March 14th 2791
Jamie stared in bewilderment at the changed world beneath him as he flew his glider back the way he had come, trying to find his way back to the flight club visually. After flying through the Aurora and encountering that strange force, he had come out the other side, only to find an incredible surprise. At worst, he had expected to encounter some catastrophic force that would have instantly torn him and his glider to pieces; instead, the whole world had been turned upside-down…or so it seemed. With his radio and GPS still out of action, he was left with only his onboard magnetic instruments and his wits to help him get down safely.
Concentrating on his flight path, he turned the glider around 180 degrees, retracing his course backwards, towards Newtown. As it had inexplicably turned daylight after he had passed through the Aurora, he now had the advantage of visual contact; only, as he tried to spot any familiar landmarks to guide him back, he couldn't see anything familiar. The ground, all the way out to the horizon, had changed completely.
Where there should have been scattered patches of woodland, amidst farms and ploughed fields, now there was a thick jungle-like landscape, with scattered patches of meadow here and there; all traces of civilisation had seemingly ceased to exist. An endless and untouched wilderness stretched out in every direction, without the faintest trace of roads, electrical pylons, or even towns. To add to all this mystery, even the seasons had shifted; what had been a calm winter night, with the countryside overrun by snow, was now a warm sunny day, with the countryside in full bloom, in, what appeared to be, mid-spring.
"Where the hell am I?" Jamie asked himself, staring in bewilderment at the changed world. So far, the only familiar landmarks visible were the Enborne River to the south, as well as a few familiar hills to the north, neither of which were of much use in navigating by sight and without a GPS. To make matters worse, he saw he was quickly exhausting the glider's batteries; being a first-time pilot, with only some rudimentary training, he had the bad habit of using his motor too much. Normally, only intended for take-off and landing or to correct occasional stalls, with his inexperience, he was draining the power like water through a sieve.
Even as he stared at his gages, he saw the power levels had already dropped by one-third; at this rate, another half-hour and the batteries would be dead...and so would he, unless he could find some place to land and soon. And the flight club was nowhere to be seen.
As he scanned the unfamiliar terrain for an alternate landing sight, something interesting caught his eye: up ahead, around where the flight club was supposed to be, he saw a grey patch of scorched earth, which, from afar, resembled the aftermath of a recent forest fire. As he flew over it, he saw that the trees were barren and scorched, confirming that they had indeed been incinerated in a blaze, which had mysteriously only spread within a range of a few hundred yards, despite the thick surrounding woodland. Some sort of blown-up wreckage lay in the middle, burnt beyond recognition, testifying to the cause of the fire. Jamie's heart skipped a beat as he realised what he was seeing.
"That's a crash site! But is it Johnson or Dad's?" Although delighted to have finally found something indicating that he was indeed on the right trail, he couldn't help but fear that maybe he was already too late. He had heard many stories of plane crashes, where survival was very unlikely; and anyone who had been onboard that crashed chopper down there, must have undoubtedly died in the explosion.
For an instant, Jamie was tempted to try and land the glider on that plain, which had been cleared of vegetation by the fire, so he could go and investigate; but then he noticed the ground around the crash site was uneven, filled with trenches and collapsed trees, making any landing there impossible. Sighing in exasperation, he pulled up, his eyes feverishly scanning the surrounding area for an alternate favourable landing site, all the while carefully memorizing the direction to the crash site, when he would have to walk back there after landing.
As he made for a nearby meadow, hoping to find some flat ground, deprived of any thick vegetation, he suddenly caught sight of a bird hovering over the trees, about a mile to his ten o'clock. Jamie had done lots of bird watching before, and could distinguish between species; only this was something new. From afar it looked like an ordinary hawk; but, measured against the trees in the background, it looked incredibly big, almost as if he was observing it up close, rather than a mile away.
As he watched it, trying to decide if it was a mere optical illusion or not, he saw the creature dive towards the ground and snatch something; he caught a glimpse of a figure bolting from the scene for cover, which, from afar, looked like a rabbit, only much larger than any rabbit Jamie had ever seen before. He watched the hawk take flight again, amidst a distant scream that seemed to be getting closer…It was only then that Jamie realised, while he had been sidetracked, he hadn't been watching where he was going; and he was flying straight into the path of the hawk!
