Well, I'm back! I HATE Writer's Block! Why, you may ask? Well, that would be because whenever I get it, it lasts for MONTHS on end! Augh! WHY ME::sob: Anyway, here is the lovely chapter two, and I apologize profusely for taking so long. But my muse is a very stubborn thing and when it gets mad, it sulks for a few months.
:Muse glares at me from a dark corner of my brain:
:I throw some sugar to Muse:
:Muse goes away, bouncing like Count D when confronted with a chocolate cake:
…Yeah. So, again, here is chapter two, and don't forget to tip the author with a review on your way out, please! Maybe I'll write review answers next chapter!
He was walking in the dark. Branches scraped at his face and tree roots grabbed at his ankles, as though trying to stop him from reaching his destination. He stopped to lean against a tree and to wipe the sweat off of his forehead before pressing on. He never once, for even a moment, wondered where he was, or why he was walking through the trees in the dark, he just knew that he had to keep going. Because whatever he was heading towards, he somehow knew it was well worth the difficult journey to get there. Harry stopped and leaned against the thick trunk of a pine tree to catch his breath. He glanced up at the sky, and through the trees branches, he could see a full moon. He watched for a moment as puffy clouds scuttled over the moon's bright surface. When he had caught his breath, Harry pressed on. Eventually, he came to a break in the trees. He stepped out of the forest into a clearing. Harry wasn't sure how, but he knew he had reached his destination. He looked around the clearing and something caught his eye. In the center of the clearing, standing in a beam of moonlight was a girl. She was dressed in a long white dress with long flared sleeves. Her long blonde hair hung down her back in gentle waves. Her hair was so light colored; it looked almost white in the moonlight. Harry followed her gaze and realized that she was watching the moon. He decided to approach her and ask her where he was and what he was doing here.
"Excuse me, miss? Can you tell me where I am?" He asked loudly to get her attention.
At the sound of his voice, she jumped and looked around wildly, as though expecting an attack of some kind. When she caught sight of him, her eyes widened in shock and fright.
"You, you shouldn't be here!" She cried out.
The strange girl backed away from him in a hurry. She tripped over some obstruction and fell. Harry hurried to her side to help her, but she brushed his hand away, and remained on the ground. While she attempted to compose herself, she eyed Harry carefully. To break the uneasy silence that had fallen between them, Harry began to talk.
"So, um, where is here, exactly?" Harry asked her.
"This is my prison. I am bound here for all eternity."
"Is it a forest?" Harry asked, looking around at the huge trees that surrounded the clearing.
"No. This is merely one of its many manifestations, though to tell the truth, it is a manifestation that I have never seen. It can be other places, but this is the one it chose to be tonight."
"'It chose'? What do you mean 'it chose'?"
"I meant what I said. My cage has a mind of its own and chooses how it wishes to look based on what it thinks will vex me the most. Usually, it involves me running towards an exit that is always just a few feet away, but that I can never reach. That is why the forest came as such a surprise this evening."
"And you have never seen this particular manifestation of it?"
"No. And though it does have a mind of its own, my cage is not a very clever or creative thing. I had long ago given up hope of ever seeing something new. This is why I was watching the moon. I haven't seen a moon here in a very long time. Perhaps you had something to do with that."
"I've never seen this place before in my entire life."
"I didn't say you had to have seen it before. This place is to confusing for the brain to fully understand because parts of it just don't make any sense at all. So what often happens is that the brain takes the easiest explanation. For your brain, it might be easiest to think of this place as a vast forest. But no matter what shape it takes, it will always be a prison."
"So what you're telling me is that I'm dreaming all of this? That none of this is even real?"
"Something like that. But that's only the half of it. You see, a long time ago, I had a spell cast upon me that trapped my spirit here. My body is stuck in my animagus form somewhere out in the real world. My mind is still there, but I am unable to change back into human form. When I sleep, I come here."
"I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do?"
The girl smiled sadly and shook her head.
"Unless you know who my true love is, probably not. I have been searching for him for over three centuries and have had no luck as of yet."
"Wait, just how old are you?"
The strange girl opened her mouth to answer his question when suddenly; a blast of wind swept across the clearing and stirred up some leaves. They skittered around the clearing. One of these leaves landed in front of the mysterious girl. She looked down at the leaf for a moment and then looked up at him sharply.
"He must not find you here." She said ominously, searching the trees.
"Who would that be?" Harry asked, glancing around, as though looking for someone standing in the shadow of the trees.
