FirstLineFiction beta

from Contest #8

'I wouldn't do that if I were you,' she told me the first time we met. 

    She had long red hair in a braid, a pale green t-shirt with rhinestones around the collar and denim pants. Her skin was bright with beautiful freckles around her nose. She looked about 15 years of age, 2 years older then my self.

    I was on my dock at my new cottage, it was a sunny and hot day. The warm sun touch my face and I knew this was the perfect time for a cool swim. The water was a blue crystal clear color that I was dieing to go swim in. I was about to dive in when she came, the beautiful girl. She just suddenly walked to my parent’s property. I stared at her with confused.

   “Why not?” I asked while backing away from her.

   “Oh, bad things will happen.” She replied.

   “Maybe I should tell my parents.”

   “No you mustn't, they will not believe you. You mustn't.

    I didn't know what to do so I say, “What bad things will happen?”

    She shook her head. Her hair swished around her perfect face.

    “Follow me where it is quiet.” She sang. She pointed her index finger in the old wood shed that was there when my parents first bought the place.

     I didn't want to ask any questions, so I followed the girl into the wood shed. She opened the door with her slender fingers.

    In the wood shed there was, well wood but the wood was rotting. It was dark and on the ceiling there was a smashed light bulb. The girl closed the shed’s door and it now was black, nothing but black. I didn’t know where she was anymore. Suddenly, I could see her hands. They were in a bowl shape and in her hands was a floating ball of fire. She shone the bright light of the fire in her face, I could see all her face features. At the moment her face was serious.

    “I have a favor to ask you.” Her voice chimed. “You see, the water isn’t safe, I couldn’t face seeing someone do the same as I did.” There was a tear that trickled down her face.

     I frowned with curiosity. I just want to know what happened, who she is and why I can’t go enjoy a nice refreshing swim.

    “So, what’s the favor?” I just blurted out. Her gaze shot to me.

    “My name is Kirsten McEwen,” She sighed. “I died three weeks ago. My parents own a cottage on Throne Lake too. I swam in the water and something grabbed my leg and pulled me down and I droned. My body is at the bottom of the lake and the police haven’t found it yet.” An other tear drizzled down her face.

      So, I’m now thinking she’s a ghost! Fear struck through me. I was shocked. I keep thinking, this is all just a dream, well more like a nightmare. I could tell she was waiting for a reply.

     “I’m not sure what the creature looked like but all I saw was a human hand that was grabbing my leg and a swish of green around me” She continued.

     “Ummm…” I didn’t know what to say. It was too mach weirdness at once. I was light headed, I was feeling like fainting. I thought to myself, “this is a hallucination!” I kept repeating that over and over and over. But I was interrupted but her again.

      “What is your name?” She asked again. I really don’t want to call her the ghost or Kirsten, I just want to call her she.

       “Uhh, John…Wesley.” I say in a high pitch voice.

        She nods her head. The fire ball in her palms is still alive and luminous. I still had so many questions, but I don’t have it in me to ask.

        “Johnny where are you? John? Lunch is ready!” My mother cried. Now what do I do, just leave she. She looks at me with agony, like a sharp pain is cutting her in the back. She reaches for my shoulder but her hand just goes through, like a ghost in horror movies when they try to catch the victim, but they go right through.

         “Johnny!” My mother yells louder. I look at her again.

         “You mustn’t go I need you, you are the chosen one.” She said in horror. “You mustn’t!”

       “Wwwwhy nnot?” My voice was shaky. My mother’s voice cried again.

       “Because I need you. Now go tell her you are going to be out for a while.” She replied. Her voice was now urgent, like the world lies in my hands. All I did was nod. I made my way trough the rotting wood and out into the sunlight. Mother was standing on the porch with her arms crossed and a frown on her face.

       “Jonathon Adam Gregory Wesley, why were you in the wood shed while ignoring me?” Mother asked. I just shrugged me shoulders. “Well,” She continued. “go wash up for lunch, I made hotdogs and lemonade.” She pointed to the door.

       I decided to ignore the hallucination’s order and just go on with life. Suddenly Kirsten started giving me commands.

      “Tell her you are going for a walk.” She yelled in my ear. I tried to ignore her but it was hard. “Tell her you are going on a walk… TELL HER!” I put my hands to my ears to block her annoying screeches. Now I could faintly hear her.

       My mother looked at me strangely. “What is wrong with ear?” She sighed. I didn’t reply. “Hey,” Mother said in anger. “stop doing that, listen to me!” I put my hands on my waist. “Now go inside to eat lunch.” Mother started walking to the doorway. I started too.

