Secret Discoveries (part five)

Story #5 – By SRS

When Crystal opened her eyes again she found herself lying on her back in the middle of a strange field. She crouched on her elbows to have a look around. Crystal tried to see if she recognized the field as one of the clearings her father used to take her to while he hunted deer. She knew that there were many forests surrounding the palace and guessed that she had ended up in one of them, though she couldn’t remember how she had gotten there. But this didn’t look like any of the clearings she had been to before.

The whole scene was unlike one she had ever observed. When analyzing her settings more carefully, Crystal noticed that the sky setting above her, melting into hues of purple and maroon, had two suns in it. Though both were on the same side of the sky, one was above the other. The lowest sun was just about to reach the horizon, while the higher sun was still at a 45 degree angle from the horizon. Secondly, the grass she was sitting on wasn’t really grass, or at least it didn’t look like grass. Maybe it was a trick from the suns but the floor beneath her seemed to glow with red-orange shades, as though on fire. Was she really in the same world, let alone country, that she had grown up in?

Trying not to panic, Crystal attempted to remember what had happened in the last 24 hours. Deep within her memory there had to be the recollection of how she had gotten to this place on the grass, or whatever the substance was. Crystal started with the morning. She remembered waking up after some weird dream, going to Sheebas room, and being fascinated with Sheebas rug. “Strange,” Crystal thought, “that it caught her eye every time.” Next, Crystal remembered going with Sheeba to get breakfast. But weather or not she reached the dinning hall, or weather she had eaten anything at all, Crystal couldn’t remember. It was as if the darkness of the corridor, she was walking down with Sheeba, had engulfed her memory and caused her to loose all conscious knowledge of what had happened to her.

“Great,” Crystal said to herself, “I’m in some strange land, where the grass burns without producing smoke, and I can’t recall how I got here. Mind you, why I’m here is a whole other question that needs to be explored as well.” All the more puzzled, Crystal got up from the ground and started walking toward the setting suns. “My next move,” she thought, “should be to find someone that can help me, or at least find a place to sleep before it gets cold and dark. I have no idea where I am and I don’t really want to find out what creatures live out here when it’s dark and I can’t see.” Feeling a sudden chill on her shoulders, she started to walk faster. Looking behind her, Crystal saw that half the sky was already black and still. The shadows left on the ground behind her were growing in length as the suns continued to dip behind the land. Only ten feet behind her, the remaining side of the earth was showered in a dusk that twisted with many varying shades of grey, obscuring any physical objects. “I’ve got to hurry if I want to reach safety before dark,” thought Crystal. She started running. She was searching for a cave, tree, or bolder to climb in or under or, if she could spot one, a person to help her.

NEXT --> Part 6.1
NEXT --> Part 6.2