Hi, I'm Louise Pappa and this is my website to present part of my story.
My Story
This isn’t Going to End Well
Chapter 1 This isn’t how I planned to spend my Monday. I didn’t have any big plans, but still. This isn’t how I planned to spend my Monday. This just isn’t.
“I’m the chosen one?” Smith asks from her position in front of me. The man standing past her looks like he belongs to some cult of Dungeons and Dragons players. The only thing that confuses me is the fact every inch of his body is covered in tattoos. The way they swerve in different directions of patterns and misshapen animals gives him a tribal like look.
“Yes,” he says as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. The amount of smugness radiating from him is around the level of the first person picked for teams in gym right now. It’s almost like he doesn’t realize he’s telling this normal person that she’s the chosen one, no context.
“What does that mean, exactly?” Smith asks, her head cocked to the side like her corgi when we shout random things at her.
The man begins to explain, “Well, where I’m from there’s this thing called a prophecy that says you're supposed to kill this evil that’s destroying our world as we know it. So guess what? Your coming with me, now.” I didn’t think he’d be so sarcastic.
“What’s Eleanor have to do with this?” Smith motions towards me. I puff out my chest and step slightly out from behind her. I do my best to not look like what I am about to be, one of the victims of a kidnapping by some psycho who thinks he’s from a different world. Most likely the world he’s talking about is somewhere in an insane asylum.
“You mean your petite friend in the ragged clothes.” I try not to take any of the rude comment personally, but it’s hard when the guy who’s in cloak calls your white t shirt and boyfriend jeans bad fashion. “She was just here.”
Now’s the moment, he doesn’t want me, I can go to the nearest shop and call the police. I don’t move though. Smith and I have known each other for half my life and I won’t let her be killed by whoever this guy is alone. I wish I was meaner. I would have lived a better life and not die right now. “Alright you’ve both wasted enough of my time, you’re coming with me.” Who does this guy think he is? We don’t know his name and we don’t know his real intention for trying to abduct us. “No!” I shout just as he flicks his fingers and I feel the world fading.
Chapter 2
I wonder if I'm dead. It would make sense. I am most likely dead. I don’t want to open my eyes. I will not open my eyes.
“El?” Nope. Not dead. Or maybe Smith is dead too. Still not opening my eyes. Nothing can convince me. “Eleanor?”
“We’re dead, isn’t that clear?!” I snap at Smith. She can be so stupid sometimes. Where would we be if we aren’t dead? Narnia? Her ever present scent of bleach mixed with lavender and dish soap overwhelms my senses. She must be close to my face.
I begin to open my eyes. The first thing I see is Smith hovering barely three inches above my face, her newly stained blue forehead beaded with tinted sweat. I begin to push her up and off of me but she won’t budge, which is weird, she won't even shift her weight even when I start kicking my legs and rolling around like a toddler deprived their favorite plushie. She acts like she doesn’t want me to see what’s behind her.
“Move, Smith!” I yell. She rolls off onto her side and lets out a long sigh.
I attempt to process the setting I’m seeing at the moment. We seem to be in some forest. The trees are intertwined with each other and even though I know nothing about trees, they all look to be dead. When I look down, my suspicion is confirmed, the ground is covered in a heavy layer of dead leaves. The only color in the whole thing is Smith’s bright blue hair. The clearing we’ve landed in is barely large enough to contain the two of us. All around us seems to be a wall. The gaps in the trees range from nickel sized to big enough for a small raccoon to fit through. It smells like stale bread. My mind automatically fills with questions but when I try to voice them all that comes out is nonsense.
Smith nods as I stutter wordlessly. “I know right? It’s insane!” She relates like we just learned the earth is a sphere.
Finally able to clear my head I’m able to ask, “Where are we?” I get a look from Smith that could curdle milk. “I don’t know,” Smith retorts. Now I should have expected this, but still it comes as a shock. Smith is the whole reason we’re here as far as that weird guy on the street.
“That guy on the street!” I practically scream at her. “Where is the guy from the street who was all like ‘You’re the chosen one.’?”
