The brilliant sunlight had turned into rain within minutes of my arrival at the park. I previously looked at the weather forecast, but the mere four percent chance of precipitation was not convincing enough for me to stay at home. Fortunately, there was an emergency disposable poncho in my backpack for a just-in-case situation. I slipped it on and, by now, the rain was coming down in sheets angled directly in the path I was walking. Exercise would have to wait until later; walking in a downpour only resulted in wet clothes and shivering. I spotted a tree with two trunks extending from the same place in the ground, a crook in the middle that looked suitable enough for a seat. Both trunks seemed to curve back towards each other as they got taller, and the leafy branches above would give me some cover so as to not get completely soaked. For a second, I just sat down and listened to the nature around me. If you could strain your ears enough to tune out the pounding rain, little chirps and scuffles in the leaves could be heard from finches and squirrels seeking shelter in their burrows. The whole scene gave me a sense of calm until I was yanked backwards faster than the blink of an eye.
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The memory is all a bit fuzzy for me, but from my recollection, some invisible force pulled me from one side of the tree out of the other in a flash of gold, blue, and a deep emerald green. Those colors have stayed in my head since that day, but now is not the time to explain why. Meanwhile, the park was spinning out of focus and my body could not keep up with my mind being dragged away, and away…from this world to the next.
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I woke up sprawled on a bed of moss, blinking wildly for my eyes to adjust to the half-light. Once I sat up straight, I could take in what was around me–fireflies flew in all directions, trails of light weaving through the trees in the woodland. Flowers illuminated the dusk with shades of bright pinks and purples, and the very moss I sat on glowed every time I touched it. This was no ordinary forest–it was something from a dream. To perplex me even more, I thought a sika deer was sprinting past on a trail, but when it stopped to feed I looked more closely and I simply couldn’t believe my eyes: the broad, palmate antlers and concave skull, along with dark stripes on its back and shoulders all the way down to its haunches were telltale signs that this was an Irish elk, which I know had went extinct over 10,000 years ago! To actually see one up close instead of a computer-generated image was breathtaking; there was a majestic feeling in its presence. Its amber eyes caught mine, but it did not seem startled at all, almost as if expecting me to be here, in the midst of a land so unreal. I started to get dizzy from how surreal this felt, and after I blinked once the regal elk was gone. All that was left for me to be sure I had seen it was a few broken-off stems of grass that it had eaten. Still in awe, I trudged onward through the undergrowth. Tangles of vines caught my ankles and I tripped several times; it only took about an hour before I was exhausted enough that I had to sit down. Out of my pack, I grabbed a water bottle and drank about half. How large was this forest, actually? Had I been walking in circles this whole time? I didn’t have a compass, so I was not sure which direction I was headed. My thoughts became worried as sunset slipped into night. Not until this point had I thought about going home, and there was no double-trunked tree to transport me back. To clear my head, I got up and started walking again, looking up at the sky to see constellations that could possibly help guide me. But there were none. A myriad of individual stars blanketed the twilight sky, like if you dipped a brush into paint and used your finger to splatter it evenly over a canvas. No star shone brighter than the others; all of them looked identical. I glanced down from my distraction and realized too soon that a small stump lay directly in front of me, and I tripped again. This time, I did not meet the ground–I only felt the warm night air beneath me. I was falling into a deep chasm below.
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I screamed, kicking and flailing, trying to reach for something when my grasp found nothing. Plummeting into the deep, I closed my eyes and prepared for the worst. Just then something rough quickly jerked my ankle back, so hard I think it popped out of its place. A jolt of pain flashed through me, then was gone. I was hanging upside down when another one grabbed my wrist, pulling me upright. I noticed that these things seizing me were thick vines, and as every second passed they felt like they clamped on harder and harder. They wrapped around my arms, legs, and torso, pinning me up against the side of the chasm. These vines might have saved me from falling, but they were not going to let me loose unharmed. Struggling against their hold was automatically a bad idea, but I couldn’t exactly stay calm while they were slowly closing off my circulation and airways. I managed to hook my arms behind my back and push against the sidewall as hard as I could with my elbows. My knees were able to be tucked behind me also, the soles of my feet pressed against the rocks. With all the strength I could muster, I pushed off the wall and felt the vines losing their grip on me. I felt like collapsing, but the adrenaline kept my stance in the right position. A vine finally split in half and my arm was free, so I grabbed onto the loose end so I wouldn’t fall down my initial descent. The other vines broke shortly after that and I climbed on them all the way up to the top. I hadn’t even seen them there when I tripped. My poncho was caked in dirt and I felt like I had just slid face-first through mud; I walked about twenty feet from the edge of the gorge and only then I collapsed.