Before he could make an evasive turn, both hawk and glider met on a head-on collision. Jamie had a second to realize that, what he had mistaken for an optical illusion was in fact, nothing less than a flying monster, almost the size of his glider, before a plumage of dark feathers struck his windshield. The glider's nose found the unsuspecting hawk, which had been paying the aircraft no heed, straight in the abdomen. The bird of prey shrieked in surprise by the violent impact, its bedpost-thick legs, with claws as long and sharp as sabres, snapping irritably. The creature flapped its wings wildly as it flew over the glider and into the clear.
His heart pounding a mile a minute, and with Snitter thrashing madly about in the back seat, Jamie managed to level out the glider before it could go into a stall. Despite the violent collision, the glider hadn't sustained any structural damage; even the windshield, which was made of unbreakable Plexiglas, was still intact, other than a few scratches from the hawk's talons. Then he heard it again; the scream, which sounded almost human, coming from right over his shoulder.
Turning round, he saw Snitter had already found the source: clinging to the radio antenna fixed on the transparent cockpit cover was some sort of small creature, which resembled a ferret in size. Undoubtedly, it was the prey the hawk had snatched off the ground, only to drop it when the glider had slammed into it; now the creature was clinging on for dear life, the furious wind turbulence caused by the swift-moving glider threatening to sweep it off into a deadly fall.
Just as Jamie was tempted to reach over his shoulder to try and help, something that would have been impossible given that the cockpit cover couldn't open in flight, unless if it meant bailing out in an emergency, he realised too late that, for the second time, he had lost concentration while flying. Turning back to his windshield, he saw, with a gasp of horror, a tall tree dead ahead, with his glider heading straight towards it on a collision course!
In an instant of panic, he pulled back on the stick as far as it would go, and hit the thrust button for an emergency ascent. Unfortunately, as he had done countless of times before during flying lessons with his father, in his panic and confusion, he misjudged his rate of climb; the glider rose for an instant, as it strained to gain altitude with its nose at such a narrow angle, and then Jamie saw his altimeter and speedometer dip, as the glider went into a stall.
Before he could even try and level out again, he was thrown violently forward into his control panel, as the glider crash-landed into the treetop. Snagged by the exposed branches, it stuck fast, perched on the top of tall pine tree, like the star on a Christmas tree. For an instant, he expected the glider to tilt over the tree and crash to the ground, but it stayed where it was.
Soon the stars cleared from his vision, letting him get back his bearings, as he nursed the lump on his head, with Snitter licking him in the neck in reassurance. Then he remembered the creature that had been clinging to the antenna. Turning round, he saw the antenna had been uprooted from its socket; the creature had been swept off in the stall, and probably ground into mincemeat by the prop… But then he heard it again; not just a scream this time but words in a squeaky, feminine voice, "Help me! Somebody help me!"
Unfastening his seatbelt and parachute pack, he turned and saw the creature again, clinging to the tip of the rudder, about to fall. Although Jamie felt as if he was losing his mind, realising that this creature, whatever it was, was actually talking, now that he no longer had had to worry about keeping the glider under control, he was determined to help. Opening up the cockpit lid, letting the breeze ventilate out the sweat and dog-breath stench that had built up inside the cockpit, he crawled onto the back seat, over Snitter, and out onto the fuselage.
Positioning himself against motor assembly, he reached over the prop towards the tail. He could now see that the creature, which he had mistaken for a ferret, was actually a field mouse, only much larger than any field mouse Jamie had ever seen before, almost the size of a giant rat. The poor creature was almost beside herself with fear as she desperately held onto the starboard elevator fin, a fear that only seemed to intensify a hundred-fold as she caught sight of Jamie reaching out for her.
With a squeal of terror, she let go, or rather lost her grip on the glider; it was only thanks to Jamie lunging forward in the nick of time and catching her by the tail, with Snitter supporting his master by his trouser leg, that saved her from a deadly fall. Grasping the terrified mouse firmly, he managed to crawl back into the safety of his seat. As he slid his legs back in, he felt the glider move with his weight; for an instant, he thought it was about to plummet to the ground but it didn't.
Motioning to the excited Snitter to sit still, to avoid further disturbances, Jamie turned to get a better look at the giant mouse on his lap. The small creature (as far as small goes when enlarged almost ten times its normal size) was battered and in shock from the hawk attack, as well from the sight of her new captor, yet made no attempt to escape.
