Chapter 1 of my book- "The Woods are Alive" (PG)

[NarutoAvatarHp]

Title: The Woods Are Alive
Rating: PG
Genre: Mystery/Adventure
Summary for Chapter One: A girl (me)can't remember anything, not even her name. She appears in a small clearing in very dense woods and she is confused (hence the name). She is scared to walk around, but she finally gets up enough courage. What will happen!? lol.

Enjoy!!!!



Chapter 1

Confused

Part 1



I look on both sides of me and I see only white; white everywhere I turn. I cannot distinguish land from sky, right and wrong, or even what happened. I try to remember my name and why I'm there, but my head is as blank and my surroundings. I don't know why, but it felt eerie. Out of nowhere, as if it had appeared out of thin air as I had, a bright, round light came about in front of me. It reflected off of the never-ending white abyss around me and made my eyes sting. I closed my eyes painfully and fell onto my knees. At that very moment, a loud humming met my ears. It boomed and thudded and I had to remove my hand from my eyes to my pulsing ears. The agony was overbearing and overpowering. And, just when I couldn't take it one more second, it all stopped. I collapsed onto my side, still grasping my thudding ears.

I had lain there for what seemed like hours, when I finally uncovered my ears and opened my eyes. I was lying in a pasture of due-covered grass. I was surrounded by trees (oak by the looks of them). They were all alive and thriving. Unlike the other place, this pasture seemed peaceful, even friendly! But, I still didn't understand what was going on. I stood up, my legs wobbling with the sudden move. Everything I heard sounded alive; crickets, leaves rustling, animals snapping branches and hunting prey, but it still didn't sound scary. In fact, it sounded quite strangely inviting and warm. I was so tired. I took my black jacket off and hung it on a branch of a tree branch (it was much too hot for a jacket like that). One part of me wanted to explore, but the other side wanted to lie down and sleep. I decided to sleep. I lay down on my side, tried to imagine a nice, soft pillow under my still headache-infested head, and fell into a deep, slightly curiously uneasy sleep.



When I woke up after what seemed like seconds asleep, but actually, considering it was already dark, must have been hours, I sat bolt up right, as if someone had poured ice-cold water all over me. The meadow was no longer friendly and warm, it was eerie and cold. There was absolutely no more sign of the niceness that had filled the air before I had closed my eyes and drifted off into my own mind. In fact, it was so different, that I actually looked around, as if to find that it wasn't the same meadow at all, but that I had gone to yet another place. But, as I looked around, I saw my jacket hanging on the exact same branch in the exact same way, billowing in the cold, menacing breeze. I realized that I had started to breathe heavily. I put my arms around myself as if I were in a straightjacket, trying to calm myself. I told myself to go back to sleep, but I couldn't. I couldn't let go of the feeling that a million eyes were watching me, deep in the shadows of the trees. I kept hearing rustling and crackling wherever my back was turned. Suddenly, as if all of the fear had been taken out of me, I stood up; ready to fight anything that challenged me. But then, every tree around me started to shake, and, just as suddenly as it had went, all of my fear came rushing back into me. It almost looked as though the trees were scared as well as they stood there, quivering, yet, they looked less frightened, more like they were trembling with wickedness. Cautiously, I took a step forward. Nothing happens. Another few steps. Nothing. A couple more steps. Still nothing. I am now at the end of the edge of the trees. I look into the deep, dark shadows cast by the towering trees and shudder myself. I do not know what inspired this ridiculous move toward my fears; the woods were just calling me. My heart pounding, I sneak a foot forward, expecting something to come out of nowhere and attack me. Still, nothing happened. I was very confused, yet I felt oddly triumphant. A smile emerged onto my face. The rest of my body slid into the forest, barely making a sound. After every step, the shuddering of the trees diminished. Finally, after about fifteen steps, the trees were still. They had gotten me at last. They could rest.



Confused

Part 2



I felt safe. The one thing that I'd feared since I'd gotten there had turned out to be harmless. (Or so I thought.) I walked; just walked. I was still curious about the place. I looked around a tree and saw that ahead there was a spot where the trees seemed to stop. I ran to it, but only found another green clearing exactly like mine. I walked to the middle of it, puzzled. I couldn't have gone in a complete circle, could I?


Hope that you liked it! please reply and be brutal!  

[Lhia Dunwaith]

Good! Very good! Keep updating! 3nodding

(By the way, thank you for looking around at the rest of the Creative subforum. I'm sure people appreciate it a lot.)  

[NarutoAvatarHp]

Oh, thank you!!! No problem! If I expect other people to comment on mine, then it is only fair that I look at theirs and comment on it!  

[NarutoAvatarHp]

I thought that I might as well post the second chapter for my ONE reader! Here you go, Lhia_Dunwaith!




