So, here's the first three chapters. Once again I'm going to steal Snoink's act of asking you to tell me when you get bored, okay? Just tell me that and I will be thankful. I've already posted variations of this a few times, but I hope you enjoy the newest addition and that you're too lazy to look at my other Balema posts... Hope you enjoy, and any reviews no matter how short are more than welcome!
(might be turning first chapter into prolouge...)
Balema Chapter 1 – The Absence
Dear Miss Stizagailii
We have gained knowledge that your daughter has recently disappeared, following the disappearance of your husband three years ago. We are sorry for your losses.
We were wondering if you would come in for an interview that will feature on the nightly news about abduction to raise awareness on this issue. We could even use one-minute advertising space to boost your own search in exchange for this interview.
If you wish to take part in the interview, please contact us at our central Brisbane office by post or email so we can organise a time that is convenient.
May we once again express our sorrow for your loss.
Ross Matthews
Producer
World to You Nightly
Alice Stizagailii looked down at the page, still warm from printing. Dear Miss Stizagailii… so she was a widow now. She looked at the page for a while longer, hand tensing. Spouseless, childless… they were probably going to set her up, thinking she’d killed the people she loved most in any world. Trying to make her fall apart. Maybe confess for something she hadn’t done. All to get higher ratings. They were like jackals.
In an abrupt movement, she turned and kicked at the desk, pushing it over with its draws spilling open and spitting paper. She scrunched the paper up and threw it, as hard as she could, into the metal fire grate leaning into the hole that was the absence of door to the veranda. It curled and blackened too slowly… picking up more pages off the desk, tax papers, late library book charges, newspaper clippings and highlighted leaves ripped from the Yellow Pages, she dumped them on over it, stirring the heat beads with a stick from a gum tree positioned next to the veranda. The leaves caught fire, letting go a strong smell of eucalyptus. Tears streaked down Alice’s face. The smell reminded her of her daughter, walking around the house with socks that didn’t match pulled over feet smothered in Vicks.
She gripped the stick and threw it into the darkness of the night, orange flames streaming after it as it flew in an arch and landed, without a sound, on the dried mud of the driveway, churned by the movements of many wheels. It flickered there, a hazy orange circle of light that revealed the cracks and crevasses to either side of the torch. Alice slumped down in a chair, pushed the heels of her hands into her eyes and stayed like that for a long, long time.
Balema Chapter 2 – On Earth
Tousled trees waved their sunstruck branches at the sun in the early morning of the seventeenth of December. Further away, silver glints left pedestrians blinded as the large silver buildings stretched onto their toes to catch their own bit of sun. Colourful mosaics depicting Australian animals were skipped over by tourists or townspeople, framed on one side by the Brisbane River that reflected yellow as the frequent City Cats zoomed over it. Further away still, on the very outskirts of Brisbane, a spacious two-story home was settled on dry farmland where only a patchwork of different shrubbery and grazing cattle kept the grass from failing completely and turning into a rabid monster.
Samantha Stizagailii sat up in bed and pushed her long, dirty blonde hair out of her eyes. Rubbing sleep from them, she looked over the edge of the bed and pressed her fingers around on the timber floor, reaching for her hair tie. She dragged her hair away from her face and quickly tied it, only rebel strands escaping. She sent her hand back down the side of the bed, looking for her book. Plastic crinkled, and Sam pulled up a rectangular, gift-wrapped package. She grinned, and reached for the card.
To my darling daughter!
Happy 12th Birthday! Twelve years alive on this earth and you haven’t broken one bone! Must be my ‘epic’ hot chocolates – whatever that means!
Sam snorted aloud; her mother’s hot chocolates tasted like warmed dead leaves in water.
So, you’ve gotten by for twelve years without breaking anything. I hope that you’ll make it to thirteen with the record still standing – that is, if you don’t fall off the rock-climb wall we’ve hired today!
Sam’s mouth literally fell open at these words. But – how could they afford -? They couldn’t even hire the help they needed since Sam’s dad disappeared three years ago. Sam scanned the next line, and her question was answered. Apparently the rock climb wall was free for a day as a favour to Sam’s mum for helping with a few tough births that season. Sam’s chest swelled as if slowly being filled with happy gas.
Hope you enjoy your gift, darl. The guests are coming at 9, and I know you’ll want to make sure the food tables are so close to the ground only you could reach anything without bending. So hurry up, my dear 12-year-old! Spaghetti is waiting on the table, I’ve gone to the Marrabella yard and should be back soon.
Love Mum.
Sam shook her head as she got dressed. Comfy pants with billions of pockets, nice short-sleeved shirt with the Superman emblem on it. Sam grinned.
About forty minutes later, the first of Sam’s friends arrived. She could hear their car crunch over the dried mud of the driveway. Sprinting to the front door, she paused at the large mirror to one side of the hallway and her dark blue eyes checked that there was no spaghetti crust on her pale skin. Her dark lashes flashed; all good. She threw the fly screen door open.