"Are…are you hurt?" he asked, feeling rather stupid by trying to talk to a mouse. For a moment he thought she wouldn't answer and that he had only imagined her talking, but then, to his utmost amazement, she spoke again, "Are you…are you going to eat me?" Although rather squeaky, her voice was a loud and clear Lancashire accent, in perfect English. Jamie could also see, aside from her large size and inexplicable ability of speech, she looked unlike any other mouse he had ever seen before, with near-human facial expressions, almost like an anthropomorphised cartoon figure, only real flesh and blood.
"Wh…? Of course not! I was only trying to help you…" he replied, gently patting her on the head in reassurance, all the while wondering in the back of his mind if he was going mad. Although the mouse seemed to be slowly regaining her confidence, she still seemed uneasy of the human holding her in a firm grip as she muttered, "Ithel hunt mice… And how in Frith's name can you talk? I thought ithel couldn't speak Hedgerow…"
"I was about to ask you the very same question," Jamie said raising an eyebrow, "I thought animals can't talk…Ow! What was that for?" he groaned as she suddenly clawed him on the nose; although only a small superficial scratch, her sudden fiery temper had caught him by surprise.
"Never call me an 'animal'!" the mouse snapped indignantly, unsheathing her small claws, "It is most insulting! I am a mouse and very proud of it too!" Jamie wiped his scratched nose on his sleeve, "I will try to keep that in mind. What's your name then? Mine's Jamie."
"I am called Hannah," replied the mouse pleasantly, her anger already forgotten, "Thanks for saving me ithe; I thought I was dead meat for that… ELIL!" she suddenly screeched, pointing over Jamie's shoulder at Snitter, who, irritated at not getting any attention, was kneeling over for a closer look at the strange creature with whom his master was so intimate. Jamie turned round surprised, but burst out laughing when he saw Snitter trying to crawl over his shoulder to sniff at Hannah, "Relax, it's okay. This is Snitter; he is harmless."
"Harmless? I say he looks a little too interested in me!" Hannah replied nervously, wriggling out of his hands and backing away until she was flat against the control panel. She curled up as Snitter reached out to sniff her, thinking the dog was about to start chomping away at her. Her nervous whimpering dissolved into hysterical giggles as Snitter's nose caressed her all over, tickling her. Jamie smiled in amusement, watching her squeal, "I told you his bark is worse than his bite, didn't I?"
"Point taken," shrieked Hannah, amidst her guffaws of laughter, "Make him stop, I can't breathe!" Finally, the dog, satisfied that he had had his sniff of the strange little creature, relented, and Hannah relaxed on Jamie's lap, panting heavily, yet having regained her confidence for her two new friends. It was then that Jamie noticed the bloodstain on his hand; Hannah had a nasty cut on her side, courtesy of the hawk's death grip. The mouse had noticed as well, as she placed her paws over it, wincing in pain.
"So how do we get down from here?"
Turning back to his radio, Jamie tried to reach the flight club again, hoping maybe the glitch had been fixed, "Ken, can you hear me? I have crashed in a tree and I can't get down! I need you to call the Fire Brigade and have someone track down my beacon signal… Ken!" But then he remembered the antenna had been broken off.
"All right, let's try another way," he said, taking out his cell phone. Hannah watched in fascination, yet with utter confusion at Jamie's gadgets, "I have never seen the like; what kind of magic is this? This…wooden bird you fly, and all these…talking gadgets? Are you a Hedge Wizard or something? Is that how you can talk and think like me?" Although Jamie didn't have a clue what a Hedge Wizard was, let alone explain Hannah's abilities of speech and intelligence, he currently wasn't interested as he discovered another problem. Although his brand-new phone was up and running, the signal strength indicator lay steadily at zero, unable to establish any satellite uplink.
Hoping it was only a false reading, he dialled his home number, but his phone only gave him an attempting-to-dial-the-number sign, followed by an unable-to-connect warning. In a desperate attempt, he even resorted to hitting the phone's SOS number, which also didn't reach anywhere. Even the Internet and GPS applications had all inexplicably gone out of service, almost as if the entire outside world had suddenly ceased to exist. Tired of trying, he put the phone away to stop wasting its battery pointlessly. He still had the glider's distress beacon, but he doubted it would do any better than his radio or phone. With a sigh of disappointment, he realised he was on his own.
