Chatterbox: Inkwell

I have a story...

Before I begin, can I say that I posted this once but no one actually tried to read it?  Like, I know it's long and stuff but can you at least read some and give critique?  Thanks!

Prologue

So my name is Darren.  I’m a pixie. It’s kind of weird to go outside of my world, though.  Wings are hard to hide, and so are pointed ears. Everyone either thinks I’m a cosplayer or . . . yeah that’s it.  It’s the reason I don’t normally leave my world.

This was one of my first experiences outside of my world, so please don’t judge me.  

Chapter 1

In retrospect, everything that happened could have been avoided.  I blame Amy.

It was basically a normal day, save for the fact that Jessie couldn’t find Amy.  She practically broke into my house to wake me up.

I jolted awake from the sound of wood cracking, followed by Jessie yelling, “Darren, I can’t find Amy!”

“Why’d you break down my door?!” I yelled back.  “But don’t do anything yet. I’ll be out in a minute.”

A few minutes later, I was talking to Jessie in the dining room over coffee.

“So you can’t find Amy why?” I asked her, hoping she was joking.  “I didn’t think she liked Earth-U.”

“Exactly,” Jessie replied angrily.  “She hates Earth-U! I don’t understand why she would just go like that without a reason!”

And I shouldn’t have agreed to helping her search.

“I mean, I could help you look,” I offered.

“Yes please!  I’m getting worried!”

“Okay.  You start looking while I fix my door.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard, should it?” Jessie asked as if it was nothing.

“Are you kidding me?!” I cried out.  That was ridiculous. I mean, I was a pixie, but that’s still not your everyday magic.  “If it wasn’t hard, I would have done it already!”

“And?” Jessie replied.  “Maybe you just wanted to talk to me.”

“You broke my door down at, like, seven in the morning and expect me to want to talk to you?” I laughed.  “I’ll fix my door. Now get out. I’ll see you in twenty minutes.”

“Okay!” Jessie exclaimed, getting up and walking through the gaping hole in my front door.  

I sighed, and followed her to the door, but didn’t leave.  Instead, I knelt down by the splinters of wood on the floor and started picking them up.  Changing magic is difficult, especially if you’re fixing something. After I was finished, I laid out all the pieces on my table and tried to arrange them as best I could.  Granted, I did a terrible job, but I’ve since fixed that.

Another thing about changing magic -- it takes a ridiculously long time.  Each piece has to be put together one at a time. Then after all the parts are together, you have to do a final spell to finish the thing.  Assuming how many pieces there were, it would take more than twenty minutes.

Now this is the part where I skip to when I started searching for Amy.  If I wrote more on changing magic and fixing my door, I would go crazy. So yeah.  Looking for Amy. This is where I messed up the most. I still blame Amy though.

I met Jessie at the edge of the forest.  The first thing she said to me was, “That was way longer than twenty minutes.”

I rolled my eyes and replied, “You split my door into thirty-eight pieces and expect me to be done in twenty minutes?  You know how long fixing magic takes! Thirty-eight pieces, that’s like, an hour!”

“Ugh, whatever.  Let’s start looking.”

I sighed, and said, “Should we split up?  We’ll cover more ground that way.”

Jessie nodded without saying a word in silent agreement.  We both walked into the forest going in different directions.  I looked around, looking for anything that was out of the ordinary.  I turned a corner, and saw exactly that.

It was a large gold ring, elliptical and large enough for someone to step through.  It was hovering in the air, upright like a door, or a portal to another world. What was more surprising was what I saw through the ring.  What was there was a place filled with tall glass, metal, and concrete towers I now know as skyscrapers and buildings. There were shiny metal machines that I could learn were cars. And too many people to count.  It would be a long time before I would recognize this as a city. San Francisco, California, to be exact.

Is this Earth-U, I asked myself.  Instead of calling for Jessie like a sensible person, I stepped through the ring to see what was on the other side, besides everything I’d already seen.

I actually stood there for a second, debating whether I should risk being stuck in Earth-U forever or risk never finding Amy.  I finally decided that finding Amy was more important.

I immediately regretted it.  As soon as I stepped through the ring, it shrank down to the size of a normal ring and dropped to the ground.  I stooped down and picked it up. The gold band was shiny, like it was new. I slipped it onto my middle finger, where it fit like a glove.  People walked around me like they didn’t notice my messy black hair and icy blue wings. I dodged people into a relatively empty spot between two towers to try to fly.  The reason it was empty? It was an alleyway. I hid there for a minute to see a moment where no one was passing by.

I looked around one last time before fluttering my wings and going airborne.  People looked up at me as I flew over them, taking in everything I could about this place.  Some people pointed. Others took pictures. I scanned the crowd, looking for Amy.

