Falling Deeper: Chapter One
The snow glittered across the ground of the woods, the sun revealing the tiny white crystals under its light. Gabriella had never seen anything so ... beautiful. There was something perfectly radiant about the way the rays cascaded through the small openings within the tree's shelter. The way the dust floated through beams as if they were dancers, performing for her. The crispness of the air refreshing her with every inhalation and swirling away from her every time she breathed out. The wonderous-
Her entire form tensed as a frozen mesh burst against her face.
"Oi! Ugly! You're walking the wrong way!" Gabriella adjusted her glasses before blinking over at the young girl. Lana (who, Gabriella noted, had recently plaited her golden locks down her back) waved exaggeratedly at her in her large, beige puffer jacket as best as she possibly could without knocking herself in the face with her enlarged arm.
Gabriella gave a small smile as she wiped the final spots of snow from her face. The cold, melted snow glided easily from her shoulder length, brown hair. A lot of people didn't understand Lana's joking which led her to be a bit of a loner before she started to speak to Gabriella and Amy, Gabriella's best friend. Or, at least, she used to be. It hadn't taken long for the three to become close. Not many would think they would get along upon first glance; Lana was your typical tomboy who was more interested in sports than in anything else; Amy was the girliest out of the three, with her short, straightened hair and mascara lined eyes. She was, by far, one of the prettiest girls in school, but she was quiet and concentrated on her school work. Then there was Gabriella. It was pretty obvious to see that she was the 'Plain Jane' of the group, with her large, flat nose and her dull blue eyes. Even Lana, who never wore makeup and didn't like to dress up, out shone her, like a night light next to a bonfire.
"Lana! Gabriella!"
Both of the fourteen year olds snapped their heads up towards the top of a steep hill, towards the call. That was one thing Gabriella was frustrated by. She could never figure out what Amy was thinking, despite the ten years they had known eachother. She was painfully reminded of this as she stared up at the face of her eldest friend. It was always strange for Gabriella as she'd always considered herself good at reading people's facial expressions and could often figure out what her family and lana were thinking of or worried about before they even confessed the problem to her; but Amy was different. She had always been a mysterious one.
"Gabriella!"
Lana and Amy both looked down the hill over their shoulders at the unmoving girl. She finally shook her thoughts from her head to return their concerned gazes.
"Amy says she's found something, weren't you listening?" Lana asked tentatively. Gabriella blinked in silence' "right, sorry, I'm coming". Lana and Amy shared a glance which they thought had gone unnoticed by Gabriella before taking off in a slow jog, eager to see the hidden object.
As she saw the look the two girls shared, Gabriella couldn't help but feel her heart sink and tears begin to prick at the corners of her eyes. 'Guess it won't be much longer before they talk about me behind my back. Everyone else does, why should they be any different?' Gabriella mused bitterly to herself as she scrambled up the hill. Her cold, dirty hands grasped whatever she could to pull herself up; tree roots, rocks, anything. But the snow was slippery; her foot, as she reached the top of the ledge, slided over something hard and her body collided with the freezing white blanket.
The glasses flung from her face and were practically invisible, laid on the thick snow. Trees blurred into frightening silhouettes, contrasting harshly with the blank ground.
"Amy? Lana!" Gabriella whimpered, her hands stretched out in front of her on the ground, desperately clutching for her glasses. Upon hearing no reply, except for the wind combing through the branches and bushes of the woods, Gabriella shakily brought herself to her feet. She continued to call for the other girls, panic making her voice quiver.
She wasn't sure how far she shuffled but eventually she heard her friends. At first it was just them calling her and laughing, but then calling turned into shouting, and the shouting escalated into screaming before a blinding beam of light engulfed gabriella and the last thing she remembered was being sucked off the ground.
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Amy groaned as she felt the aches shoot through her limbs. Dazed and disoriented, it took her a few moments to realise one of her legs was bent awkwardly and somewhat painfully beneath her and her back was uncomfortably draped over, what felt like, a broken branch. It took another few moments to actually open her eyes.
There was no snow. It was just ... gone. It was then she began to feel the sweltering sun beating down on her through the exotic assortment of trees. Her coat really wasn't helping her current situation but she was in too much pain to push herself from the position to peel it off just yet. After taking a few deep breaths she did manage, however, to unfold her leg and slowly move and wriggle her limbs; she was rewarded with the sensation of 'pins and needles'.
Amy laid flat on her back (or as flat as she could whilst she was draped over the log like object) for what seemed like hours, but in reality it was probably no more than ten minutes. In that time she had noticed that everything about the place she had found herself in was completely different to any woods she had seen in the United Kingdom could be this hot in the middle of winter.
Finally, she was able to lift herself into a sitting position.
'Where the heck am I?'
"Yo Boss monkey, are you sure this is where we needed to rush off to in such a hurry?"
At the sound of the voices, Amy suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to hide and, without wasting anymore time, she crawled behind what looked similar to a huge oak tree but with ginormous fruit dangling from it's branches. Even though her heartbeat thundered in her ears, Amy could hear the rustling of the bushes as the unknown beings came closer, bringing the sound of ... metal grinding with them?
"I'm positive. These were the co-ordinates of one of the unusual interferences."
Amy edged closer to where she could hear the two speaker better. 'What do they mean by "one of the unusual interferences"?' She couldn't help but feel like she had made a smart decision in hiding, but her curiosity had spiked since she heard the term "Boss monkey". 'What kind of person gets called "Boss monkey"?' Amy wondered to herself.
Before she could ask anymore questions, a large, clawed hand lifted her painfully by the shoulder and turned her to face a blue robotic face. Amy couldn't stop the squeek that uttered past her lips as she was twisted around and her eyes widened involuntarily to the size of dinner plates at the sight of two blood red, glass eyes.
"Primal, I think we've found our 'interference'."