Mitch Crumble P.O.V.
I felt like I was falling through time and space. My name is Mitchell Alan Crumble. I'm a 20 year old college student at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont. I come from the year 2019. A while ago, my English professor, Mr. Victor Brownstone, had tasked my class with writing a college thesis on the fairy tales written by the Brothers Grimm. I personally am not really interested in fairy tales. The only reason why I had a sudden interest in fairy tales was because I was forced to write a thesis about the fairy tales from The Brothers Grimm for my English class. Me, and my friends Alexander Lobe and Jenny Rose were required to write our thesis about the fairy tales from The Brothers Grimm for my English class. Alex suddenly disappeared the night when we were assigned by our English teacher Mr. Brownstone to write our thesis.
I was livestreaming my Tomb Raider game on Twitch from my PlayStation 4 that night. I remember Alex and I having a conversation about the origins of Snow White. I learned that the character of Snow White in the Grimm fairy tale was seven years old when she first met the seven dwarves in the forest. The Queen, for some insane unexplainable reason, decides that she wanted to kill her own daughter Snow White for no god damn reason beyond the fact that she was prettier than the queen. That's beyond insane and sick. That'd be saying if an emporer wanted to kill his son because he didn't make the standards for being a prince.
Anyways, after Alex and I had our Snow White conversation, he went to work studying the Grimm fairy tales for his thesis. A few hours later, he went to sleep in his dormitory. That was the last time I'd seen Alex. The next day, he disappeared. I didn't know where Alex went. Nobody khew where he went either. It was kind of like the case of Dorothy Arnold, a twenty five year old woman from New York who disappeared without a trace in the year 1910. It was the modern day equivalent to that. Everybody in the college tried looking for Alexander Lobe on campus grounds. Nobody could find hin. It was hopeless. I was starting to think that I would never see my friend Alex again. A few days after Alexander Lobe's disappearance, I met this guy named Andersen Grimm, a man who supposedly had magic powers. He claimed to have put my friend Alex in one of the fairy tales from The Brothers Grimm. How he was able to put a guy from the 21st Century into a fairy tale world via magic was unknown to me.
Andersen somehow knew of my English class's Brothers Grimm project in my college course. How he knew about it beforehand I had no idea. Andersen soon started creeeping me out. I wanted him to leave my dormitory because he was getting to be a bit too personal about his knowledge about me and Alex. He flat-out refused to leave my dormitory. He somehow made my door disappear into thin air. Andersen then sent me into the fairy tale of Rapunzel via the Grimm fairy tale book. That's how I ended up in the situation I'm currently in right now.
I landed on some sort of vegetable graden in the dead of night. I had no idea where I was. I still wore my flannel shirt and pants on me including my Nike sneakers. I stood up on the ground. There werr cabbage like plants that surrounded me and covered the ground. I saw an old house nearby off into the distance. It was a old one story house (A/N: I know almost nothing about the various types of houses people had in the time peroid in which Rapunzel took place in. I guess that Mother Gothel's house could've been a ranch style house or a condominium). The house looked sort of like a ranch style house. I noticed a huge wall about 7 or 8 feet high that surrounded the perimeter of the cabbage patch. I then noticed somebody climbing over the wall in the moonlight. He was climbing over the wall like he had just acquired Spider-Man's wall crawling powers. He then carefully climbed down the other side of the wall. The man dropped down to the ground on his feet. I got a good look at the man.
The man had short brown hair and hazel eyes. He wore a white long sleeve shirt with green trousers (A/N: I have no idea what people in fairy tales wore in terms of clothing. Each fairy tale is different. The only fairy tale characters who wears any clothing of significance in fairy tales are Little Red Riding Hood's iconic red outfit, Snow White's gown and Cinderella's ballroom gown. Beyond that, their clothing tends to be pretty generic). The man walked through the cabbage patch. He started gathering some of the cabbage plants. It was then that he started to notice me.
"What are you two doing in my garden?!" I heard a old feminine voice call out to us. I turned around to see an old woman who had long mousy black hair and wore a purple robe draped around her body standing in front of me and the man. The woman looked to be in her mid to late sixties. I guessed that this woman was the person who would later imprison Rapunzel in a tower for several years. I heard her name was Dame Gothel in the original Rapunzel fairy tale. I'd only known her as the villain of the animated Disney movie: Tangled (2010), (Which I like to call Spangled because I don't particularly like the title of Tangled and I feel that Disney characters need to be more patriotic).
"I have no idea how I ended up in your garden, ma'am." I said to the old woman.
"You don't know how you ended up in my garden? Have you been stealing my rapunzel plants from my garden?" the woman asked me. I didn't know what say. I don't steal food from gardens. One minute I was in my college dorm room in the year 2019, the next minute some guy named Andersen Grimm randomly teleports me from the real world in 2019 to the story of Rapunzel in what I could only assume is in medieval times.
"No. I don't steal food. I've never set foot in your garden til now." I told Dame Gothel.