Glancing over the edge, he saw that climbing down was out of the question; the branches of the tree were too thin or too far apart, and even if he was an experienced tree climber, Snitter would never be able to make it down, and he couldn't just leave him up here. Going through his pockets for anything useful, he found only his house keys, a fistful of change left over from his pocket money, some gum, his Swiss Army knife, and his SAS survival guide, none of which presented any means of getting down. For an instant, he was tempted to try and jump using his parachute, with Snitter and Hannah strapped to him, but never having used a parachute in his life, and unsure whether or not he was high enough for a safe jump, the idea hardly appealed to him.
Finally, deciding to try the glider's ELT as a last resort, he started searching the cockpit; he remembered his father mentioning that it was stored in the onboard emergency kit. Crawling aft again, he reached into the tail shaft, behind the back seat; there he found an orange nylon package (emergency equipment colour marking) tucked in the back seat pocket. Picking it up, he crawled back into his seat and undid the zipper, opening it up on his lap, to examine its contents carefully.
It didn't take him long to realise that Tom Shelton had been rather stingy in equipping his glider with emergency equipment, as the package contained but a cheap, standard survival kit, with only the minimum essentials required in an emergency. There was a tiny first aid pouch containing a dozen band-aids, a box of aspirins, several sterile pads, a few cotton compressors, and a tube of antiseptic cream. As for tools, there were only a couple of glowsticks, a small LED flashlight, a single distress flare, and finally, the walkie-talkie-sized emergency locator beacon.
Removing the distress transmitter from its pocket and extending its aerial, Jamie flipped the activation switch to on; a red light began flashing as the beacon emitted a series of steady repeating beeps, broadcasting its distress signal out on the air. Although there was no way of knowing if anyone out there could hear it, it gave Jamie a sense of hope. Meanwhile, Hannah was curiously going through the other contents of the kit, utterly fascinated by the strange gadgets; she jolted back in surprise as the flashlight she was examining suddenly lit up in her face. Noticing her wounds, he opened up the first aid and took out a couple of band-aids.
"All right, let's see what we can do about those scratches." Laying her down on his lap, he applied the band-aid on the cut, closing it up. Hannah smiled as she felt the band-aid stick to her like a leech, its sterile pad easing up the stinging sensation.
"Thanks Jamie, that feels much better," she said, climbing up onto the boy's shoulder, nuzzling him in gratitude. Jamie responded by tickling his little friend on the nose, as he put the distress transmitter aside and sat back, to wait and hope someone would come.
Suddenly, just as he was about to try his phone again, Snitter started barking in a restless manner, jumping up and down in his seat. Jamie turned, expecting to see a rescue coming for him, and gasped in fear. The hawk he had hit earlier, the one that had nearly devoured Hannah, was coming back to renew the attack. With nowhere to run, Jamie barely managed to shut the cockpit cover before the flying monster was upon them again.
Its massive beak snapping furiously, the giant monster swooped down on the immobilised glider, intent on retrieving its prey hiding inside. Hannah shrieked in terror, hiding under the hood of Jamie's jacket as two sets of razor-sharp claws clamped down hard on the glider roof, the hawk furiously struggling to tare its way in; although the shatterproof plexiglas of the cockpit was keeping it at bay, the monster had enough muscle power to rock the glider too and fro, threatening to push it over the edge of the tree…
Seeing an imminent and potentially deadly plummet to the ground, Jamie did the only thing that came to mind: hurryingly turning back to his control panel, he hit the thrust button, causing the electric motor to spring back to life. The razor-sharp blades of the prop started spinning again, grazing the unsuspecting hawk in the plumage.
The hawk screeched as a patch of its feathers was obliterated by the prop and took flight again, abandoning its attack. But, unfortunately, the damage had been done; no sooner had the hawk let go of the glider, than the nose tilted downwards, as it slid off the edge of the tree, plummeting straight towards the ground. Jamie, Hannah and Snitter all screamed in unison as they fell through the branches, the glider bumping its way downwards like a bicycle going down a flight of stairs. Then, it levelled out as it found an incline at the foot of the tree formed by the massive roots, continued sliding forward for a bit, until it encountered an obstacle and stopped dead.
Jamie shakily opened his eyes, having tucked his head between his knees when he had felt his glider fall; the second he had seen the ground rushing up to meet them, he had braced, expecting a violent impact to crush him and his companions; instead, the fall that had followed had only been a bumpy descent, the larger branches on the lower end of the tree having slowed down the fall. Staring up above his head, he could see most of the branches on his side of the tree had been twisted and broken from where the glider had dropped through them, mowing down everything it its path. The hawk that had attacked them was gone.
