The Keys
Chapter One
In another realm, long ago and far away from this world we know, a mysterious force was gathering just outside of the sight of the citizens of this world.
It was growing with such and intensity that few could see it without being completely destroyed by it. People feared going anywhere near this place where the force was gathering itself. They feared what would happen to them if they tried to even wonder.
One man, however, decided to take it upon himself to wander toward the place. He was the crown prince of that realm and no one wanted him to do anything to endanger his chance of ensuring the throne.
Like his father, he did not age like most people do. He aged so slowly that he would look incredibly young for thousands of years if he wanted. However, like his father, he could make himself age to the point of nearing death if he so chose. Age was nothing to his family.
This young prince went searching for the place of gathering force. He soon found it was only in one area. It resided inside a darkened wood, where trees grew so thick that the sun didn�t peek through the branches.
He walked toward the dark woods and soon found that he could feel something other than what his realm usually held.
He stood in front of the tree-line, examining the look of the black trees. The bark was black, the roots were black, even the leaves were black. Every tree looked as though it had been painted the blackest shade of black possible.
The prince looked ahead with extremely pale blue eyes, wondering if he should go in and see what vandals he could bring back. He was soon silenced by a voice singing from inside the wood. It was a female voice, singing sweetly as though to a lover.
This strengthened his heart and he walked in.
Archer Kerr looked up from the book she had been sleeping on. She hadn�t realized she had been sleeping. Her long reddish-blonde hair was draped over her arms as she blinked her blue-gray eyes. She was taller than normal girls her age and was strongly built, giving a slightly stocky look to her.
She had just come home from school when she went upstairs to her room to read a book and relax. She looked to her watch and yawned. �An hour?! Good Lord, that�s how long I�ve been out?!� she gasped.
She scrambled to her feet and went out her door to look down into the living room. It was darker outside that was for sure, however, she saw no sight of her mother.
She blinked and walked down the stairs into the living room. No one had been home yet. Her mother�s things were still gone from where she generally kept them ready for when she was walking out the door to someplace she needed to go. No new dishes were in the sink that said she had been home previously. Everything was as it was when Archer had come home.
Archer shook her head and looked around again. She had gone to sleep for an hour and nothing had changed in the slightest.
She sighed and walked up the steps to her mother�s room. She liked going in there. It was where she could find interesting things her mother had kept from when she was a child.
Archer looked to the bookshelf and fingered the spines of the books. Her mother taught archeology at the local university, so there were plenty of books on dead languages and civilizations long past.
She looked to the other side of the room and saw the strange trinkets her mother hung from the wall. There were the crystals that her mother believed held healing powers in them. Her mother had given her a crystal when she was younger, which Archer wore in a swirling cage of bright silver on a chain around her neck.
Something caught her eye that she hadn�t noticed before. A simple ring of brass with two old fashioned keys and an address plate were hung on the wall. The keys were brass as was the address plate, giving them a strange look. They were tarnished with age and gleamed dully in the half light.
Archer seemed to remember her mother having these keys when she was a child. Archer had been playing with the keys and her mother found her, slapped her hand and took the keys away from her. �Those are not to play with! Don�t ever touch these keys again, do you understand?!� her mother had screamed in a frightened tone of voice.
Her mother never let her near those keys ever again. Archer had always tried sneaking into her mother�s closet to find the keys again, but she was either caught or her mother came home and she had to leave before any evidence could be seen of her attempt to get another look at those keys.
It surprised Archer that her mother would take such care in keeping her away from the keys and then place them in sight of her as though expecting her to take them off the hook. Archer bit her lip and looked out the window to see the driveway. No one was home yet.
She grinned. She walked over to the hook and picked the keys off of it. She sat down on her mother�s bed and looked at the keys carefully. They were very plain. She wondered why her mother was so adamant in keeping her from even seeing the keys.
She looked at the nameplate on the key-ring. It had odd lettering engraved on it, words she couldn�t read. They weren�t in English, but they weren�t of any other language Archer could identify either.
She then looked at the keys themselves. They were very plain, indeed. They looked like the probably belonged in some farmhouse that was built in the Victorian era.
She stood up and walked to the window. She thought maybe she would be able to read the nameplate if she got more into the diminishing sunlight. The words on the nameplate still looked like they belonged in some fantasy book that resided on her shelf.
She sighed and moved to put the keys back when something caught her eye. A faint glimmer from the nameplate suddenly caught her attention. The words were shimmering as though fire were snaking through veins in the letters themselves. They were changing into English words.
When they finished changing, they still glowed slightly a bright gold. �To�. The place of no name,� she read.
She blinked. It made no sense at all! Her brain went into overdrive as it tried to comprehend the simple directions. She settled on banging her head against the bookshelf next to her. It felt surprisingly good.
When she finished banging her head like a lunatic in an asylum, she looked back to the faintly glowing letters. They still formed the odd words on the nameplate.
She looked to the window again. She suddenly realized there was a black keyhole in the air in front of the window. She stepped back quickly, tripping on a pair of shoes.
She hit the ground and stared up at the keyhole. It just stayed suspended in midair as though it belonged to an invisible door.
She walked over and poked at the hole. It seemed real enough. �Oi! Don�t just stand there and poke me, stick in the keys and open me!� said a voice from the hole.
�Ah, hello?� she asked tentatively.
�Did you not hear me?! Stick in a key and open me! I can�t just stand here all day waiting for you to open me!�
She blinked and looked to the keys. She shrugged and stuck one into the keyhole. It fit and she turned it easily.
