Come on, now. I know people are at least checking out this fic, and if you're reading the chapters through, then what's another minute or two to submit some feedback?
Here's Ch. 3, and refer to Ch. 1 for all of those other good rambles about disclaimers and whatnot. Enjoy!
Oh, and I haven't mentioned this, but everything in italics are thoughts by the specified character. If anyone happens to speak any other language than what is primarily being used, I wll bring it to everyone's attention.
XXX
xx 3 xx
His ears are still painfully ringing, his eyes still agonizingly searing, when Cole finally finds the strength in his woozy arms to push himself up into something of a sitting position. Aching bones and joints crack stiffly, making him wince.
Shit. I can't believe the impact radius for that damn meteor was strong enough to not just knock me off my feet, but to knock me the hell out cold, too!
But as he rubs the back of his neck, and forces his tearing eyes to open, he realizes that most of the smoke has dissipated. And Tabitha is nowhere to be found. A jolt of panic sends adrenaline burning through him as he struggles to stand up. His jaw is tight and clenched, heart pounding fiercely enough to snap his a couple of ribs off of his rib cage.
"Lee? Come on, Lee, where are you?"
Shit, shit, SHIT! Where the hell is that girl?
Cole looks all around him, but he can't see anything but shadows and trees and the purple blackness of the sky above. Oh man, this isn't good. . . . If something happened to her. . . . His breathing tenses as he starts picking his way through the branches, until something strange catches the corner of his sight.
A little rock. A little hunk of space rock, on the ground next to a clump of weeds. And hell, the only reason he can even see the rock, let alone tell that is has to be part of the meteorite, is because of the fact that it's glowing. Just a tiny bit. Like a coal might glow long after the fire has burned out. Something rises in his throat and chokes him up, then, as Cole stares at that little rock.
She was so excited. She only wanted to. . . . NO! No- what the HELL am I THINKING? Of course Tabitha's okay, of course she's fine! I just have to find her, and when I do. . . . Cole kneels down and scoops up the tiny meteorite piece, blinking back the sudden prickling in his sore eyes. It's warm. In his hand. But he thinks nothing of it as he shoves it into a pocket and starts up his search again.
"Lee. . . ? Tabitha?" He yells and yells and curses himself for not grabbing his cell phone off of the table when they bolted outside, because he knows he won't be able to get home until well after sunrise.
It's impossible to even guess where he is, now. But he knows that something has to be wrong when barely twenty minutes later, and still no sign of Tabitha, he stumbles free of the wood and lands on his knees in a vast, blinding ocean of silvery grass. An ocean that stretches and stretches as far as he can shockingly see, until. . . .
"What the fuck?" Cole's mouth drops in astonishment. "You've got to be freakin' kidding me. . . ."
At the edge of the sea, there is a rising mountain. Only, it's not quite like a mountain, but more like a city carved into the side of a mountain, built entirely from gleaming white stone that shimmers as a some kind of surrealist mirage might in the desert.
And Cole isn't in the desert. He's supposed to be in the forest behind his house in Massachusetts, but this sure as hell isn't any place in their Nowheresville town that he has ever seen before! In fact, this looks like one of the places Tabitha is always talking about in the stories she writes.
Fantastic, medieval castles and cities where men ride horses and wear fancy armor and march into violent, endless battles. . . .
Jeez, how hard did Cole hit his head, anyways?
Maybe I'm dead, he thinks numbly, standing back up on his bruised and aching bare feet. And this is some kind of place where God or whoever. . . .or whatever, judges my life and decides on whether or not I go to heaven or the fields of Elysium or something weird like that.
But if I'm dead, then. . . .
Cole scowls, and his hands tighten into fists at his sides. No. I have to believe that she's alright. It's impossible for him to fathom Tabitha in any other condition. She's okay. She got out of the forest. And, if anything, she is looking for me right now. She might have even gotten as far as this crazy stone city.
She could have even gotten closer.
Taking a deep breath, he sets out across the ocean. The grass is cold and damp beneath his feet. But the feel of it is a blessed relief, after tripping over sharp sticks and stones and brambles and the unforgiving terrain of the wood in general for who knows how long he was in there.
"Tabitha?" Cole tries again, after covering what must have been a mile, maybe. Give or take a couple of yards, and still the mountain city looks no closer than it did at the precipice of the trees.
"LEE?!"
But the plain of grass is so empty that he is sure, if she were anywhere between him and the mountain, he would see her silhouetted against the backdrop: a small and lonely shadow on the white stone.
His shoulders slump, yet he still presses on, exhausted and hungry and hurting and. . . . Fine. He's scared. Terrified, even. For his sister. For himself. For this bizarre, dreamlike situation they've gone and landed themselves in.
Cole has not the faintest idea of how long he has been trudging through this endless field. He keeps looking down at his watch, a wide, silver-faced chunk of metal on his left wrist, but the hands, for some reason, are frozen at 11:19 PM.
He sighs, running a battered hand over his hair. Could Lee have really made it all the way to that city in the time I spent unconscious? I mean, neither of us are really in that great of shape. . . . Hell, at least I'm not, he snorts. But it seems. . . .well, it seems pretty damn impossible to me. Or maybe it's just implausible, because, after this, I don't think there's much of anything, anymore, that I'll find 'impossible.'
