Chapter two
I woke up this morning at dawn, right as the sun began to light up the sky. I jumped out of bed and dressed myself up in brown trousers and a dark purple shirt with sleeves that were a little too long for my arms, so I rolled them up just past my elbows. I slipped on my pair of sandals and strapped them up tight, and then I was out of my room and into the kitchen where my Mom had just baked a fresh batch of muffins. She set them on the table, which was made of harden lave like the house, and place two cups of Ule milk down.
“Good morning deary, how did you sleep?” She asked, barely able to see over the table.
“Good.” I answered quickly and picked up two muffins and gulped down the Ule milk as fast as I could. “I’m meeting Sarah in the fields today; she’ll be waiting for me.”
“Alright, well when will you be home?!” She yelled at me as I ran for the door.
“I don’t know, sometime tonight I guess!” I yelled back as I leapt through the door and closed it behind me. Outside the sky was clear of clouds and a cool breeze swept through town, in the distance Clarafade Mountain was clearly visible. It was just another beautiful day in Craz-Tow.
I was meeting Sarah in the fields across town. I figured I could take my time and enjoy eating the two muffins. She was never on time anyway, so it didn’t really matter.
“Good morning Damian?” Mrs. Tebby said from the garden in front of her house as I walk by. Mrs. Tebby was a Goblin. Short, green, and a little ugly, though she had a great personality, and she loved to garden. Beautiful flowers of all colors were always blooming all times of the year. At the moment, there were large yellow flowers that smelled like honey. I always enjoyed walking past her house.
“Good morning Mrs. Tebby. How are you?”
“Good, have a nice day.” She said then returned to digging small holes to bury seeds. I continued on, passing The Forth Leg and a few shops as they set up for opening. Steam was beginning to rise from the bakeries chimney, and the scent of Mr. Jeklin’s sweet cakes and pies filled the air. Mr. Jeklin was a vampire, though instead of blood, he had a thirst for all things sweet. My favorite is his dikle-berry chocolate pie. Imagine strawberries and cherries mashed into a mushy paste, and then add sweet chocolate and stuff it into a pie. Whenever Sarah and I get are monthly allowance we always buy a dikle-berry chocolate pie, bring it to our secret hideout, and share it.
To add to the sweet smell of Mr. Jeklin’s bakery, a soft melody began to fill the air. Gretery was beginning to play his daily hour of music. Mayor Jurrlo had asked Gretery to walk around town and playing one hour of music a day. Jurrlo thought that it would help create a happy mood around town to wake up to the soothing sound of music. So Gretery plays a mixture of instruments from violins to flutes to trumpets. Today, he was blowing a soft tune on his flute as he walked through the streets.
I took a deep breath of sweet air and embraced Gretery’s soft melody as I finished off the last of my two muffins. My mouth was a little dry and I was beginning to crave a glass of cold Ule milk.
GRRRRRHHHHHHMMMMM! A loud grumbling roar filled the air and shook the ground. No one seemed to notice the sounds, they all knew it was just Garroth was waking up and doing his morning stretches. Garroth is a MASSIVE fire breathing dragon, strong and fierce looking! However, when it comes to Garroth, looks are a little deceiving. Imagine a dragon; now give him black as night scales, two pearl white horns on both sides of his head that stretch out past his mouth, and two catlike fierce black eyes. Give him white spikes all along his spine to his tail and make his tail look like a very spiky mace. Then give him massive broad wings and a body to scale and you have a picture of Garroth. However, as fierce and deadly as he may look, he has a personality like a five year old. He hops and bounces and giggles and smiles, and plays pranks and jokes on everyone he can. He’s one of my favorites in Craz-Tow.
In the corner of my eye I could see Garroth stretching out like a cat after a mid afternoon nap, spreading his wings out to the side. Then he stood and shook like a wet dog. When he was done, just after a large yawn where he showed the entire town his mouth full of razor sharp teeth, he leaped into the air and glided through the sky, casting a shadow on everyone below.
I continued on past Feron, the witch fortune teller, the Pelton Pint Pub, and Jastro the metal smith. Soon I was through Craz-Tow and into the fields where I was supposed to meet Sarah.
She was sitting on a large rock in the center of the field. She was wearing a green shirt and pants with her hair tied behind her head. She was wearing a leather side satchel that hung from one shoulder, and in her hands I could just barely make out a bow and three arrows. Of course, I was too far away to see what she was doing with the bow and arrows. Thhhheuuww! Through the air, one of her arrows slammed into the ground just in front of my feet. I slid to a stop and starred down at the arrow in shock! When I looked back up at her, she was smiling and almost laughing.
