The buzzing of my phone woke me from my dream. It wasn’t a normal dream; it was one of those dreams that burrowed into your mind letting you remember its existence without knowing what it was about. All I could remember were the eyes, those bright blue eyes as precise as the Hope Diamond and as deep as the ocean. The only other thing I could remember was fear. The same fear a cricket being thrashed around by a young child knows.
Picking up my phone, noticing the time was one pm and the hundred plus messages my friends had sent. Most were from the night before, consisting of memes, YouTube videos, and random moments of introspection, but the most recent was to me. It was from Carl, one of my best friends and my only friend who doesn’t use his phone. “Leon, meet us at the park. We wanted to celebrate the first day of summer properly.” With a sigh, I slowly got up, noticing my cat Freddy was on the base of my stomach, getting his ginger fur all over my navy blue comforter.
I pet the little guy while brushing his fur off my plaid pajamas. As I brushed past his ear, Freddy awoke with a low purr, even licking my fingers that suddenly turned into the cat biting and clawing my hand. It had been three years since I got the cat making his violent outburst expected but still painful.
I picked him up and placed him on the hardwood flooring before opening the door to exit my room. From the hallway, the sound of my father snoring was unavoidable. I peaked around the corner to see the living room where empty beer bottles and half-eaten pizza littered the floor with the smell of vomit burning my nose. Sneaking into the bathroom, I wrapped my hand in bandages, so I don’t get infected should we go into the creek. While there, I took the time to put deodorant on and brush my teeth since I had skipped doing so the day before. Then I walked over to the toilet, stood on top of it, and pushed up the roof into the fascia to grab my half-empty box of cigarettes and my mother’s wedding ring.
Taking the ring into my hands, I tried not to remember my dad’s affair that ended with my mother leaving this on the floor. I was only nine at the time, and even after six years, I still remember how angry she was, even punching a hole into the wall as she and dad screamed at each other, claiming who was right and who was wrong. The whole thing ruined what little good was in this house. Dad became a drunk, barely fit to work, and mom left to marry some old politician who could die at any time. With an extra moment of thought and careful steps, I got down, making sure to place everything as it was.
Exiting the bathroom, I quickly grabbed my shoes from the box by the front door along with my keys on the small, nearly empty bookshelf. Freddy came to me just before I grabbed the door handle to brush around my ankle. With a smile, I opened the door and started making my way to Holland park.
Walking down the street, the warm Florida air signified summer had begun. After a ten-minute walk, the path to the park was in sight. It wasn’t the one most take as that one is still a mile or so from the main entrance. I turn to take the shortcut I’ve walked dozens of times, heading to the spot my friends and I have had since we were six. What was once our treehouse where we used to play video games or wrestle, is now used for us to smoke cannabis and drink beer. I was forced out of my thoughts by the sound of joggers running down the other side of the path. Almost immediately, I saw my gym teacher Mrs. Park who I had a major crush on this school year. She was the one who helped me prepare for the track team and even with my homework when I was having trouble. But instead of saying anything, I just waved to her, and she did the same back flashing me her signature kind smile.
My phone buzzed again with a message from Sam Carl’s girlfriend telling me to hurry, forcing me to pick up my pace. Everything was going well until I found myself in a much denser forest with slash pine trees everywhere. The deeper in I went, the more unfamiliar the landscape became. The path slowly was covered by the foliage; even turning around and walking the way I came did little to help. My phone was dead even though it was charged just this morning.
Panic started to set in as I started calling for help. Then out of nowhere, I heard the sound of running water, a river meaning a town should be nearby like my pack leader always said in the wolf scouts. I followed the sound and found myself by an old wooden bridge about thirty feet long that was over what must have been a fifty-foot drop into rushing water. It lacked any guardrails being just a few wooden planks nailed together with rusted iron bolts. Just past the bridge, I could make out the back of the elementary school in the neighborhood through the thick pines. With single-minded determination, I began to cross the bridge swallowing any and all fear I would normally have.
With each step on the bridge, the old wood groaned, yet I kept crossing it. After I made it around halfway through the bridge before some wood gave in, making me fall down the side, barely catching the ledge. I struggled to pull myself up lightly, cutting myself on one of the bolts, but my strength was whining. I was never the best at gym class, being much better at track due to all the leg workouts and stamina training I went through. But this was different. All the exercises I went did never prepared me for a fall to my death while being cut by rusty iron. With everything I had, I called out for someone anyone to help me. Yet no one came.
Just as I was getting ready to give up, a hand grabbed my wrist. Looking up, there was a cute short girl no older than seventeen with blue, almost glowing eyes and sparkling bright purple lips. “Not so fast, Leon.” The girl spoke with a mix of a thick French and Southern accent. Her blond hair was cut at the base of her neck and seemed to glow in the sunlight as she held onto my wrist supporting all my weight as I was no longer holding onto the bridge. “What are you doing, honey? You aren’t meant to give up.” She spoke calmly as if the two of us were having coffee together.
“Don’t worry, honey; I won’t let anything like this happen again. Since you were so willing to give up on your life, you won’t complain if I take it?” She said it so casually that I couldn’t even process what she was really saying. My attention was on her eyes; it felt like they were drawing me in like a roach being flushed down the toilet. I couldn’t look away, and I couldn’t speak. I could only look into her perfect sapphire-like eyes.
“I’ll take your silence as agreement, but I want you to say it. Say your mine.” Her voice made me want to say it, but with whatever was left of my will, I held my tongue. With my silence, her eyes narrowed, and she let loose a small smile.
“Say it. Say it with pride and admit you belong to me. I need you to know it. Say it, so you know from this day forth, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, not even in death shall we part. Say it now, or I’ll drop you, then I’ll jump so we can be together forever.” Her voice seemed even sweeter as she said this. Her grip slightly loosened around my wrist as I slipped down a little. Out of fear, I said, “I am yours. I-I’ll do whatever you ask, please just don’t drop me.”
That made her smile a bit more, showing her teeth that all resembled the canines of a wolf. With a hardy tug, she pulled me up, one armed at such speed I couldn’t even process that I was now lying on the bridge. Turning to my side, I saw from the waist down she had a snake-like body covered in gold and silver jewelry. On her back were two sets of dragonfly wings, each about as long as a yardstick. Her hand was on my mouth before I could scream as she dragged me at blinding speeds the way I came giggling like a child on the way.
She stopped in a clearing by a massive tree that must have been at least five hundred feet in height. In the truck was a wide hole large enough to fit a horse; the outside was covered in mushrooms and dead foliage. Before I could speak, she tossed me into the hole, allowing me to find out the inside was full of thorns and jagged wood, cutting me, hurting not just my body but something else like I was losing part of myself. I kept falling and falling until I felt the stony ground.
Picking myself up, I saw I was in a forest, but unlike any forest I had ever seen, the trees were larger than the one I entered through. The moon was massive, like a cloud in the sky. At its center was a pink dot like the iris of an eye. On the forest floor, there were flowers similar to lilies but had baby faces on the petals. The grass was emerald green and moved as if blown by the wind even when there wasn’t the lightest gust. On a few smaller trees, I could see faces with holes for mouths that leaked blue sap.
Turning behind me, emerging from the tree, was the girl, or as I now felt compelled to call mistress. She stared at me for a second just as she had on the bridge and said, “You are to run for my patrons. When we arrive, do prepare yourself. I’m told they can be quite demanding.”