Smith gives me another look and simply gestures to the opening we’re in at the moment. I look around the space I’ve already surveyed. Same trees, same leaves, same emptiness. Same lack of a man in a cloak covered in ink that has been formed into misshapen animals and tribal designs. I moan and sink further down into the bed of the death I was just sleeping on.
“Do you know what is happening to us?” I groan. I prop myself up on my elbow like we’re in some chick flick and we’re at a sleepover about to tell each other our deepest secrets.
“No idea. I think that this may be like an escape room and we’re going to die here.” I’m a bit shocked to hear such a dark sentence from Smith, I’m the cynical one. She’s the one who made us do trust exercises after a big fight we had in third grade over a stuffed animal that she stole from me. She’s the one who saved a wasp from dying in my neighborhood pool. She’s the one who wouldn’t kill the wasp even when it stung her. I look around once more and begin to get up. Halfway through getting up, I lose my balance and fall into one of the trees. My nose breaks my fall and I yell out in pain. I can feel the blood dripping down my face. I push myself into an almost standing position before giving up and letting myself slink into the tree and onto the ground.
Smith finally noticed the fact I’m slowly getting covered in my own blood. “Omigod, are you okay?” Instead of answering, I try to touch my nose. Fresh pain surges through my face and I yelp a little before choking on the cusses ready to flow out of my mouth. Smith hates it, she calls it ‘uncultured blabber’. I look down at my new white shirt and see that it’s drenched in my blood. Great.
“Do you think there are any animals that can smell blood in here?” I ask while I motion helplessly to my face and shirt. Smith shrugs. She starts to move toward me but before she can I cover up my nose I mumble, “I don’t really care if I have a broken nose right now. Do you have anything that can slow the bleeding?” Smith snickers and begins to try to tear off the corner of her tee shirt from some random band no one but her and their other three listeners from the eighties. When it doesn’t tear just with her hands she brings it up to her mouth and starts gnawing at it.
“That won’t work,” I state plaintively. She looks at me, shrugs, then continues to chew at the fabric with a determined look in her eyes. My nose continues to bleed.
“Here you go.” Smith hands me around three inches of black fabric that have been covered in her saliva. I glare at her and start dabbing at my face. About a minute into cleaning my face it becomes clear that I’m just smearing the blood. Worst day ever.
“I’m going to wait until the bleeding stops. This isn’t helping at all,” I whined.
“Lean your head back.”
“You are not supposed to do that,” I state. Something about blood flow. It goes into your mouth or something.
“Are you sure?” Smith tilts her head to the side and stares intently into my eyes.
“Yes, my doctor told me not to.” I remember that day distinctly, I had gotten three random bloody noses in the course of twelve hours after I ran into a wall, and that’s not a good thing, apparently.
Smith still isn’t amused so she begins moving towards me with her next argument.“It stops the bleeding, and if it stops the bleeding you should do it.”
“No it does bad things.” I don’t really remember what the doctor said but my mom was shaking her head and biting her nails. Both of which she only does when something’s bad.
“We’re going to die in any way, so do it!” She makes a good point but I still won’t.
“Well, I don’t want to die right now. I’d rather be alive for the next few days so you aren’t alone.”
“Well I’ve heard you both make good points but in the end it’s the person with the one with the bloody nose who gets to choose,” a new voice interjects. Smith screams. I lift from my hands from covering my nose and get ready to hit this mystery guy behind us.
I turn my head slowly, almost expecting the tattoo guy to be standing there with a knife. This person isn’t covered in tattoos.
“Who are you?” I ask, letting my body follow my head as I gawk at the boy standing in front of us. He looks like he could be thirteen at the most, around the same age as us.
“Same question for you two,” he states, never even answering my question.
Smith gives him a once over and then does the most idiotic thing anyone one could ever do. “I’m Smith and this is my friend, Eleanor. Why are you here?”
He looks between us then says, “I was going to the market and heard screaming so I came over here and here you and Eleanor were.” He glances over at me when he says my name and gives me a questioning look. “Do you guys want to get out of these woods?” “Sure!” Smith squeals and jumps up and begins attempting to explain what happened to this complete stranger. I hobble up and trudge after them. We still don’t even know this guy’s name. This is not going to end well.