      “TELL HER!” Kirsten yelled. I did a big halt.

       “Mother,” I say in a whiny voice. She turns around and gazed at me with her eyebrows high. “I want to take Lexis for a walk.” Lexis is my dog. She was sitting on the couch that is on the porch. When I said her name her attention was to me now, her ears are now raised. Mother bit her lip.

       “Well you can after lunch, now come inside.” I nodded and looked at Kirsten. “Go ahead, meet me out here. But remember, time is ticking.” My mother started looking at me strangely again. “What are you looking at?” She asked again. There was a pause. “Oh, never mind.” She half yelled. I continue my way inside.

 

        Lunch was done and I attached Lexis’ leach to her collar. “Ready to go for a walk girl?” I asked her. Lexis barked in joy.

        I thought to my self, maybe I can go out the back door and not run into my hallucination, that’s a brilliant idea! Ok…I officially have gone mad.

        I went with my plan to go out the back door. I walked trough the “back door” doorway and out. Lexis was pulling the leach like crazy. Her leach is a long rope, I started getting robe burns on my hands. “Ouch!” I whispered.

        But before I now it, POOF. Kirsten is right in front of me. “Lets continue are journey.” She exclaimed. I just gave up trying to hind from her so I followed. We made are way to the gravel road, with Lexis on my right side and Kirsten on my left. There was silence for a long time.

       Finally Kirsten pointed over to a beautiful pine cottage. “That’s my cottage.” Her face features were terrified. “Are your parents still there?” I asked. She shook her head. We started walking to the cottage. It was beautiful. It had stain glass windows with a girls face in it. It looked kind of like Kirsten, maybe it was her.

      We entered through the main doorway. Inside it was warm and cozy. It had high ceilings and a grand stair case that lead up to bedrooms. Kirsten was looking around and has a single tear fall from her face. I shared a tear with her. It must be hard to come back to a place where she shared so many memories with family and friends and see it deserted, nobody there.

      “Follow me.” Kirsten whispered. I faintly heard her. She led me through the kitchen and down a dozen stairs into the basement. It was dark and the temperature went down a bit, making it a little chilly. The basement had nothing really in it. Lots of boxes stacked up and 3 shelves with some jars that had purple-blue liquid in them. Kirsten walked over to the shelves and grabbed a jar off of the second shelf and looked at the label that was on the lid. She shook her head and set the jar back on the shelf. She grabbed an other and faced me.

     “Drink this.” Kirsten handed the jar to me. I frowned at her. “Why do I have to?” I asked in a disturbed voice. “Come follow me and keep up!” She snapped. “C’mon Lexis, lets go for a run.” I say to my dog with enthusiastic voice. She barks and starts to run. So does Kirsten. I follow Kirsten at of the cottage. She’s leading me down by the water onto her dock.

      “Sit.” She demands. Lexis and I sit at the same time. Kirsten sets the jar of liquid in front of me. “My body is at the bottom of the lake. Drink this and you will breathe underwater so you can retrieve my body. My mother is a scientist that created this formula.”

       “How long will can I breathe underwater for?” I asked in a panic.

       “One hour.”

       OK. I have to admit, I’m scared. I’m going to the bottom of the lake to pull out a girl’s dead body and I really don’t know what kind of strange animals live down there. Also there is some creature that will try to drown me.

       “Take this,” She adds. She hands me a knife. “Incase that creature comes. Again.” The knife is a long strip of sharp metal, about 10 inches long. Its one of those survival knives that you see on TV.

       “Thanks.” I say in a whisper. She nods.

       “Now drink this liquid then dive straight into the water.” Kirsten demands.

        “Do I drink all of it?”

        “Yes.”

        “OK.”

        I take the jar and clinch it in my hands. I close my eyes and drink it slowly. The liquid is bitter. I kiss Lexis on the head.

        “Look after Lexis please.” I ask Kirsten.

        “Sure.” She replies.

         I do a running start to my dive. But I messed it up and did a belly flop. I start swimming but I’m not breathing. What’s wrong? Suddenly a sharp pain is going through my ear. “Ouch.” I say, but it doesn’t come out clearly because of the water. The pain ran down my neck and into my spine and my hands and feet and legs and arms. When it reached to the tips of my toes it was gone. I look down at my feet and they are webbed and so are my hands. And also I can breathe. I swished them a bit. “Gotta find her body. Gotta find her body.” I say to myself. I start swimming. I move so fast with webbed hands and feet. I start swimming to around the middle of the lake. The knife is in my hand, it almost felt like it was glued. I’m swimming as fast as I can, I’m swimming straight down. The water was crystal blue and now I’m slowly going into the darkness.