“You should see the look on your face!” She yelled out as she burst into laughter.
“Why would you do that? What if you had hit me?” My voice cracked and came out a little girlish.
“My parents are teaching me how to use a bow. I can hit a target over one hundred feet away.” She said proudly. I pulled the arrow out of the ground with a tug and ran over to the rock. I had a little trouble at first getting a hold on the rock, but then Sarah reached down and pulled me up. She was incredibly strong, stronger than even Jed, Fred, and Ped.
“Thanks.” I said and handed her the arrow. She took it and strung it across the bow.
“You see that tree over there?” She asked and pointed at a skinny tree about sixty feet away. I nodded. She pulled the arrow back across the string and took her aim. She breathed slow and focused her right eye down the arrow, and then released. The string slung the arrow through the air until it slammed into the trees trunk with a light thud.
“How long have your parents been teaching you?” I asked pretty amazed.
“Three days.” She said as she jumped down off the rock. “Come on! I found something yesterday I want to show you.” She yanked the arrow from the tree and put it in her leather satchel with the others, then slid the bow over her shoulder and let it hang across her back.
I jumped down off the rock and we started off towards the Clarafade Mountains. I struggled to keep up with her. She was an extremely fast runner. After a few minutes I was breathing heavy and begging for a break. Of course she just looked at me and laughed, hardly fatigued.
“Come on, it’s only a little further.” She said encouragingly. “It’s near the river; afterwards we can go for a swim.” I took a few more deep breaths and then we were off. We were out of the fields and into a wooden area at the bottom of Clarafade, in the distance the sound of a rushing river filled the air.
“It’s right over here.” Sarah said and ran ahead to a large tree that looked like it had been pushed over. It had crashed down and landed on several other trees, leaving the area looking like a battlefield of fallen trees. “Here it is.” Sarah said pointing down at something. It was a set of golden armor that gleamed in the sunlight and a silver sword that lying beside it. “I wonder who it came from.” Sarah said.
“Another universe I guess. It can’t be from here, I’ve never seen anything like it.” I mean I’ve seen armor and a sword before, but none like this. It was almost beautiful.
“I know, it’s really pretty.” Sarah said. I picked up the sword, which to my surprise was really light, and held it in the sun. It was then that I noticed that the edge of the blade was stained red. I immediately put it back down and backed away.
“I don’t like this, I think we should leave.” Sarah gave me a weird look, and then nodded with a sympathetic smile.
“Ok, let’s go swim.” We followed the sound of rushing water until we saw a bright blue stream. We both did a cannonball into the stream. The water was cool and quite refreshing. It was difficult not to be swept away in the strong current, but we swam here often and we both knew how not to be carried away.
We spent three hours swimming and diving off trees into the water, until it was nearly noon. That was when Sarah pulled herself out of the water and began drying off. “I found a dying Sweet Goo tree not far from here. It has some really good icicles on it.” She said picking up her bow and leather satchel. Sweet Goo trees are incredible. Once a day, usually around noon, their leaves release a steady stream of sweet liquid for about a minute. Most have been set up by people so that all of the liquid can be collected. Sweet Goo liquid is like our version of soda. It tastes kind of like a vanilla honey, it’s really good. When a Sweet Goo tree dies, instead of releasing liquid, it slowly gushes out sweet sludgy goo that forms icicles on the leaves. The icicles are like rock candy, and taste incredible.
After we both dried off, we headed to the Sweet Goo tree. It was a large tree with blood red leaves shaped like thin cups hanging upside down on the branches, long icicles hanging from each one. The bark of the tree was twisted and spiraled, and like all dying Sweet Goo trees, a dark black color. An aroma of vanilla filled the air.
Sarah walked under the leaves and started picking off the icicles, placing them in her leather satchel with the arrows. I grabbed a long icicle and took a big bite out of it, savoring the flavor. After Sarah had collected twenty icicles, she turned to me and smiled.
“Catch me if you can!” She yelled just before turning and bolting off out of sight. I did my best to keep up, but she was faster. She would slow down just enough for me to get close, then charge forward just out of reach and disappear out of sight just to reappear start all over again. I stood little chance at winning this game.
After twenty minutes of this nonstop chase, Sarah came to a dead stop in front of a small round animal. It was a baby Rooblle. Imagine a basket ball, now give it smooth leathery brown skin, two big beady kitten eyes, you know the ones that are cute beyond all reason, and a large mouth without teeth, just the pink gums and a long red tongue. Now give it two VERY short and stubby arms and legs that are just BARELY four inches long. Its legs are just barely long enough for it to stand and funnily wobble back and forth, but it doesn’t use its legs often. Rooblles roll around to get where they need to go. The babies roll pretty slow.