"I never recalled seeing you before." Dame Gothel said to me. She turned toward the man. Judging by his guilty facial expression, I could tell that this wasn't the first time that he had broken into the woman's garden in the dead of night. And something else tells me that this wouldn't be the last time he does it.
"What are you doing inside my garden alongside that boy? Is he accompanying you in your theft of stealing my vegetables?" Gothel asked the man.
"I've never seen this boy before in my life." the man said to the witch. He then walked toward where I was. The man had short light brown hair with brown eyes. He was Caucasian. He wore a loose shirt with trousers. He looked at me.
"Who art thou?" the man asked me.
"My name is Mitch Crumble." I said. "What's your name?"
"My name is Timothy Punzel." the man said. "I've never seen you before."
"I've never seen you before either." I said to Tim. "What are you doing here in this lady's garden?"
"I've been searching for a vegetable to heal my wife. She has fallen ill. My wife Lisa is pregnant. She refuses to eat anything except the rapunzel plants that you have. She craves for that very much." Tim explained to me and Dame Gothel.
"I see. I take pity on your wife for being so ill. I will allow you to take as many of my rapunzel plants as you wish to help feed your wife. In return, when your child is born, I will take your baby as my own as payment." Dame Gothel said to Tim.
"Thank You!" Tim said to the witch. I couldn't believe that this woman is seriously going to allow some random man to steal her vegetables to help feed his wife from sickness. Can't Tim's wife eat anything besides the rapunzel plant? Can't she eat other food like fruits, dairy products and other things besides the rapunzel plants. I know she's experiencing pregnancy cravings but still. Tim surely isn't that desperate to feed his wife.
"Why does your wife need the rapunzel plant that badly?" I asked Tim.
"My wife has pregnancy cravings. She has refused to eat anything else." Tim explained. I found that hard to believe. There was no way a woman's pregnancy cravings are to the point where she'll eat only the rapunzel plants and nothing else. That's not possible. Tim had to be lying about his wife's pregnancy cravings.
"You're bluffing. There's no way that your wife's pregnancy cravings are so bad to the point where she'll eat nothing but rapunzel plants." I said to Tim.
As it turned out, much to my disbelief, Tim Punzel's wife, whose name was Mary her pregnancy cravings were legit. I tried getting her to eat literally anything else besides the rapunzel plants. I even tried to shove food down her throat in a vain attempt to get Mary Punzel to eat something. She flat-out refused to eat anything. I started to get super pissed off at her stubborness to eat anything else besides rapunzel. I've heard of people being picky eaters or them going vegan. But this was fucking ridiculous. Holy shit. I've never seen a person so dependent on a vegetable before in my life. Mary was being a bulimic whore! I wanted to set fire to the rapunzel plants and burn them all until they were ash.
One day, Mary finally gave birth to her daughter. You want to know what Tim and Mary named their daughter? Guess. Some normal name like Elizabeth, Jane or Pamela? No! They named their newborn daughter after the food that the mother was forced to eat like she was bulimic: Rapunzel. I laughed my ass off when I heard their newborn daughter's name was Rapunzel. I laughed like the Joker from Batman. I didn't care. That was the moment in which I started to hate the story of Rapunzel. A woman having pregnancy cravings is one thing. It's something else entirely when that same woman begs her husband for some stupid fucking plant like she had some sort of obsessive eating disorder! That was beyond unacceptable! No wonder why there's been very few adaptations of Rapunzel out there.
I finally had enough of this rapunzel nonsense! I decided to burn all of the witch's rapunzel plants. I got sick and tired of Mary Punzel bitching and whining over a vegetable that nobody gives a shit about. I walked out of the door of the cottage. I had my lighter in my hand. It was night time outside. I located the wall that separated the Punzel's yard from Dame Gothel's yard. I used my grappling hook that Andersen Grimm gave me to scale the high wall. If I had to guess, I'd say the wall was 6-7 feet high. I scaled the wall like I was Spider-Man. I climbed to the other side of the wall. I dropped to the ground silently. The rapunzel plants that lined Dame Gothel's garden were there. I checked to make sure the witch wasn't outside. I then proceeded to light the rapunzel plants on fire using my lighter. The flames covered the rapunzel plant patch. I started to laugh manically.
Yes! I thought, Let them burn! Dame Gothel ran out of her house. She looked on in horror as her precious plants were being burnt to a crisp. She started to scream and wail over her burning plants. I was elated at that moment. I felt euphoric. I had a natural high. I was relieved that I never had to see another rapunzel plant in my life. The story of Rapunzel should've really been called: A Long Haired Woman and her Plant Obsession. I don't know why The Brothers Grimm called this story Rapunzel for? What the hell does the name Rapunzel mean? Is it some foreign swear word? The name of some unknown Eastern European country? I don't know and frankly I don't care.
"How dare you burn my crops?!" Dame Gothel screamed at me.