First to arrive was her best friend Hope; then Tom, Hudson and Ethan, squashed into two seats in a rather beaten-up old Ute. Last to arrive was a wet-haired John, Hope’s soon-to-be stepbrother and mortal enemy. The guests had barely cracked open a can of soft drink before the truck arrived, the rock-climb wall to be cinched up to the vertical on the back. As the man was working on the wall, Sam and her friends sat on the deck. It was like school had never ended.
“Kids!” yelled Sam’s mum, slamming the door downstairs and walking up the hall. “Rock-climb wall’s ready!”
“Yes, Mum!” Sam yelled. They went downstairs and took their shoes off at the rock-climb wall’s boundary. The instructor quickly explained how to do everything that needed to be done, and they were off, Sam and Hope climbing first as they were the ‘ladies’.
“You know, we could send another person up and save time, Sam doesn’t really count she’s so small!” shouted Hudson when Sam was about halfway up the wall and Hope a little way behind.
“Someone throw something large and heavy at him!” Sam yelled back. Hudson chuckled along with the others.
Sam pulled herself up a few more hand-holds and was surprised to find she was at the top. The others looked small from up here.
“Who’s tall now, motorcycle guy?” she yelled down to Hudson.
“The force be with you! You’ve been in space too long, Yoda!” John said. Sam laughed and stuck her tongue out at him.
Sam decided to wait up the top for Hope and hit the bell at the same time with her. It wasn’t a long wait, and when they were at the top together they showed off their secret handshake. Sam’s mum stood at the bottom behind the boys, one hand tilting her hat over her eyes and the other holding a camera at arm’s length. She was beaming, and every now and then she’d exchange dialogue with either the instructor, one of the boys or John’s father, who’d decided to stay for a while.
“Let’s do it,” Hope said.
“On three,” Sam replied.
“One…” They raised their arms, ready to slam the bell.
“Two…” Sam’s fingers tingled and she wiggled them.
“Two and a half…” Hope said, and the boys below them groaned. They grinned at each other.
“Three!”
CRACK.
With a sound like a gunshot, Sam was gone.
Balema Chapter 3 – Captured
Aphrodite was walking through the horse-shoe shaped street on which the hunters’ huts and lodges were stationed, dead doe slung over one shoulder. To her right, more sophisticated dwellings made of brick rose, facing the peaceful forest. On the left, however, there were huts of all shapes and colours that stimulated the mind with their plain oddness. One was covered with yuccas and had a garden for a roof. Another was glimmering with wind chimes constructed with string, bark and glass bottles from Earth.
Aphrodite frowned her green eyes as she rounded a corner, sensing rather than feeling an unknown disturbance in the usual flow of the day. She pushed a frock of brilliant red hair – red as blood – absently out of her vision, and tucked it behind one ear. As always, it refused to stay there, and flopped back into place to complete the shoulder-length mane. She shifted the doe from one shoulder to the other, and stretched the freed, muscular arm out to its full length. As Aphrodite was quite tall compared to other girls of around 18 years, this length was quite impressive. Turning the last corner in the lane, she sighted a tall, blonde elf fixing a hole rendered in the palm-leaf roof of a humble hut.
“Andrew!” she called, pleased. “It’s about time!”
“It’s not like you live here enough to care,” Andrew shot back.
“Well, it was faulty. Annoying. Savvy? And I don’t want my foster-uncle being rained out.”
“It would be just as wet outside!” Andrew exclaimed.
“And you don’t get my point?” Aphrodite scolded. She set the doe down on a table seated next to the hut, and wiped her hands on the back of her pant legs thoughtfully, trying to figure out what it was that was bugging her.
She looked over the hut again. An animal-hide canvas with rips for windows was stretched over an oak frame, which was in turn covering walls made of stacked televisions reinforced with hard, dry mud. The TV screens glinted like dozens of eyes in the dim light of the afternoon.
With a sigh of annoyance at the nagging feeling that something was wrong, she started to make her way to the doorway of the hut when Andrew jumped from the roof to bar her way. Aphrodite stopped and looked at him, only just holding onto her patience by the fingertips.
“Uh – don’t yell, scream or shout.” he cautioned, and stepped to the side. Aphrodite gasped.
On a large armchair lay, unmistakably, a mortal. But not any normal mortal.
“Are you mad?” Aphrodite shouted. Andrew hastened to place a round mug in her hands, so her key weapons were distracted. The smell of strong herbal tea wafted up her nose to calm her mind. “Darn it, Andrew!”
She blew on the cup testily, eyeing the mortal and testing her fingering on the wooden exterior of her handcuffs. Were those – were those cat ears? Aphrodite’s eyes widened.
“Aphrodite, we have to take her to Portall. You know this. You know this.”
“Yes, I know it just fine.” she whispered. “Just fine, thank you.”
