As chance would have it, I woke up in the morning hoping wholeheartedly for a perfectly flawless and uneventful day. Just one perfect day was all I was hoping for, and yes, I know, it is na�ve and ridiculously stupid a wish. Apparently I let my na�vet� (that was mainly spawned by early morning semi-consciousness) get the better of me, and it blew up in my face. Not literally, of course, because that would have possibly resulted in a rather large amount of blood and gore. Also not to mention the basic fact that things that are intangible (such as whims or fancies) are utterly incapable of exploding. That would be beside the point.
If one were to wish to be literal, it would have to be said that I was consumed by the dark and abysmal expanses of unpromising reality, but that would be a bit poetic. In all actuality, I was trudging around the computer in my basement when the lights began flickering and a giant black vortex thing showed up and sucked me into it. Despite the fact that it was random, supernatural, and a bit on the corny side, it was really pretty cool. That was until it decided to spew me back out somewhere else.
So everything went from corny to frightening in about five seconds and I think I might crap myself. That would be putting it bluntly. I find myself in a rather depressing state. Surrounded by rocks and dirt next to a giant tower that emanates the essence of doom, I am sitting on my butt in jeans and a t-shirt and I�m not even wearing any shoes. Today must be my lucky day, but how can anyone pass up an opportunity to trudge around in a horrifying badland in their toe socks? Toe socks with frogs on them, nonetheless.
I looked up at the sky, shadowy and ominous as it was. I don�t really know what I was looking for, or if I was even actually looking for anything. Not like there is much else to do when you�re scared half to death in some unknown place. The sky above and around the tower was very dim, and I could have sworn that somewhere in the distance far beyond I saw fires burning in the mountains. I knew instantly that was not a direction I wanted to go in. I looked in the opposite direction and it occurred to me that further away the sky seemed lighten.
Internal instincts tell us that light is good and dark is creepy and bad, so I figured I�d opt for the light. I stood up and brushed off my jeans and trudged purposefully away from the tower, at a very slow pace due to pointy rocks and my severe lack of foot protection. That was painful, in an antagonizing and memorable kind of way. What was more memorable was series of shrieks I heard from behind me, from that tower. A skull-splitting screech filled the air and replaced the steady and distant rumble in my ears. I covered them with my hands and I stumbled, falling to my knees.
�What the hell is that?� I yelled to no one in particular as my pants tore against the jagged stones. I continued to yell and to scream, hoping that my own cries would drown out these noises I was hearing. It was then that I heard the voice in my head.
�He is ours now�to meet his doom in this city of torment�never to be seen by your kind again!� it rasped. I was struck down to my very soul with a cold terror and my screams ceased to sound in my throat. He? City of torment? I heard a bloodcurdling scream sound from behind me, one unlike the monstrous shrieking of before. I heard my heart pounding in my ears and though I knew these screams of pain continued, I could not hear them.
Clumsily, I leapt up from my knees and I ran, dashing my feet against the stones and stumbling with every step I took. I was hurting now and I figured my feet had to be bleeding, but I pushed that thought from my mind as the sky above me began to lighten and the ground started to smooth out. The rocky terrain turned to dust and dirt then into a slight weedy grass which, now, felt like silk under my feet.
My breath was coming out in heavy rasps and I desperately wanted to stop and rest, but I was on some kind of super adrenaline rush that kept me going. I realized soon enough that there was an appearance of a river to my left, and near it a dirt road. I eventually calmed enough to look back at the tower and realize that I hadn�t been in front of it like I had originally guessed. I had really been sitting on the far side, opposite the river and road. I had crossed in front of this tower in my frantic attempt at fleeing and had come to the road and river that headed straight for it on the other side.
Now I was mentally and emotionally distraught (not to mention confused) at this point, but I wasn�t stupid. I knew that all roads lead in two directions, you just have to pick one. I knew which way I didn�t want to be going, so I figured the other direction was as good a choice as any. With that segment of the obvious mastered, I had failed to consider what would happen if I ran into anyone else on the road, which, as it turned out, was a very bad thing to do.
Along the road ahead of me were five men mounted on horses. I had failed to notice them at first, but they had not done so of me, and I soon found myself being charged at. Well, I wouldn�t really call it a charge. It was really a frantically paced gallop that involved some rather offensive looking metal objects being pointed in my direction. That was rather frightening.
