30 June, 2005

Around the corner

The night was getting cold as I sat there, in the deserted living room, accompanied by what seemed to be the most irritating being in the house at that time, sipping hot chocolate while watching The WB on my television set. My parents had hurriedly left for an urgent meeting at their company's headquarters in Washington D.C that morning, leaving me, a fifteen year old teenager, who could not even cook or wash to look after my seven year old younger brother. I looked up from the television set and set my gaze upon my brother, Damien, who was snuggled up on the couch, head resting against my curled up legs as if it was a pillow. I gave a dissatisfied grunt at the sleeping figure and flinched in disgust when I saw the drool patch on my khakis. I almost gently, and carefully lifted Damien’s head, so as not to awaken the little tyrant, and rested it upon a cushion. Then, I hurried upstairs to get the drool patch cleaned and went back down, trotting along the stairs so noisily that I could even have woken up a patient who was in a coma.

I went into the kitchen to get myself another snack and was on my way out to enjoy it when a distinctive yet familiar noise caught my attention. I placed the packet of jelly babies on the counter, grabbed my coat and hurried out of the house. As I scanned my surroundings, trying to find the source of the noise, I caught sight of a crouching dark figure at a corner of the alley across the road. I strolled across the road to the alley and hesitated for a moment before walking around the corner, into the alley. Darkness obscured my vision and I groped around the brick walls for a few moments before being able to see a little clearer than before. The dark figure had disappeared but something about that alley made me want to check it out. I felt my way around in partial darkness when my left hand pressed into something in the wall. I turned my head and squinted in the darkness, only to find out that there seemed to be an invisible door leading to some place in that wall! Without considering the consequences of my actions, I walked into the wall, into some other dimension.

The next thing I knew, I was in a battlefield. Petrified with shock, my brain felt numb, I did not know what to do. I hid myself in a corner, away from everything, realizing that I had gone way back in time. I noticed that the velvety sky above was pale and hanging over the atmosphere like a large quilt. The cold damp smell of the soil obliterated every other scent on the battleground. There, the men stood, slumped in their battle suits, clutching onto swords and shields, ready for battle. The men on one side of the battlefield seemed to be defending a fortress. Their fortress. At the next minute, Heaven’s floodgates burst open and all I knew at that moment was that I was standing up against the greatest downpour in history. The rain was so forceful that when it came pelting down, it was like a nuclear bomb coming down at you at about a thousand miles an hour, with an extremely destructive attitude. The Earth began to shake under this circumstance as if an avalanche was taking place. The clatter of rain could be heard against a series of men mumbling and muttering. Then, the rain stopped. Silence.

"Swords at the ready…attack!" came a voice. His words were like poison; causing an irreversible chain reaction that was to take place at the instant he gave the command. It had begun. The biggest war of the 15th Century had begun and was taking place at the very moment and I was actually present to observe it! The men on the other side of the fortress went charging at their enemies with piercingly sharp spears. The marksmen in the fortress grounds and turrets of the castle took aim and shot arrows down at their enemies as fast as how water would flow from a tap if you turned it all the way. There was no stopping now for both sides. Chaos was everywhere. The battle showed no signs of stopping and each side seemed adamant on bringing down the other.

As soon as the last of the men who were trying to intercept the fortress were slashed to death, the men defending the fortress rejoiced! The remaining men carelessly trampled over the litter of bodies, back to their fortress. And as for me, I desperately searched my surroundings for the portal in which I had travelled through. It seemed in a blink of an eye when a voice went, "Over there! I saw someone!" I started to panic, and wondered if they would keep me here forever as a prisoner or slave.

The pale night was like spring's morning still clinging onto winter's chill. Our meeting, the meeting of two groups of people from centuries so far apart, seemed quite a discovery for them, but not for me. They gazed at me, dumbfounded, eyes so wide it was as if their eye balls would be popping out any second, and mouths so big you could easily fit a full grown elephant into it. I saw this as a cue, an opportunity for me to leave. But they seemed to be able to read my mind and caught hold of me before I could even take another step. "Send him to King Theoden!" And I was sent before the King. The King greeted me in just the same manner as his men did. I saw no light at the end of the road. My end was near.

The next thing happened so fast I swear I felt my soul leaving my body behind. I was back in the alley! Sprawled on the ground, with a searing pain at the back of my head. I then realized that I had a huge bruise at the back of my head and that my wallet was gone! Strange! I made this theory that someone had beaten me at the back of my head, stole my wallet and ran off, leaving me lying on the ground in the alley. But what about the mud on my sneakers? Could that 'dream' have been real? Well, if it had, that would explain for the mud. As for my wallet, the men had searched me and they could have been the ones who took my wallet.

Well, I myself cannot even explain the strange incident that happened that day. All I know is that strange things happen...just around the corner...

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Credit
Sam
kANGEROUSAM caught your attention at 11:09 PM