Suddenly, a light burst from the door as she pulled back with the keys clenched tightly in her hand. Wind whipped around her and she had to shield her eyes from the light coming from the door. She stepped toward it and suddenly felt as though someone pushed her from behind.
She screamed as she fell through the door, a feeling of falling through air from a great height coming over her. She reached out to try to grab onto something, anything, to stop or slow her decent. All she got was the feeling of continuing to fall for her efforts.
Suddenly, she felt herself land on something somewhat soft. She opened her eyes and looked up at an afternoon sky. She wiggled her fingers and felt grass under fingers.
She sat up and looked around. She was on an island of grass in a sea of something pink and clear. She crawled over to the edge of her island and poked the pink stuff. It jiggled.
�This stuff�s like jello!� she said in surprise. She reached into the jiggling mass and scooped out a handful of the pink. She looked at it closely and took a bit to her mouth. It tasted like watermelon.
Suddenly, something flew right into her head. She fell forward into the pink gel.
�Shiny! SHINYSHINYSHINYPRETTYSOFTSHINYSTUFF!� said a high pitched voice from the back of her head.
She pulled her face from the pink gel and sat up on the grass island. She reached to the back of her head and pulled out, with some difficulty as it kept grabbing onto her hair, a strange male fairy that had fire engine red hair spiked on the top of his head.
He looked up at her and smiled cheerfully, gripping onto her hand with his arms and legs and rubbed his cheek on her fingers. His bright blue eyes looked up at her cheerfully. �Pretty, pretty, soft tall-thing!� he squealed.
She raised an eyebrow at him. �Uh, who�what are you?�
He stood up instantly on the palm of her hand and bowed to her, his dragonfly like wings jerking slightly as he did this. �My name is Fred! Freddyfreddyfredfred!�
�Ah, okay,� Archer trailed off as she stared incredulously at the fairy.
�What is your name, pretty-soft-tall-thing?� he beamed.
She blinked at him for a moment, not entirely registering that he was talking to her. �Ah�my name is Archer,� she said after a while.
�Archer? Archer! Archer is the archer of the archers� guild creating big arches with her mighty arches!� Fred was definitely unusual.
�Ah, no, just Archer. That�s my name,� she attempted to correct whatever misunderstanding she had caused with the hyperactive fairy.
�Archer is softy-soft!� cried the fairy and then he went back to hugging her hand.
�Um.. Fred� could you tell me where I am?� she asked as she indicated the great sea of pink around them with the little islands of green dotting the area.
Fred flew up to her head and stood on it, looking around. �We�re in the pink goo swamp!�
�Yes, well�is there any way out of the swamp?� she asked hopefully.
�Yup! You just jump from island to island to,� he started turning around wildly on her head as he looked around and then flew down to her shoulder and pointed her face ahead of her, �that direction.�
She nodded and stood up. Something hit the ground as she stood. She looked down to see the ring of keys lying in the grass slope, sliding towards the pink gel.
�Oh! I had better not lose these!� she said as she scrambled forward to catch the keys before they slid into the gel.
�Watch it!� cried the fairy, just as a strange eel like creature rose from the gel and snapped at her. She pulled back quickly and held her hand in defense. �Wild Trailaeels live in the swamp! They get a hold of you and they don�t let go!�
Archer clenched her jaw and narrowed her eyes at the black and red trailaeel. He leered at her with its jaws ready to snap at her again. She darted forward and kicked it square in the jaws, sending it flying through the air as she snatched up the keys.
Fred whooped and hollered on her shoulder. �Yay! Archer defeated a trailaeel!�
Archer grinned. �That wasn�t so hard!�
Then, she noticed more black and red trailaeels swimming toward her through the pink gel. Their sharp, pointed snouts giving them the ability to swim through the hardened jello like material. �I spoke too soon. Quick! Tell me which direction to head to again!�
Fred looked around and pointed to the left. �That way!�
Archer nodded and backed up on the island, then ran right toward another island not far from hers. She leapt through the air and landed on the tiny grass island, skidding to a stop. �Whoa! That was close!�
She hadn�t noticed before, but a strange white mist was covering the swamp, making it hard to see the other islands. �And it just got more difficult,� she gulped.
�Hurry!� cried Fred.
Archer looked behind her to find more trailaeels coming at her again, this time strange, spiny wings were sprouting from their sides like prehistoric flying-fish. �Hold on!� she growled.
She saw another island going toward the direction Fred had indicated not far from the one she was on, currently. She ran and jumped, landing on the other island as the trailaeels launched themselves from the goo behind her, pink gel falling off of their spiny wings as they burst from the surface.
She saw another island and jumped again, keeping her running pace. She kept her attention solely on the other islands. She jumped to another as she felt the jaws of a tailaeel grace her arm, but miss it entirely.
She ran hard, jumping from island to island until she finally saw one last island and then what looked to be solid land after it. A large trailaeel surfaced from the gel and she couldn�t stop running. She jumped onto the island and clenched her eyes shut as she ran headlong at the creature, leaping into the air as the creature rose up to get at her.
Her foot hit it on the head as she flew over it. She hit the ground hard and rolled to a stop. Lying on her stomach, she lifted her weary body up to see the flying trailaeels going away back into the swamp.
Still trying to get her breath back, she let herself fall back onto the ground again. Fred was lying on the back of her head, playing with her hair, singing some strange little tune in his high pitched voice.