with too large mandibles alone and started back to the water. Maybe there would be a sign or something.
Nope, no sign but a very large paw print of some kind. By large I meant huge! I've seen grizzly tracks and these put those to shame. I stood in one with feet spread and still had room to spare on either side.
That creeping feeling of icy claws crawled up my spine from the lower back to base of the neck before starting to spread. Backing up I looked around, bending my knees and rocking up the balls of my feet though not knowing why. Instinct maybe, probably really since a little voice was whispering to no go to the water where the tracks led to. I was inclined to listen to that little voice.
I didn't run though. Running was a bad thing I knew, it would possibly trigger a pred-pray response in something that wouldn't have looked twice at me.
This was really, really... I want to say weird but it was more scary, and hard to keep calm. Walking helped in that regard, and I tried to keep track of any land marks. I stopped.
A-hah!
Loose rocks!
Looking around, now alert for passable predators I bent to pick up a suitable flat rock that was about seven inches long. After placing it down several more rocks joined it until I had a nice and sturdy inucksook. Though not the most graceful, it was a little less than half my height and visible in this tundra landscape.
There, instant landmark!
And some people think these things were just decorations... idgits.
It wasn't until I stopped to look back to make sure my inucksook was still insight before poking around to make another that I realized I wasn't going in some random detection. Something was pulling at me, but was infuriatingly just out of my conscious grasp of my senses.
I sat down, pulling my legs up and reaching around my knees I fiddled with my tows before poking my tattoo on my left ankle. Basically I was stalling but I didn't know what I was stalling.
Was this a dream?
I had been sprawled out on the floor of my room before Dragon had come into my room, bobbing and licking my foot one too many times. I took my laptop to the car, because it started to rain and I loved the sound of rain on a car roof. It had been a good excuse to write. I ran my right hand over the tops of the short grass, aware of the hardness I was sitting on and the cool (though not cold) air. I looked up. The sky was far from clear but the clouds were white and stretched thin, not bunched up high and dark with forming rain.
I didn't need to but I did bite my lower lip. This was too real to be a dream, besides if it was it meant I was collapsed in the parking lot.
So...now what?