Aphrodite sighed, and the two looked at each other.
The mortal stirred.
Sam landed in a junk yard.
The wind was knocked out of her as she was smashed against the side of a washing machine, and she slid down the lopsided surface to breathe heavily against it. Sam looked around her. She was shivering. A massive heap behind the washing machine was casting its shadow on it, and the wet metal was cold. But maybe it wasn’t just the cold that was making her shiver. She had been climbing the rock climb; she had touched the button – what was this place? The harness from the rock wall was still attached firmly to her, and the thick rope her belayers had been tugging on disappeared into nothingness above her. She could feel the rope being pulled, tested, and sometimes the rope was even yanked so hard it yanked her into the air. How could she possibly be this tired? She was so, so tired…
Sam… Sam! Voices whispered at her from the invisible side of the rope, calling her, pleading. Sam moved her mouth, tried to drag herself up the rope, but she was just too weak. She was too tired… Sam croaked pathetically. Her throat was dry. She frowned her blue, determined eyes, and slowly, so slowly, began to push herself into a sitting position, using the tugs issuing from the rope to lever herself. She reached up… the rope disappeared just centimetres from her head… She pushed her tired hand into the nothingness. It wielded, and Sam’s eyes widened in wonder and shock as her petite hand faded, fingers first, then knuckles, then her entire fist. There were screams from the other side, and Sam almost tugged her hand away. But she was focused. Her eyes narrowed, her breathing never faltered. She pushed her arm in, so she could no longer see it. Her tiredness was near unnoticeable, just a throbbing background noise. She felt with her invisible hand for the invisible rope, and caught it. She was nearly there. She gritted her teeth. And then –
The nothingness was pushing back. Her elbow appeared, and then a bit of arm. Sam panicked and was pushed back, she was loosing ground. Frantically she pushed.
Her wrist was exposed.
Sam struggled, but was pushed steadily back. She screamed in anguish and rage, and dug her fingers into the nothingness, forcing them through. A hiss escaped her lips. She gained ground. The nothingness screamed back, and Sam felt pressure on her fingertips like a phantom hand that entwined its fingers with hers. But still she was losing. She felt her signet ring, one that had been her mothers and her unknown grandmother’s before that, slipping off her finger. The phantom hand held on tighter, and Sam held onto it in turn.
The fingertips of the phantom hand appeared, and Sam recognised them immediately.
Her best friend Hope’s fingers. Her best friend’s fingers were being pushed in the same direction as Sam’s, and she was being slowly sucked into this place, whatever it was.
A new determination came over Sam. Hope will not be stuck in this place. She pushed her hand with new fury into the nothingness, and she sunk in. But once again, almost immediately, she was losing.
She couldn’t win. She couldn’t.
She put her other hand onto Hope’s, and pushed. Hope groped for her, and her fingers clamped onto the slipping signet ring. Sam pushed one final time and Hope was gone.
Sam was alone again.
Feeling sick, Sam was content to just hang there in her harness, swinging in lazy circles. The people on the other side were still trying to pull her back through, Sam knew it. How could you lose against nothing? Alas…
The rope broke, and Sam was sent back onto the washing machine. She tumbled down the incline, making no sound, lying defeated.
“Hope,” Sam whispered in a dry rasp, “Hope is always one’s best friend. Best friends.”
On Earth, Hope Jones heard these words. Her eyes filled. The company of friends, mother and instructor became silent.
Sam was gone from this world.
She woke from a deep sleep, though she must have been asleep only seconds; pieces of junk were still adjusting their positions after her fall. A figure was walking through the junkyard towards her. The figure, Sam thought, and wondered immediately afterwards what had brought this thought on.
“Samantha,” said a feminine voice. “I must tell you it’s an honour.”
Sam’s eyes drooped.
“Sleep,” the figure commanded. “I can not do it with you awake. Sleep, Samantha.”
And sleep Sam did.
“Now,” the figure whispered. “Change.”
Sam flexed in her sleep, reaching for the sky, brow furrowed. Her fingernails changed to curved, black claws and dug themselves into new slits on her fingertips. Her hair rippled and turned black, while furry black cat ears were made of her hairless human ones. Sam’s new black cat tail curled around her as she relaxed. She curled into a ball, and shivered. The unknown woman pulled a clean carpet from a nearby pile and wrapped it around the girl, soft side against her. Sam pulled it to her, but once again shivered. An ear flicked.
“Oh, Samantha.” Encarata mused. “You will get used to it.”
Sam growled softly and her ear flicked again, as if in contradiction. Encarata just grinned before turning and walking back across the junkyard. Before long, her form was swallowed by one of the many swarms of flies floating across the paper-and-metal sea. They swirled around her, and when they lifted, the goddess had disappeared.
Thanks!
~Durrs
Especially the TV thing...
I just want to point out, I didn't do show the whole of your writing because the rest didn't have really any troubles.
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