Well, honestly I don't really know where to begin, I suppose the best place would be when I woke up in my room… sorta. I had my blankets pulled up tight around me as I slowly regained consciousness. That in and of itself is strange, I usually sleep in a very warm room. I was cold.

Being cold and tired, I was not motivated to get up; what finally woke me up was the wind blowing through my hair. I poke my eye out from underneath my blanket; it was bright in my room. I usually sleep during the day so I keep my room very dark.

I sit up confused, I look around. I was in my room, without a ceiling. looking up, out of my room I saw blue sky and the sun, burning brightly. I don’t like the day, it’s always too bright. I am very confused, so much so I don’t feel the usual irritation when awake during the day brought on by my aversion to light. I hobbled over to my clothes and dressed myself. Once done, I go to the door of my bedroom and open it.

If someone were to come up with a word combining the two ideas of confusion and incredulousness, then that person would be able to describe my emotions as I looked out my room. I was in some sort of stone wall structure; grey stone bricks are falling over from overgrowth. Just beyond the walled off area was a forest, not a normal forest. This forest was very thick and dark. The green leaves of the trees were dark in colour and sickly in shape. The trees themselves were near black and grew to be in sharp angles with strange twists. The very feel of the air seemed off.

The immediate area within the walls reminded me of a courtyard belonging to a castle, minus a few decades of maintenance. Quickly scanning around, my suspicion was confirmed; a large decrepit castle loomed in the background. Plant-life was making its way up the impressive yet crumbling structure, giving it a creepy vibe. The remains of a great civilization that had risen and fallen many years prior, made me think of the bones of a giant beast thought once to be immortal but is now nothing but a pile of minerals.

Within the courtyard itself a few piles of rubble made from white rock lay every fifteen feet or so. I am not sure, but I do believe that they were once statues depicting gods or heroes of the people that built this place, wherever this place is. I came to that conclusion based on one fact; the crumbled white stone was very white. The sheer whiteness of it was rare in nature. Moreover, the very fact that the stones were a different colour than the rest of the ‘courtyard’ told me they were special in some regards.

Leaving my door open from the shock of the sight, I put on my tall steel toed boots, lacing them up tightly over my jeans; if I’m gonna be going into a forest I’d better wear something supportive. I step out of my room and take a look back at it. The floor of the rooms around mine end in a curve, flush with the ground, although it was built there.

I pace around the ‘ring’ that encompasses my room, staring at the ground. Once I got to the exterior wall of my house, I noticed that it had been cleanly dissected, no saw marks, no burns. It was freaky looking with the wires simply ending; what if I had been there?

I went back to my ‘room’ and sat, thinking. Seemingly millions of thoughts ran through my head. Nothing made sense. After a few minutes of silently thinking, I gathered my mind and made a choice. Immediately, I start packing, I grab clothes, lighter, knives, flashlight and a few bottles of water (yes, I do keep water in my room). As an afterthought, I grab my computer and a few like objects into my bag before putting on my leather vest. I did say the weather was cool. Feeling ready, I made my way to the dilapidated walls of the courtyard.

Moving forward from the former gates of the wall, I come across a cliff, a gorge. I make my way to the edge of the cliff and look down, there appears to be no bottom, covered in a fog or haze. Backing up from the cliff, I look around, to my right and not very far away, I spot hope, hope in the form of a rope bridge spanning the gap in the ground. Excitedly, I jog over to the bridge; it doesn’t look very old. To test it, I slam my foot hard into the first plank. Good, it’s solid.

After I cross the bridge, in a slow cautious manner, I find a trail leading into the heart of the dark forest I was in. The very fact of a trail being visible is a very good sign of people using it recently. Sighing quietly to myself, I begin walking slowly along the trail laid out ahead of me, that lead into the very creepy forest.

The trail ahead of me may have been surprisingly visible, yet it was it was difficult. The twists and turns of the trail brought me needlessly up small hills and needlessly down to the valleys of said hills. The path was also very rocky and the roots of trees stuck up out of the ground, at the perfect high to trip me. I was very glad that I had my tall leather boots on despite the weight of them with the steel toes.

The whole time I was in that dark forest I felt like eyes were on me. I took a small break to rest my legs a bit but, the feeling of the ‘Truman Show’ burned in my mind. I do have some experience in the woods, but this was a whole other type of forest. Namely, it was dark and all too quiet, the only sounds I heard were the ones made by me. Normal forests would have wind and small scared critters rustling leaves along the ground, or trees ‘dropping’ things, like acorns. the sun’s light barely reached the ground of this strange place; it was my only consolation, at least I didn’t need combat its brightness. This was not a normal forest. I needed to get out of this place quickly. I poured my efforts into making that happen, only pausing to sip some water; I would have spilled it otherwise.