There was another person who caught my eye, though.  She had dark skin, darker brown hair that was tied in the back of her head in a large pom-pom, and hazel eyes.  She had a muscular build, broad-shouldered and tall. She looked up at me, just like the rest of the crowd, and squinted.

I hovered in the air for a minute, staring at her.  Our eyes met, and I looked away. She smirks, and wavers her hand at me, silently saying, “Follow me.”

I fly down to where she was.  “Who are you?” I ask.

“Follow me, Pixie Boy,” she said, running off.  I followed her, flying a few feet above the heads of the rest of the people.

I had to follow her for a long time.  At that point, I should’ve gotten suspicious and stopped following her, but I don’t think I’d regret it today.  I’m kind of weird that way.

After about 20 minutes or so, she stopped and looked back at me.  She was in a park, carpeted by grass with large oak trees, paths, and benches.  She sat down on a bench and patted the seat next to her. I landed by the bench and sat down.  “You know I have a name, right?” I asked her.

She shrugged.  “Yeah, but I didn’t know it, so I called you what I thought you were.”

“My name’s Darren,” I replied.  “And you got it right. I am a pixie.”

“I’m Aya,” she said, holding out her right hand, “Nice to meet you.”
“You too!” I answered, shaking her hand.

Chapter 2

I was really lucky that I met Aya that day.  She really helped me find Amy among other things, though not so helpful in other ways.

“So, Darren, where are you from that has pixies?” Aya asked.  “Because there are definitely not pixies here.”

“It’s called Emmilvien,” I explained.  “It’s an alternate universe. We call this place Earth-U.”

“Woah, that’s weird,” Aya said, seeming confused and . . . star-struck?  Did she actually think I was cool? She wouldn’t think that now, it’s totally different.

She stared at me for a moment before saying, “Can you show me?!”

“Um . . .” I began shakily, “I could try.  I kind of came here accidentally when I was looking for my friend.  I stumbled across this ring,” I rotated the band on my middle finger, the continued.  “And I stepped through it, and I was here.”

“Hang on,” Aya interjected.  “You stepped through a ring THAT small?”  She pointed to my finger.

“Oh, it was floating, and it was about how tall I am.  After I walked through it, it shrank down to this size,” I explained.

“Really now?” Aya asked sarcastically.  “What’s your world like? Are floating rings normal?”

I struggled with that question.  Normally I’m very confident in my world, but I hadn’t seen any other rings like that before and I didn’t know if that was an anomaly or not.

“Um, I haven’t seen one of them before this one, but I’m sure they exist.  Literally anything is possible in Emmilvien. There are things like magic and werewolves, and there is literally every animal you could think of.  I think you people in Earth-U call them ‘mythical animals’? They don’t exist here, but I’ve been told small children believe in them.”

“Wow!  Anything?  And mythical animals?” Aya asked.

“Yep!  It’s pretty cool!”

“Hey, I’ll help you find your friend if you try to show me your world.  I hate it here,” She goaded me. “Deal?” she asked, holding out her hand again for me.

“Deal,” I agreed, shaking her hand again.  “But can we go someone else first? I’d like you to tell me about Earth-U.  It’s my first time here.”

“Um, sure!” Aya decided after a moment of silence.  “No one’s in my house right now, so we can go there now.  It’s probably an hour walk from here, so I hope you can hide those wings for long enough to make it there.”

“I could fly from roof to roof,” I suggested.  

“And make yourself even more noticable?  No way!” Aya said. “You’re gonna have to look like a normal person to get by.  No doubt people will be looking for you after the stunt you pulled.”

That confused me because I didn’t know that flying people were abnormal, at least in Earth-U.  Again, this was my first time in Earth-U, so this world was completely new to me.

“What stunt?” I asked like a total idiot.

“Flying.  People don’t do that here!  It’s not normal!” Aya explained quickly, almost angrily.  I felt a brush of something I hadn’t felt since I got to Earth-U: magic.  As I looked at her, her eyes flashed blue for a split second before going back to normal.

That was a severe red flag that something was going on.  I should have realized by then that something was off about Aya.  but I brushed it off because waves of magic were normal in Emmilvien, so I didn’t have a reason to be scared.

I folded my wings as small as I could so they were flat against my back.  “Is this good enough?” I asked.

“Yeah, if you put a sweater over it. Luckily, it’s pretty warm out today, so I can take mine off.”  She took of her sweatshirt and handed it to me. Underneath she was wearing a black t-shirt with a picture of a rectangular prism with two circles on it.

I pointed to it and asked, “What’s on your shirt?”

“Oh, it’s a speaker.  Everyone says it’s a washing machine, though.”  She looked at it and then back at me. “Come on, put it on! You want to get back before it gets dark, right?  San Fran is scary at night.”

I blinked. I had never known a place, save for the caves, that was scary at night.  “How scary?” I asked.