"That would be my jailer, of course. He will not let me escape, and if he catches you here, he won't let you leave either. He will hold you prisoner as he does with me. Your steps will always be shadowed, your actions, always restricted, as are mine…"
She trailed off and stared off into the distance, as if seeing there a vision of a long off past that she desperately wished for again. After a long moment of silence, as Harry watched her, the increasing wind sweeping strands of her hair around, the girl shook her head vigorously, as if to get rid of the vision. Then she stood up and straightened her dress. Then she held out her hand to him.
"Come, we must hurry and get you out of here." She said
Harry reached out to take her hand when suddenly, the wind picked up speed and ferocity. The girl looked around sharply.
"He knows you are here.
With that, the girl grabbed Harry's hand and dragged him to his feet. Then, they ran out of the clearing in the direction opposite of the way Harry had entered. Harry noticed that the girl's hands were very cold. Not unpleasantly so, just cooler than was normal for humans. It felt as though the girl had just walked out of a snow storm and had begun to warm her hands by a fire.
'What an odd thing to think of at a time like this!' Harry thought to himself.
He put the thought out of his mind as he followed the girl. She ran very quickly, dodging trees and other obstacles along the path. She turned and said something to him that he didn't quite catch over the howling of the wind.
"WHAT?" He yelled to her.
"I SAID HE'S FOLLOWING US!" She yelled and gestured with her other hand over his shoulder.
Harry turned to look at what she was pointing to. To his surprise, a dark shape was flitting through the trees behind them. Harry felt a sudden sense of dread in the pit of his stomach. Whatever or whoever that shadow was, he didn't want them, or it to catch him. He turned around and concentrated harder on running. Harry was concentrating on running so hard that he didn't hear the girl yell something else to him a few minutes later. He looked up when he felt a jerk on his arm and she yelled at him.
"I CAN'T SHAKE HIM WITH SPEED. WE NEED TO TAKE EVASIVE ACTION, AND QUICKLY! GET READY TO TAKE A SHARP RIGHT!"
"OKAY!" Harry yelled back.
The girl nodded to him gravely and turned back to the path in front of them. Just as Harry felt the something or someone that was following them get close, the girl turned sharply to the right, as she had promised to do. Whatever had been behind them crashed into something and Harry felt the ground shake with the impact. He turned to look and saw a massive form crumpled at the base of a very thick oak tree. As Harry watched, the form got up and shook itself, a bit like a dog would to get water off of its fur. It turned in his direction and Harry met a pair of bright yellow eyes. Harry shuddered and turned around just as a howl split the night air. Harry felt the girl speed up, but not before she turned and yelled
"HE'S CALLING IN REENFORCEMENTS! WE HAVE TO GET TO THE BRIDGE BEFORE THEY DO!"
"WILL WE MAKE IT?" Harry yelled.
"THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO GET THERE FASTER THAN HIS HENCHMEN, AND THAT IS IF WE FLY THERE!"
"HOW DO WE DO THAT? WE DON'T HAVE A BROOM!"
The girl looked at him like he had an extra head. She shook her head sadly at him, as if he was a very dim witted boy asking what she thought, in her wiser and more experienced years, was a very obvious question with a very obvious answer.
"DIDN'T YOU KNOW? MY CAGE IS A VERY SMALL PIECE OF THE LAND OF DREAMS. YOU DREAMED YOURSELF HERE, SO TECHNICALLY THAT MEANS THAT THIS IS YOUR DREAM. YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT! IMAGINE THAT YOU HAVE WINGS OR SOMETHING! BUT WHATEVER YOU DO, DO IT FAST! WE DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME!"
"CAN I JUST IMAGINE US THERE?"
"NO! YOU'LL APPERATE YOUR BODY TO A COORESPONDING PLACE IN THE REAL WORLD IF YOU DO THAT. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE THIS PLACE IS IN REAL LIFE, AND I'VE HAD A LONG TIME TO TRY AND FIGURE IT OUT!"
"OKAY! HERE GOES THEN!"
So Harry closed his eyes and imagined himself with a big pair of wings. He imagined them to be white, like Hedwig's feathers. He opened his eyes and looked down. The ground was currently several feet below him. He looked around quickly to see if the girl was with him. When he didn't see her anywhere nearby, he looked down and saw a small black spot on the ground. He dove towards it and landed on the ground next to her. She looked at him in amazement. He smiled and jerked his thumb at the sky.
"LET'S GO!" He yelled.
The girl shook her head and yelled back
"I CAN'T! I'M NOT ALLOWED TO IMAGINE WINGS FOR MYSELF!"
"WHY NOT?"