Several hours of walking through the incredibly thick forest later, it simply ends, not in a clearing like one would find in a forest, but rather it ends in an immaculately maintained yard. Clean and lush, thick grass blankets the ground. The rays of the sun make me flinch and greatly reduced my ability to see. After a few feet of walking forward, awkwardly shielding my eyes with one arm and extending the other out to try and feel for objects, I see it. At first it is just a yellow and green blob at the top of the green, short hill ahead of me, but I know it is too uniform to be natural, my first real show of people. I see a small cottage ahead of me once I got close enough to start making out details. Smiling to myself, I head straight for it.

Realizing I am approaching the rear of the home, I make my way to the front in a wide arc, I don’t want anyone thinking that I’m gonna break in or something naughty. The little home truly is little and the door is a bit of an odd shape; it is only about five feet tall and extra wide, and round. The front of this quaint cottage is ordained with dozens of bird houses, varying in size, shape and colour. The sight was obscenely, violently bright; they were everywhere and all extraordinarily vibrant. The little boxes with holes in them dotted the corner made from the ground meeting the wall, most hung in a small tree in the front. “Why would anyone use such colours?” I thought to myself “Then again, whoever is caring enough to go through this much trouble for some birds would surely help me out.”

Once I recovered from the second visual assault, I knocked gently on the door hoping another person could help me out, or at the very least tell me where I am. After waiting a few minutes I knock again, this time a little louder. No reply was given in response to my knocks.

I sat down and sipped what was left of my water, I was tired from my trek and tired from my mental strain. I was confused and frustrated but at the same time relieved that I was out of that creepy forest. I actually felt safe just being out of that forest, that allowed me to relax a little so I could rest, unlike being in the forest. Taking a few minutes to try to think out my situation, which failed to yield any results, I started feeling uneasy. From this, my attention turned outwards, I have to do something to figure out ‘what, where, & when’- type of stuff.

“Whadda do? Whadda do? Whadda- wha’ dat?” I mutter to myself quietly as I looked around; I had noticed another bridge, this time it was a small stone bridge over a pleasant little creek. well, a bridge, hopefully that will bring me to people. I cross the bridge, confident that it is as well maintained as the lawn around it.

A small path lead up the grassy hill just beyond the bridge. “May as well,” I mutter again deciding to follow the path. I crack my neck, take my pack off and start walking. A moment or two later I am atop the crest of the gentle slope looking out over a village caught in time with the exception of the color scheme. Everything was terribly vibrant, it hurt my eyes more so than the brightness of the sun. Squinting from the puking pastel pink and manic magenta, I never saw it coming less from a flash of rainbow.

The top of my head exploded in pain, all I could do was grab it and curl up as various other body parts (mostly my back and legs) experienced a similar treatment. I thought I was getting stoned to death from the hardness of the objects hitting me. “Please stop,” I weakly said, due to the fact that my breath was knocked out of me.

As suddenly as the attack began, it ended, most likely prompted by my plee. I looked up, my vision was a bit blurry, all I could see was the green ground, blue sky and a really weirdly-shaped rainbow floating in front of me. Blinking a bit brought more visual clarity but even less mental clarity. “NOPE, not real,” I said, scrambling to my feet. I started walking back from whence I came. “Impossible,” I said, ‘am I having a stroke? Well, I did hit my head, could it be a concussion?’ I thought to myself.

“OH NO, OH NO, OH NO!” a slightly raspy voice hollers from behind me when I hit the ground softly; the full extent of my injuries had become apparent to me about halfway through my third step or so. My knee was wrecked, my back was thoroughly bruised and I was bleeding from the top of my head. Blood was leaking into my right eye.

“Why. Did. You. Do. That?” I said, heaving between words directed at my hallucination of a blue and rainbow mini-horse.

“I’m really sorry, I thought you were a monster,” it spoke. Somebody’s tie-dyed pet spoke to me. It spoke, and to top it all off, it looked panicked and concerned for me. It spoke again. “I bet Twilight will know what to do.” The technicolour quadruped jumped into the air and flew away, like a superhero, a mutant horse superhero, leaving behind a rainbow trail in its wake.

I simply sat and tied to grasp the situation that had just occurred. “I-Is this real life?” I said to no one.

Author's Note

I just want to give a special thanks to Word Worthy. He has really helped me out.