Chapter 2
The Other

It didn’t make sense! I thought that I had gone in a completely straight line, or at least as straight as it could be with all of the trees! I sat down and thought. As soon as I had concluded that either the woods or I had to be crazy, a loud rustle knocked me out of my reverie. I looked up. At first, I thought that my ears must have played a trick on me, but then, it happened again.
“Hello?” I whispered. There was no answer.
“Hello?” I repeated, a little more confidently. The only reply was the cold wind chilling my bones. My mind was saying leave, run and don’t look back, but my heart was telling me that I had to see what it was first. I stood up but, being half and half with where I wanted to go, went nowhere. Not really trusting my mind after it had been subjected and twisted by the wood, I boldly took a few steps forward and crossed to the other side of the trees. Peering through the woods, I saw a large, dark object, just lying there on the ground. I stepped between the gargantuan trees to the mound on the green mass that was the forest floor.
I was expecting some sort of beast, like a wild cat for instance, not… a boy! I immediately crouched down at his side and checked his pulse. With my fingers on his throat, my heart raced! Could this actually be another person? Was I not alone in this wretched forest? I finally felt a thump on the tips of my fingers, and I jumped up, wiggling with joy. He was alive! I crouched back down and tried to shake him, get him to say something, but he didn’t. He just lay there on his side, his eyes closed. He could’ve been sleeping. The only thing that I could think about doing was taking him to the pasture.
Once I had finally plopped him on the ground after having to carry his unmoving body all the way to the clearing, I started investigating his wounds. He had a big gash on his left leg and it looked like he had a broken finger, but nothing that looked like it could’ve rendered him unconscious! I helped him all I could with the supplies I had, then I lay down and waited for him to wake.
The sky got dark much faster that I had expected. When it was getting to be so dark that I could barely see my hands in front of my face, I decided to try to sleep. But, it was too cold. I lay there for a while, willing my mind to shut off for a couple hours, but it resisted. I suddenly remembered with a jolt that my jacket was in my pasture, but, looking around, I realized that it wasn’t there. This wasn’t my clearing. This eased my mind slightly. Knowing that slightly relieved some of the beliefs that I was crazy. I was still thinking it; I had been thinking it ever since that bright white light had almost blinded my eyes; but it was not my main focus, as it had been for a while. But, with the thought that I was going somewhere and not just going around in circles to sooth my mentality, I finally fell into the first deep sleep I’ve had for as long as I could remember.

* * * * * *

When I woke the next day, the boy was sitting up. I was so surprised that I jumped to my feet. I suppose that he was surprised as well because at the sight of my jumping up, he did so also. We just stared at each other until I broke the silence.
“Hi.” I said with a lame sort of smile.
“Hey.” He said back.
“Y-You’re all right then?” I stutter awkwardly.
“Depends on what you mean by ‘all right.’ ” he mumbled, not looking me in the eye.
A long silence followed these words. I wanted to ask him if he had had the same experience I had, if he had been in the plain white world with the bright light. I wanted to know if the trees had shuddered and shook like the ones near my meadow had. But, I knew that he would think that I was even crazier than I was (if I wasn’t mistaken in thinking that I was heading that way) if I came out and asked all of this at once this early in the conversation!
So, I held back from saying these things and only asked, without really meaning to, “What’s your name?”
He looked a bit surprised at the sudden change of subject, but then, “Christopher,” he answered uncertainly. “Or Chris. Whichever.” He added as an afterthought.
He looked surprised at his own words, as though he didn’t know he had them in him, but then he shook his head vigorously, as a dog does when it gets wet, and the look passed.
“I know. I have been remembering flashes of things, too.” I couldn’t help but be a little happy at that five-second look on his face, because that meant that he might have gone through whatever I had gone through!
“I’m pretty sure that my name is Kayla.” I smiled, wanting to make it less awkward, and sort of succeeding. Christopher chuckled softly, and then turned his head up to look at the bright, cloudless sky. He looked back at me and asked me some more questions about myself.
We talked for a while about all the things that we remembered about ourselves, and it seemed like the more we told, the more we remembered! I said one thing, then another just popped into my head! By the time we had finished our conversation, I knew my favorite movie, book, subject in school, and that I went to Indian Woods Middle School as a seventh grader in Kansas! I also knew all these about Christopher, accept, of course that he had gone to a different school! Once we had realized that we were both twelve-years-old, the sky had grown darker, and the sun was on the other side of the trees. The days seemed shorter than I had remembered. We decided to try to sleep, and we would explore the next day.
I had a dream that night that I had waken up and I was alone again. When I tried to find Christopher, a huge cage went up all around me, and I couldn’t find a way out. I was cursed to stand there and band at the bars, yelling and screaming for Christopher for all eternity. Thank god I woke up.
I woke up (really this time) and found Christopher, still asleep, his back to me. I took a deep breath. Overwhelmed by happiness that he was still here, I got up and started searching vainly through the forest for food, still not wondering too far from Christopher. In the end, all I found was a couple walnuts and a handful of berries. I brought them back to the enclosure and found Christopher lying on his back, looking up at the sky.
“I got some breakfast. It’s not much,” I said, showing him my meek findings, “but it’s better than nothing.”
“Thanks.” He said, sitting up. We ate in silence, and when we were done, we both got up without saying a word, and set off into the trees.


sorry... it's sort of long. But, I hope you enjoy!  

[Lhia Dunwaith]

Length doesn't really matter to me when I read something. This is really good! It's captivating! Your imagery is amazing and you feel sympathy for the main character already, after two small chapters.  

[NarutoAvatarHp]

Why, thank you! I wasn't expecting THAT reaction!!! lol. sorry, I'm just very happy!