"BECAUSE THEN I MIGHT BE ABLE TO IMAGINE MYSELF OUT!"
"FINE! WE'LL HAVE TO FIX THAT!"
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, FIX THAT?"
Harry grinned at her reassuringly. Then, he closed his eyes and imagined something else. Then, he scooped the girl up into his arms and took off into the sky. The girl let out a muffled shriek and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck.
"DON'T WORRY, I WON'T DROP YOU!" Harry yelled.
But the girl didn't loosen her grip. As a matter of fact, Harry felt her arms tighten around his neck ever so slightly.
"WHICH WAY DO I GO?" Harry shouted.
The girl unwound one of her arms briefly and pointed out the direction that he should go. Then, when she was sure that Harry was going the right way, she promptly rewrapped the arm around his neck again. Harry proceeded to fly in the direction the girl had pointed out. After several minutes of flying, a small rope bridge appeared in the distance. Harry circled around for a place to land and eventually decided on a small patch of dirt a few feet from the bridge. When his feet touched down on the ground, the girl promptly wiggled out of his arms and proceeded to brush off invisible dirt from the front of her dress. When she was satisfied with the cleanliness of her dress, she turned to Harry.
"THE WIND is dying down" She said as the winds changed to a steady breeze.
"What does that mean?" He asked.
"It means we have a head start and that you need to go." The girl said.
She promptly led him to the bridge and pointed across.
"When you reach the other side, there will be a cliff with a pond at the bottom. Jump into the pond, and you should wake up before you hit the water."
Then, she proceeded to begin to hustle him across the bridge. Harry grabbed onto the rope handle of the bridge to stop himself from being pushed across and turned to the girl.
"Will I see you again?" He asked.
"I don't know. I think you will, since you are the first person to find your way here." The girl answered.
She said something else, but Harry didn't catch it. He was too busy staring at her eyes, which he had just now noticed were a very interesting color. He didn't notice she was even talking until she waved a hand in front of his face and said
"Hello? Are you listening to me?" She asked and crossed her arms in annoyance.
He shook his head to clear his mind and smiled at her.
"I'm sorry. It's just that I noticed your eyes. What color would you say they were?"
"Amber, actually. Why do you ask?"
"They are beautiful."
"Thank you."
"You're very welcome. You know, I find your eyes very interesting. I've never met another girl with amber eyes."
"And I've never met another boy whose eyes were such an interesting shade of dark green as yours, my friend." The girl answered him with a small smile playing across her face
"Touché." Harry grinned and bowed to the girl.
The girl curtsied back to him and said
"Now, you really must go."
Then she proceeded to push him across the bridge. Harry stopped once more and turned to her.
"Can I ask your name before I go, please?"
"My name is-"
Suddenly the wind
started up again. They both turned and looked behind them.
The
shadow Harry had seen earlier was coming on fast. The girl turned and
promptly turned and gave him a hard shove across the bridge,
"Hurry! You must get across and jump off the cliff before he gets here!"
Then she shoved him again. He stopped and turned to her one last time.
"What is your name?"
"My name is Elizabeth. Now go! And hurry! I'll hold him off and give you a chance to jump."
"You never asked my name."
"Fine, if you will go, what is your name."
"It's Harry."
"Alright, Harry. I hope we will meet again soon. NOW GO!"
With that, she turned and faced the on coming shadow. And Harry ran across the bridge. It swayed violently as he ran. When he got to the other side, he turned to look back at Elizabeth. What he saw shocked her. Elizabeth with her hands out in front of her, with what looked like a big wolf in front of her. It snarled and growled at her. But Elizabeth stood her ground. She would not let the creature pass. She looked over her shoulder at him.
"GO HARRY! RUN! I CAN'T HOLD HIM FOR MUCH LONGER. RUN WHILE YOU STILL CAN!"
Harry didn't need further prompting. He turned and ran. When he came to the edge of the cliff, he stopped. He looked down and it looked a long way down. He turned for one last glance at Elizabeth. Then, he took a deep breath and jumped off. Harry felt himself falling…falling…falling down.
Suddenly, Harry sat bolt upright in his bed on Number Four Privet Drive. He was in the real world, as promised. Harry rubbed his eyes and then put on his glasses. The sky outside his window had begun to pale with the promise of sunrise. Harry threw back the sheets and got out of bed. He walked over to the window and leaned his elbows on to the sill. With his head in one hand, he watched the sun rise, and wondered when he would see the mysterious Elizabeth again
Ta da! This is eight beautiful pages of loveliness. I hope you enjoyed it. Please don't forget to review on your way out!
bookworym