“It’s pretty scary.  Some people jump out of the shadows and attack you.  That’s why you walk fast and keep your head down when you’re out walking any later than ten o’clock.”

That sounded pretty scary to me, so I nodded and said, “Okay, let me put this on, and we can get going.”  I put on Aya’s sweatshirt and followed her yet again.

Aya was right.  It was a very long walk to her house.  It was on a Lombard Street,and Aya said it was the most curved street in the world.  I assumed that she meant Earth-U, but I agreed with her nonetheless -- the street was like a zig-zag.  By now, the concrete structures were gone, replaced by houses that looked more familiar. It was almost dark, but light enough that we could see what we were doing,

Aya unlocked her door and opened it.  “You go first,” she said, motioning for me to go inside.

Another red flag.  She could have been waiting to ambush me.  Luckily, she didn’t, but she could’ve.

I looked around aw Aya closed and locked the door.  I took off her sweatshirt and asked, “Where should I put this?”

“Oh, just put it wherever.  I’ll put it away later.’

I shrugged.  “Okay.” I put it down on the coffee table and asked, “Can I look around?”

“Yeah, just don’t open the other door in the bathroom.”

“Uh, okay,” I said.  I wondered why. What might be on the other side?  Why couldn’t I see it? I shrugged, and walked through a door.  It was a large kitchen, nothing interesting. There was another door, which I went through.  It was a dining room with six chairs. It felt like Aya lived by herself. Why did she need six chairs?

There were two other doors out of that room, and I assumed they were connected, so I chose one at random.  It lead to a large study or office with a desk against one wall and bookshelves against most of the others.  One let to a bedroom and the other to the bathroom. As any trusting person would do, I didn’t look into the second door, though I was very tempted to.  The bedroom was connected to the dining room.

I went back to the kitchen, where Aya was making sandwiches.  “I thought we should eat something before we go searching tomorrow.  I hope peanut butter and jelly is okay.”

“It’s fine.  I just hope my other friend in Emmilvien is doing okay.  It’s probably the same time here as it is there. She might be worried.”  You should try to check. You might try to get that ring thing working. Keep your end of the deal up, you know?” She pointed to my hand and I nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, I’ll try,” I said.  I took the ring off and set it on the ground.  I thought of a place in Emmilvien I wanted to go to.  Nothing happened. I tried doing that while holding the ring, but that didn’t work either.

I didn’t notice Aya sneaking up behind me until it was far too late.  I heard the squeak of a sneaker hit the tile, and I turned around to see Aya, an angry look on her face.  Magic pulsed throughout the room as a fiery ball of magic appeared in her hands and she chucked it to my face.

I felt a burst of pain as I stumbled backwards, dropping the ring.  Stars burst before my eyes as I looked up at her. I blinked they away and summoned a sword made of green firelike magic and held it out in front of me, ready for whatever she threw at me (literally) next.  

Okay, that was an exaggeration.  I wasn’t ready in the slightest. I was dizzy, scared, and trapped in my first real fight.  I swung at her, and she lunged to my side and hit me with another blast of red magic. I stopped in my tracks, falling to my knees.  My sword disintegrated. Black splotches floated in my vision. I tried to blink them away, but they only got bigger. The last thing I saw was Aya saying, “That was much too easy.”

Chapter 3

As pixies do, I had a dream.  I hate pixie dreams because they’re always cryptic, weird, and metaphorical for the future.  This one in particular was a kind I’d never had before, the kind where you see through your own eyes and not in third person.  I think it has something to do with being in Earth-U because I’d only ever experienced that kind of dream in Earth-U.

I was in Emmilvien, with Jessie and Amy, exploring some of the caves.  Why, I didn’t know. We were in a particular part of the caves I didn't recognize.  That was odd. When I was a kid, before I was a normal-sized pixie, I lived in the caves and explored them all the time.  I know most of them by heart even today.

We were walking in total silence, which was weird for us because we almost always have something to talk about.  

We came to a crossroads.  Without talking, Amy went one way, and Jessie and I went the other.  We went left and Amy went right.

Jessie and I kept going.  It wasn’t long before we ran into another fork in the road.  At this one, Jessie wordlessly went left and I went right, veering the direction Amy had gone.

As I walked alone, my magical sense went crazy. I sensed no magic for a long time, which should’ve discomforted me.  Somehow it didn’t, as if I knew there was supposed to be a lack of magic in that area.

Then, as I continued, I was thrown off my feet by the sheer amount of magic that had suddenly surrounded me.

I got up and stepped back.  The overwhelming feeling of magic subsided.  I stepped forward again and the feeling returned.  Despite by restless urge to go back, I continued onward.

The only way I can explain how much magic I sensed is by being in a room filled with water.  I couldn’t hear anything. My vision was blurred and warped like I was looking through glasses at too high prescription.  My head hurt from pressure, as if I should pop my ears. I felt like I had to hold my breath to keep the magic from choking me.  