Now this is just the baby version, all cute and funny looking and completely harmless, but the adult version is a vicious and ugly animal of rage! Triple the baby versions size, give it SUPER sharp teeth, and cover its skin in sticky slim, boils, and warts. Now you have the adult version. O, and it can roll incredibly fast, it could outrun Sarah easily!
Sarah smiled and gave a soft giggle as she starred at the baby Rooblle. Its eyes were boiling in anger and its mouth pulled back as if to show the teeth that weren’t there. It waved its stubby arms as if to scare us away, making faint hissing sounds all the while. Even at a young age they were fierce at heart.
“Do you think its parents are around?” Sarah asked. The young Rooblle was now gnawing on her leg with its toothless mouth, leaking saliva all down her foot.
“I’m not sure. Usually the parents and the pups don’t separate. They must have lost each other.” I said cautiously scanning the area. A run in with an adult Rooblle is never a good thing, even if Sarah was armed with a bow and her deadly accuracy.
Sarah nodded and pulled her leg from the Rooblle’s mouth, then turned to me and kicked it. Its arms and legs immediately sucked into its body, turning into a smooth round ball. The baby Rooblle came to a stop at my feet.
“Let’s see how good you are.” Sarah said hunching over, prepared to stop the Rooblle from getting past her. It may seem cruel to use a small baby animal as a ball, but Rooblles have incredible strong bodies, they can be kicked around all day and not feel a think. All of the children in Craz-Tow use baby Rooblles as balls to play with.
Before the Rooblle could push its limbs back out and start wobbling away, I reached back my leg, aimed, and kicked it! It flew to the right of Sarah and what I thought would be out of her reach, of course I underestimated the skills of an elf. She slid her legs forward and stopped the Rooblle just before it could pass. Then without standing, she kicked the Rooblle back at me with blistering speed. It flew past me and off into the trees, slowly coming to a stop fifty feet or so away. Its stubby arms and legs popped out and it began slowly wobbling away to safety.
“Hah! I win!” She yelled standing up and doing a little victory dance of celebration.
“Aren’t Elves supposed to be gracious winners?” I said.
“Not all of the time.” She said back with a smile. She pulled a Sweet Goo icicle out of her satchel and snapped it in two, then threw one half over to me. For a few moments we sat and munched on the icicles in the shade of a large tree, in the distance they could hear the baby Rooblle hissing and every once in a while they would see it wobble from one tree to the next. Obviously it hadn’t appreciated our little game as much as we had. It wanted revenge, but seemed to understand it stood no chance against us, so it kept its distance, not wanting to provoke us into a rematch.
Once we finished our icicles, Sarah started up her game of chase again, taunting me to catch her knowing full well I never would. This continued on for two hours until I couldn’t go on any further. Sarah of course laughed at me. She was barely tired and could probably go on for hours more till nightfall. For the next couple of hours till dusk, we walked around just talking and passing the time, doing whatever came to mind.
When the sun finally set behind the Clarafade mountains, we were sitting on the rock in the field we had met in this morning. The field was light up with hundreds of Fireflies of all colors. In our universe, Fireflies light up in pink, blue, green, and yellow, which was really cool to see at night. It was like seeing a fireworks show. To add to the Fireflies, in the distance the Clarafade Mountains glowed in the night. The left side of the mountain was glowing red and orange with bursts of lave flying into the sky, while on the right side the stream of water glowed blue. It looked like both sides of the mountain were in a battle to take the sky, blue and red fighting to illuminate the darkness.
“Hmmmm… Well it was a great day Damian.” Sarah said with a sigh. “But I have to get back soon or my parents will worry.”
“Yeah, me too. Mom probably won’t serve Dad dinner until I get home. He won’t be happy about it.” I said as we both jumped off the rock. She gave be a big hug and handed me the last Sweet Goo icicle from her satchel, then we parted ways and headed back home, leaving the beautiful scenery behind.
In the dead of night, in the fields outside Craz-Tow, a small light flashed about four feet off the ground. A few seconds later the light came again, then again and again and again until the light was constant. Then it began to grow bigger, and a faint sound of wind filled the air. The light grew and grew until it was about the size of a doorway, and there was the sound of large gusts of wind. For a few seconds nothing changed, and then the doorway of light gave one blindingly bright flash of white light and then the sound of a hammer beating metal rang through the field and everything went silent and the light vanished. In its place, stood a man in a white lab coat wearing a pair of thin glasses. His lips were spread in a smile as he whispered. “I’m home…”