After another good hour. . . .week. . . .or hell, even after another freakin' year or so, the weary young man notices something. Two dark smears are heading directly for him, and they are approaching fast. They have to be some kind of marathon runners to be moving that quickly. . . .
Or they have to be on horseback. Cole stops walking, too stunned to do much more than gawk with a hanging jaw at the soldiers in their full armored garb and their sleek, muscled steeds, as they dismount not six feet away from him.
Okay. I don't think anything else can happen that will surprise me now.
"Who are you?" One of the man demands, in rough and booming voice that Cole feels echoing around in the very depths of his soul. He must have a good four inches on Cole in height (which isn't saying much, as he barely tops out at 5'8). "And what are you doing out here, alone, on the Steward Denethor's lands?"
Cole just. . . .well. . . .he just stares.
So the frightening men exchange some kind of secret look, before unsheathing swords in a menacing glint and aiming them at his throat.
Strike that last thought.
"Speak, spy!" The second man hisses. "Lest I chop out your tongue for your treachery."
Oh my God they're going to kill me.
"But, wait- hang on," Cole sputters, holding up his hands in a surrendering gesture. "I'm not a spy!" Who the hell do these guys think they are, anyways? The young man gulps when the point of the sword digs ever-so-gently into the soft flesh beneath his chin. The soldiers might be nuts, but their weapons sure as hell are real and Cole definitely doesn't want to try them and end up skewered.
That would be pretty bad.
He grits his teeth, eyes flashing in alarm. "I swear I'm not a spy! Honestly! I've lost my sister, you see, and I thought she might have come this way. . . ." Cole falters.
The first soldier, the one who keeps pressing his sword deeper into the young man's throat, glares. His eyes are narrowed and so dark they appear black in the hazy hours. It's obvious he doesn't believe a word coming out of Cole's mouth.
"Your sister, you say?" He sneers. "Is that a signal for your friends to hear? So they can come running in to save your lying head before it's cut from your neck?"
Cole has never been this terrified before. He legs are trembling so badly beneath him that he feels he might just faint. Yeah, so what if he's twenty nine years old and nearly on the verge of collapsing? Isn't everybody entitled to feel scared shitless at least once in their lifetime?
"Please, I'm not a spy, I'm really not. . . .please." He begs, fighting back his blurring vision. Then a wave of icy, nauseating dread spills inside his stomach as he imagines how Tabitha might have been treated, if she were caught outside this city, too.
Oh God tell me she didn't come this way. Please let her still be inside those woods. . . !
"I didn't mean to trespass on the Steward's lands! I just want to find my sister, her name is Tabitha, and she has red hair and light eyes and she could be hurt-!" Cole pleads.
"Silence!" The second soldier barks, cutting the young man right off. He might be just as intimidating as the first soldier, but there is something flickering unsurely in the depths of his hard gaze. Might it be possible that Cole is, at least, getting through to one of them? Feeling a feeble spark of hope, he turns his desperate blue eyes fully to the second warrior.
"She's all I've got." He admits hoarsely. "I just want to find her and make sure she's okay. If you let me go, I swear I'll never, ever come back here again. Please. . . ."
The soldier's own eyes narrow back. And yet. . . .there's that faint flicker again. . . .
"Let you go?" The first soldier laughs. The sound is brittle and sharp, like shards of broken glass. It hurts Cole's ears.
"We seem to have stumbled upon a jester, Evra! Perhaps he will make for a decent fool in the Steward's court, hmm? Or, better yet. . . ." The soldier draws the tip of his blade across Cole's throat. "We can just finish you off now and be done with it, spy."
Oh it stings something awful, whether the slice is shallow or not (which it gratefully seems to be). Cole is forced to squeeze his eyes shut nevertheless for a moment, to clear the threatening of tears as he feels a faint warmth trickle down his to his collarbone.
"Wait, Hather." The one called Evra lays a gloved hand on his companion's shoulder. "We should not act so hastily. Steward Denethor may wish to question the boy himself, if he is, indeed, a spy." He shoots Cole a daggered look and the young man swallows nervously.
Well. That's better than being decapitated right here in the middle of this field. Isn't it?
Hather scoffs. But after a long, painstaking moment, he sheaths his sword and, instead, roughly turns Cole and binds his hands behind his back. "I suppose you are right." He grumbles.
Cole can't help letting out a sigh of relief. The shaking in his legs quells somewhat and, thankfully, he doesn't quite feel like he'll throw up anymore. Or at least not right now.
"But if you say one word before you are so properly addressed by the Steward. . . ." Hather warns viciously, giving Cole a swift knee to the ribs. "May the Gods take pity on your soul."
The poor young man gasps out, tears springing back to his eyes as he doubles over. Tabitha. . . .please be safe. . . . He thinks dazedly, before another agonizing blow is delivered to the back of his skull and the world falls away.
XXX
Hope everyone reading is liking the progression so far. Any comments/suggestions/constructive critiques are welcome, please!