After a while of slanting to the left, I got to a reverse fork.  One entry went back the way I had came, and didn’t have the feeling of overwhelming magic.  The other continued as I had been going, magic and all.

I took a moment to rest near the entrance to the way I had come.  That’s when Amy came out of the entrance closest to me, which was the one without magic.  As soon as she entered the magical path, she dropped to her knees. I ran over to her, and helped her up.  She looked at me, and opened her mouth. Instead of hearing her say, “Thank you,” or something of the like, she was yelling, “Darren!  Wake up!”

And at that, I jolted awake again.  Instead of Jessie breaking down my door, the cause was Amy cursing at the wall as if it had done something to personally affect her.

I was about to ask her what the heck was going on and why she was yelling at a wall when my head started pounding.  My hands went to my temples as I closed my eyes in an attempt to dull the pain. I curled up into a knees-up position and tried to block out Amy’s yelling.

I don’t know how long I sat there before Amy noticed me.  I know she noticed because she’s uncharacteristically quiet around people she cares about,which is normally limited to me and Jessie.

“Darren?” Are you okay?” she asked quietly.

“Head . . .hurts,” I managed to say.  It hadn’t gone down a bit since I had woken up.

“Oh, sorry I’ve been cursing at the wall.  Say something sooner, dude. I’m gonna make you deaf if you just sit there!”  At least she can keep a positive attitude.

“Hard to think,” I muttered with some effort.

She sat down next to me and whispered, “I’m sorry, Darren.  I hope it goes down enough for you to explain.” I turned and looked at her.  She grinned at me, then I dove back into a dream.
Yet another pixie dream.  Great.

This time, I was with Aya in the forest of Emmilvien.  She was flipping the ring, tossing it up into the trees and waiting for it to fall back into her hand.  Her form kept flickering from how she looked when I met her to a red and black demon and back, and sometimes to not being there at all.

We weren’t talking.  She was just tossing the coin, and we were walking.  

We were walking on a path. In time, the path came to a sudden turn.  Instead of staying on the path, which I was trying to stay on, Aya grabbed my wrist and started walking faster, straight into the forest off the path.

I felt like I was trying to get her to stop.  I wasn’t talking, though. Or maybe I was. I couldn’t tell. The choking magic was back.

Aya continued forging ahead, almost running, pulling me along with her.  We passed someone, and Aya grabbed their wrist too. It was Amy.

As the edge of the forest approached, Aya sped up even more. When the trees ended, she let go of both of our hands.  We stumbled to a stop at the edge of the forest, landing on the ground. As Aya sped away, the magic went away too. We looked at each other, then got up and chased after the magic.

It almost seemed like Aya wanted to get caught.  As we ran toward her across the grassy field, I could feel the magic getting closer to us.  As much as I wanted to go away from it, I knew we had to get to her.

It was a really weird dream.  We teleported from maybe twenty-five yards from Aya to right behind her.  Not uncommon magic, but I didn’t normally use it.. It surprised me in the dream.

Amy tackled Aya from the back, and the aura of magic intensified, almost becoming more than a feeling.  The force of the magic was enough to throw both of us back. I landed in real life.

Me head hurt less this time, which was a good thing.  And I didn’t hear Amy cursing at the wall. That was also a good thing.  She was still sitting next to me.

I looked at her as everything slowly came back to me.  “How much longer was I out?”

Amy checked her watch.  “Around fifteen minutes.  Feel less headache-y yet?”

“Yeah,” I smiled.  “Why are you here, in Earth-U?  I thought you hated it.”

“I do,” Amy replied.  “Someone took me here.”

“Is that ‘took’ as in ‘your choice’ or ‘took’ as in ‘kidnapped’?”  I asked.

“Kidnapped,” Amy said.  “I remember bits and pieces.  My door splintering, being gagged, and some girl carrying me through a big gold ring.”

I was taken aback by her mentioning the ring.  It must have been the same ring that I had found.  But if I found it in the middle of the city and it belonged to Aya, how did it get to where I found it?  She must have put it there herself.

I guess I didn’t notice how silent I was being, because at that point, Amy snapped in front of my face and called, “Emmilvien to Darren?  Anyone in there?”

I jumped out of my thoughts, saying, “Oh, yeah, just thinking about how I got here,” I said quickly.  “You said something about a gold ring? I went to one to get here -- to Earth-U, I mean. The person who captured you deceived me into thinking she would help me find you.”

“You were looking for me?  How sweet!” Amy exclaimed, squeezing my shoulders in a hug.

“Too tight,” I said breathlessly.

“Sorry,” she said, letting go.  “But I know what we have to do!”

“Me too,” I sighed.”

We looked at each other for no more than three seconds before agreeing.  

“Break out.”