        “Ouch!” I scream. There was a hand pulling me down. It was a human hand. Just like Kirsten said. I took the survival knife and sliced the creatures hand off. An other hand was touching where the hand I just cut off was. It sprang up and bit my arm. A tail curved around me. A green tail. The creature had an angel like face and bleach blonde hair that was curly and long. She her teeth were sharp as knives. They sunk into my skin no problem. My arm is now bleeding like crazy. I take the knife and plunge it into her chest. Her body sinks down to the bottom.

          I start swimming again. It was nerve-racking that whole murder thing that I did to that creature. That creature is a mermaid. An underwater mythical creature. A mermaid killed Kirsten. I know where her body is now. I keep swimming in the same direction. Some time soon more mermaids are going to come back and seek revenge.

         “Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!” I yell again. Three mermaids are tugging at my leg. I swung my knife but missed there hands. I try pocking they’re hands with the razor sharp blade but I just can’t. There hands are pulling me down to fast. Finally they stopped. I tried to brake free but they tied my hands behind my back before I could do anything. These mermaids, well they’re mermen. They are ripped.

         “You killed Marcella.” One of the mermen says in a low hum. “Drop the knife.” He told me. I let go and watched it sink into the dark waters. “You come n’ with us.” The mermen guided me to the bottom of the lake. We finally got there and there were a few merpeople hanging around. They was a jail cell with nobody in it except for one body. A dead body. A girl’s body, red hair, beautiful face. It was Kirsten’s body. They pushed me into the jail cell, locked me up and left. The thought accorded to me a few minutes ago that an hour is almost over. I’ll die right beside Kirsten’s body.

       I touched Kirsten’s face. PUFF!

       “Kirsten you’re here!” I say. Kirsten’s spirit is right in front of me.

       “You did it! You found my body. Thank you. I will free you from this cage and bring you back to land.” Kirsten said enthusiastically. Her eyes were bright and her face had a perfect smile. Her spirit hugged me. “I am your guardian angel and you are mine.” She says in my ear. I give her a smile. She leaves for a moment and comes back with a key.

       “I’ll carry my body to the top and you fight them off if they come.” Kirsten directs me.

       “I kind of lost the knife.” I admit. Kirsten frowns. “We have to hurry; you will not be able to breathe underwater in minutes.”

       We started to swim upwards really fast. “Are we almost there?” I ask Kirsten under my breathe. She looked at me, her face stunned. “Behind you!” She screamed! I look behind me and 5 merpeople were swimming towards us with spears. I start to swim faster then I was earlier. My flippers, I swear were going 20 km/hour. I didn’t even bother looking back at the merpeople.

        “They’re coming strong but you are a head by 10 seconds!” Kirsten tells me. I pretend that I’m ignoring her. “Hey!” I say. “There’s my knife!” The survival knife that Kirsten gave me was flouting meters away from me.

        Kirsten yells, “Go get it!” I dash over to the knife, grab it and keep swimming at a high speed. “They’re on your tail!” Kirsten yells again. I turn around and slung my knife in to its chest. An other on comes and grabs my leg, I slice its hand off. The others don’t bother challenging me and swim away.

        Kirsten smiles at me. I smile back. I swam slower. “Ouch!” I yell. My flippers start to fade away. And I couldn’t breathe underwater anymore. I swim fast again. I need to get out of the water, I need air. I see the sun’s reflection on the water. Kirsten has her body rapped in her arms.

       Few seconds later, my head is out of the water. I take in lots of air. Kirsten is out of the water too now and we smile at each other.

       “I’m so proud of you.” She whispers in my ear. “Now let’s get back to shore.”

 

        Once we got to the shore I see Lexis still chained to the pole. I unchain her and pat her on the head.

       “John,” Kirsten starts her sentence with feeling. “I truly thank you for this favor. You must not tell anyone of this journey. I will take my body to the police station. Thank you.” She walks over to me and gives me a warm hug. “Good-bye.” And then she disappears.

        I walk inside the doorway of the cottage. I realized that the night has come and I’ll be in lots of trouble.

        “Where were you?” My mother cries. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” I told her honestly. Mother looks at deeply into my eyes. “Try me.”

         

back to Contest #8