Cautiously opening up the cockpit cover, in case the hawk returned for another attack, Jamie saw, by a complete stroke of luck, they had made it to the ground unharmed. The branches of the tree had slowed down their otherwise deadly fall when the glider had slid down the side, as well as causing it to level out at the right moment rather than letting it come down in a nose dive, which would have otherwise dashed it to pieces and them with it. Looking over the side, he saw he had landed in some sort of soft and mushy substance, which resembled mud.
After he had calmed down somewhat, Jamie slowly climbed out of the cockpit; Snitter was the first to jump out of the glider, eager of to get out of that small, cramped space. As he turned to inspect his glider, expecting to find it wrecked from the fall, he found, aside from some scratches and smears on the paint, as well as a shattered navigation light on the starboard wing, the glider still looked flyable. Then he realised that the 'mud' he had landed in was actually a patch of mushrooms, which had creating a soft, cushioning paste that had shielded his glider from serious damage. Picking up one that hadn't been squashed, his eyes widened as he realised it was the size of a bowler hat. It seemed that aside from the animals, much of the flora had also turned gigantic.
What the heck has happened to the world? Jamie thought to himself, finally realising that the world, as he knew it, had, without any further doubt, completely changed. The surrounding woodland looked completely unfamiliar to him and he supposedly knew these parts well, from many camping trips he had made with his father. This wasn't a case of encountering a giant hawk and a talking mouse that had seemingly appeared out of the blue, as he had originally assumed; the fact was that the entire world had inexplicably been reshaped the moment he had flown through that mysterious Aurora apparently. But how could the Aurora have changed everything but leaving him unharmed? There was no logic as to what was going on.
Then he remembered the chopper crash site he had spotted earlier; maybe, in spite of his mysterious situation, he was finally close to finding his father? Then again, would he find him alive or dead? His thoughts were interrupted by Hannah, who had finally emerged from his pocket and was standing on his shoulder, "Ah, back on wonderful ground again. What a relief! So, what do we do now, Jamie?"
Jamie considered for a moment; with the time zones shifted, it was already late afternoon and it would be nightfall in a few hours. Although the logical solution would be to stay put, in case help arrived, after the encounter with the hawk, as well as the realisation that apparently the entire world had morphed into a wilderness of giant monsters, the idea of spending the night out here in the open hardly appealed to him. He had to find shelter somewhere for the night, preferably not inside his glider. Sure enough, Hannah scratched him behind the ear to regain his attention.
"It is not safe to be out here after dark; the deadliest of elil wake at every Inle rise to hunt. How would you like to stay with me at my home?"
"I'd like that very much Hannah, but surely your den isn't, you know, a little small for my size?" asked Jamie, stammering, weary of insulting her again and causing her to lose her temper. However, instead of receiving another clawing on the nose, the mouse, probably amused by his uneasiness, only giggled, "I don't live in a den; my family and I have been living with rabbits in their warren since I was born. That place should be able to accommodate an ithe your size. Besides, you saved my life today; I am sure I can persuade the Chieftess to repay the favour in kind...hopefully."
"Thanks, I'd like that very much…Hang on! Did you say a warren big enough to suit my size? You mean to tell me that rabbits here are as big as me?" Jamie gasped, realising what Hannah had just said. The mouse looked astonished, "Of course they are, silly! What, haven't you ever seen a rabbit before? Where in Frith's name do you come from anyway?"
"Crazy as it sounds, I am from right here," replied Jamie, "I live in the village of Newtown Common with my parents. My father went searching for a missing person a few days ago and disappeared; I came looking for him and instead I find all of this. I suppose you haven't seen a talking human before?" Hannah shook her head.
"No, all the humans I have ever seen are nothing but wild and savage…."
"Surely you don't mean me?" Jamie asked, raising his eyebrows, giving Hannah a playful poke. The mouse only giggled, "No, of course not! The humans I know are monstrous big and can't even talk. But we should get moving; the owls will be out soon."
After securing the glider best he could, but leaving the distress transmitter running to attract attention, Jamie picked up his survival kit and the rest of his belongings, called to Snitter who had been sniffing around, and they set off. A human and his dog, led by a talking mouse, made their way towards Hannah's home, the warren of Thinial.
Author's note: Jamie's adventures begin! Coming up next, Jamie, Hannah and Snitter arrive at Thinial. For those who have read my first story, Thinial was infected with White Blindness caused by Woundwort, and became a quarantine colony for infected rabbits, including some from Sandleford. Enjoy and please review!