The next morning I walked the perimeter of the chasm and eventually exited the woods, glad that I was far from those vines. A small foothill overgrown with wildflowers greeted me, and beyond I could see what appeared to be a mountain. As I walked closer, though, the peaks seemed to get more defined and were almost aligned in a pattern. No sooner did I realize that these spires weren’t rock formations at all—they were tall, pointed towers that belonged to a castle. A swath of dogwood trees covered the front of the fortress, but once I got through the patch of greenery I marveled at its architecture. Steep pinnacles were sided by parapet walkways that could be used for armory and defense of the castle; flying buttresses attached to more branching turrets flanked the high walls for support and protection. In the middle rose a high brick keep that had a flagpole on top, flag blowing from a light breeze. The colors were too far away for me to see, but I need not squint because at this moment two watchguards stepped down from their posts and approached me, a small third man trailing behind. The guards’ armor had a neat painting of the flag and coat of arms on the front; the symbol was a serpent crossed with a sword and a feather lying in the middle. The three colors from top to bottom were an emerald green, deep royal blue, and metallic goldenrod. The gold glinted off the metal in the afternoon sunlight, and I shifted my gaze to the guards’ appearance. They had no helmets, only a chestplate, a sword sheathed at their side, leather boots, and loose clothes underneath. Some strange features that distinguished them from humans were their pointed ears and cat-like eyes, which were an icy gray-blue. The two looked identical, with a shock of white hair that ran just past those pointy ears. The man in the middle of them was dressed in the same apparel, but he looked like he spent more time in the library than keeping watch. His reading glasses were almost falling off of his face and he was certainly a human, for lack of pointed ears and usual circular eyes along with pupils. His short brown hair looked unkempt and messy. Bags under his eyes indicated that he didn’t sleep much. A volume, of course, was tucked into a satchel by his side.
It was the first guard who spoke at once, saying, “The King has already been notified of your presence from the animals in the wood. If you would be so kind as to introduce yourself, that would be preferable.” It must have been the elk who was the King’s messenger, I figured. I said my name to the guards and told them that I was from another land very unlike this one, to say the least. “Will you take me to meet the King?” I asked unsurely. The little man stood on his tip-toes and cleared his throat to catch my attention. “Eh-ehm…Miss, I would like to inform you that there is no King to meet, because he is right here, speaking of myself.” “Oh!” I said. “I did not know that…I’m really sorry…I–” stuttering over my words was no help, so I took a deep breath and composed myself. I noticed now that I still had my extremely muddy poncho on from the night before and decided to do the most respectful gesture I knew for royalty. I curtsied low, holding the sides of my dirt-caked poncho out with both hands and deeply bowing my head. It was the wildest thing I’d ever done, but here I was. “It is an honor to meet you…Your Majesty,” I remembered to add on at the end. “No, no, no need for that,” he said. “I have no right to be in the position I am in now, and it feels strange when someone bows for you but you can’t return the favor. And don’t bother saying “Your Majesty”; I personally don’t like that title.” This was the oddest King I had ever heard of! Without pause, he continued, “The real reason you are here is because I chose you to be here! You see, I am not fit to be a King, and I would much prefer to be a librarian than royal, as you have likely noticed. So, I wanted to…to pick someone to possibly fill in my place as a ruler. And it really is boring…signing off on papers and preparing battle plans and sitting at a throne all day–””Wait,” I said. “Sorry to interrupt, but you dragged me into this place, and I almost fell to my death just to take your place as a monarch?” Anger started to rise in me, but I let him talk. “Well, yes, you are correct…but I didn’t know you almost died on the way here–that would’ve botched my plan! But fortunately, with you in one piece, I can finally step down from my place.” I did not want this to become an argument, but I was already done with this guy. I was not going to be a Queen of some land that I was completely unfamiliar with and wage war on foreign nations. I still had a life back home…I could never leave everything I had behind.
I spoke slowly and calmly. “Please, don’t make me a Queen. I feel the same way you do about ruling–I would rather have a different job to do, different responsibilities, and different people to talk to if I were in charge. This world has been astounding so far, but I really must return back home soon,” I said. He responded, “I see your point…family…home…Yes, yes, I understand your perspective, but who would replace me as King or Queen? Not a guard, no…Did I tell you that the monarch has to be a human and has to reside in the castle all of their life? No?…Well, that’s how I first came here…the elves (now my guards) somehow magicked me into this world and placed me on the throne, basically forever, without my acknowledging it! The only way the Crown can be transferred is if another human agrees to take it, so you would have to be willing—” He was cut off by a loud boom and a thundering rumble from our right, beyond the edge of the dogwood grove.
The King’s bubbly demeanor vanished from his face in a second, replaced by a look of annoyance and dread. “Ugh…another siege…Well, I guess we must return to the castle, yes? Better to prepare the armaments now then have them firing at the last minute, which may have happened the last time we were under attack.” I was bewildered. How often were other armies storming the castle, and what did the King do to be this much hated by other lands? I felt a guard grab my arm and now we were running to the drawbridge on the left side of the castle. The mechanisms made low grinding sounds and the huge door was slowly lowered down to the ground. Inside the castle, I could see no lights. Once the gate was fully open, we sprinted into the solid darkness ahead.