"NOBODY FUCKING CARES ABOUT YOUR CROPS!" I yelled excitedly.
"You are going to be punished for doing this!" Dame Gothel said to me.
"You ain't going to do shit to me." I said sarcastically. Next thing I knew, I suddenly began to feel something hard hit the back of my head. I saw stars. My body fell to the ground. I was knocked unconscious by the witch.
Regular P.O.V.
Mitchell Crumble started to slowly wake up. His vision was kind of blurry. The last thing Mitch could remember before being knocked out was him burning the rapunzel plant patch that belonged to a witch named Dame Gothel as payback for having Mary Punzel being forced to eat a plant called rampion a.k.a. rapunzel because of her so-called "pregnancy cravings". Mitch succeeded in burning Dame Gothel's rapunzel plants. Dame Gothel decided to punish the human boy for ruining her crops. Dame Gothel knocked Mitch unconscious. She brought him to a tower that had no door or stairs. It was a cylindrical tower. It looked to be about six or seven feet tall. The witch borrowed a ladder from somebody and she used it to climb up to the top of the stone tower. She brought Mitch's unconscious body with her to the tower. Dame Gothel put Mitch's body against one of the walls. She waited for the human boy to wake up.
Mitch eventually fully woke up. He didn't know where he was at. He wondered where he was. He saw the elderly witch Dame Gothel standing in front of him.
"Where am I?" Mitch asked Dame Gothel.
"You're in a tower with me." Dame Gothel explained to Mitch. "I put you in here as punishment for you burning my crops. That was unacceptable. I needed that rampion for sustinence! How dare you set fire to my crops?! It's already bad enough I let a man steal my vegetables to appease the cravings of his pregnant wife. You didn't have to burn my vegetables as well. Why did you burn my supply of rampion for?"
"I was getting sick and tired of Tim constantly using your vegetables to constantly satisfy her pregnancy cravings. She refused to eat anything else besides your rampion plants. I got sick and tired of her eating food like she was bulimic. I needed to stop him from obtaining any more of those rapunzel plants. I couldn't stand Mary bitching and complaining about wanting to eat more rapunzel plants. So I took the liberty of burning all of your crops in an effort to stop the obsession from getting any worse." Mitch explained to the witch.
"That doesn't give you the right to burn all of my rapunzel plants! You know how long it'll take for me to regrow all of my plants? It'll take forever to regrow all of my rapunzel plants!" Dame Gothel said.
"You should've thought about that before letting some random stranger you don't know steal all of your plants. What were you hoping to gain from letting him steal all of your plants to appease his wife's pregnancy cravings?" The human boy asked Dame Gothel.
"I let Tim take as many rapunzel plants as he wanted to help feed his wife. I was going to take their newborn daughter in return for helping him feed his wife." Dame Gothel said.
"You were seriously going to take their daughter in return for Tim taking all of your plants away from you just so his wife could stuff her fucking face without a care in the world? You can't just take someone's daughter away from them for no god damn reason. Tim and Mary Punzel deserve to have their daughter after everything they went through. You can't just take their child away from them after they just got done being born. It ain't right." Mitch said to Dame Gothel.
"I had to repay the family somehow." Dame Gothel said. "The man takes my vegetables, I take his child. Simple as that."
"How long am I trapped here for?" Mitch asked Dame Gothel. He wanted to know how long the witch planned on trapping him in the tower for.
"You're to stay in here until you're old and decrepit." the witch told Mitch. Upon hearing this, Mitch started to freak out. He wanted to get out of the tower right now. The thought of him being stuck in the tower until he was old and decrepit scared Mitch. He didn't to spend the rest of his life being trapped inside a tower with no way to escape.
"I WANT TO GET OUT OF HERE, NOW!" Mitch demanded Dame Gothel.
"I refuse ro let you out of this tower. This is your punishment for you burning my crops. You're going to sit here and rot. Don't even think about trying to escape. There's no stairs or door in this tower. Escaping here is impossible. Hope you like living in a tower, Mitch. It's where you'll be spending the rest of your life here as punishment for ruining my crops!" Dame Gothel told Mitch before disappearing in a puff of smoke. Mitch immediately stood up and sprinted to the open window of the tower. He felt an intense wave of vertigo wash over his entire body. The ground was far below him. He was at the highest part of the tower. Mitch frantically searched the interior of the tower for a door or some sort of stairwell in the hopes thst maybe the witch was bluffing about the tower having no door or stairs and that it was inescapable.
Mitch couldn't find any sign of a door nor stairs anywhere inside the tower. It meant that Dame Gothel wasn't bluffing when she said that the tower he was in had no door or stairwells. The tower really had no doors or stairs. It really was inescapable. When Mitch found out there was no way to escape the tower he was in, he started to scream very loud as he realized that he might be trapped inside the tower like Rapunzel. He seriously hoped he didn't have to grow his hair super long for anybody to climb up on like Rapunzel. That would be embarrassing.