Antolsai Ch. 2

Yes I know there are some capitalization errors. The computer at school screwed it up and I never got around to fixing it This is edited it from the first time it was on here.

“Haaaaaalp!” Eli’s 10 second scream was cut short when he stuck the landing in a perfect flailing back flop. The arrival of the 16 year old boy was not as grueling and painful as he expected though, needless to say, it was still painful. The dreaded smack-down back to earth was almost bouncy, like jumping on an old stiff mattress. Eli realized he was not on the earth itself but a fungus which he did not recognize.

The sophomore attempted to get up, but he just flopped back onto the mattress with a shriek over the feeling of his vertebrae grinding itself with the goal of death. He arched his back high like a spooked cat, and he shrieked again. “My back! Ahhh!” He took a few deep breaths to settle down and tried to put the pain out of mind by thinking aloud. “I bet mom will be upset that my running career is over.” A small giggle spilled from his lips as he tried again to lift himself up off the fungus surface. Eli finally got the hang of a less bouncy trampoline after his back decided that life was worth living once more and commenced having a blast even with his pained back.

As Eli jumped up and down, a young girl peeped around a large mound of rounded triangle rock and dirt. The lights in this condemned part of the under-city were losing their power; hence, Eli didn't notice the bushy hair and big eyes within his vicinity. “Michael, we have to wait.” The young girl whispered.

Eli studied the dark space and noticed that it was built into a rough cave. The ground appeared to be an abandoned work site. Large shaped hills of dirt and big rocks stained the dark and smoky room. The room had to be the size of the first floor to a downtown hotel and Eli’s little corner he fell in was the little space right behind the check in counter. It stretched on and on from what Eli could see.

Eli looked toward a particular mound in front of him when a little girl stepped out from behind it. The light was dim in this area. Eli looked at the little girl and tried to decide whether anything was really there or not. She moved and his decision turned into whether to run away or meet her. He didn't have enough time.

"Elcosiby! You! How? Who?" She started out loud and then ended very softly. She took a few steps forward, looking back behind the rock, and waited to be approached.

Eli turned to run. He couldn't go more than 4 feet in any direction in his little corner. The cave surrounded him on all sides. He slowly walked in astronaut fashion over to the stranger. He slid off of the strange material and onto the hard soil beneath.

Out from under the miniature cave was a new experience. Dotted across the vast ceiling were ancient light-bulbs, each dating back to somewhere around the time of Edison’s death. All across the cave floor were purposely placed mounds of dirt, shaped and packed in specific ways though Eli knew not why. The light-bulbs were dimmed to abandoned factory low and it gave the whole room and the little girl in it an eerie appearance.

"who are you and where did you come from?" the child stood apart and examined Eli’s shoes, tight shorts and skin tight top with the Inteligemental logo plastered across the back and his running number pinned to the front. Her ragged and sparse clothing barely stayed on her frail bony body.

“Well you see I-” Eli couldn’t get any of the story before the child started to fall asleep after rolling her eyes and decided the story was not going to be at all interesting.

“Never mind. Can you help me? I need help. I know you’re not from here so I can trust you.” Her face was serious and firm.

“Um, sure?” Eli bit his lower lip and pondered what a 10 year old girl could need help with in the middle of nowhere. She turned and ran back to the mound she came out from behind.

“Over here! Please!” She ducked down out of site. Eli took three long strides over to a rounded triangle with a groove on the top of one side. The girl was kneeling beside a boy, not older than eight years old, unconscious on the dirt. “He’s been like this since the watchman shouted five. What do I do?”

Eli was quite uncertain what the watchman calling five meant but the boy looked almost dead except for miniscule movements from his chest. The girl looked up expectantly at the man destined to be her hero.

“He looks fine. You need to call 911 to come check him out and take care of him.”

The girl’s eyes opened wide and her thin white eyebrows bunched together in little worry clumps. “Call what?”

“911. You know. The police, hospital, firefighters…” the crinkled forehead and arched eyebrows silenced his gibberish. “Well who do you call when someone gets hurt?” Eli rested his elbows on the mound in front of him and his head on his hands. The sweat from running was still resting on his hands and made his head slip around a little bit on his palms.

“I call Dad. But we weren’t supposed to be out here in the first place.” She picked up the boy’s translucent hand with her own delicate hand.

“You’ve got to tell somebody! You can’t leave him like this. If your dad is the person you guys call when you need help, you need to go get him!”

“But if I tell him then he will be mad at me! I can’t tell him.”

“Listen to me, this kid’s in bad condition. If your dad knows what to do then we need his help.” Eli got up on top of the mound to sit above the pair on the ground.

“Why can’t you help him?” She snapped at Eli.

“Your dad will know what do. He can probably do more for him than I ever could.”

“How do you know?” Eli paused. His dad had always known what to do in every situation no matter what Eli had demanded of him. He had always been there.

“Because… dads are like that. They can fix everything. They always can. Always.” Right? Eli knew his dad had always been superman to him but lately that wasn’t the case.

"Fine. I’ll do it. Help me carry him.” The girl jumped up and reached down to grab the boy’s hands.

“No no! First rule in hurt person situations, do not move the injured person without professional help.” Eli jumped down and grabbed her hands.

“I won’t leave him here. I won’t.”

“Alright then, I’ll stay here and watch him while you go get your dad. Go.”

“Let no one touch him. No one.” The girl gave Eli her death glare which seemed more like a puppy dog sad face than an evil eye.

“Sure thing. Now go!” Eli got back up on his perch while the strange child ran fast and far. She was gone in seconds, ducking around dirt mounds into the dark.

On the ground the small boy lied perfectly still. Eli wondered how he was hurt; an excitable sister, an easily-angered father, and an eight year old boy in a cave of rocks and dirt, perfect storm for pain. The body took Eli back to when he was only eight years old.

It was Grandpa Joe. He had always been the nicer grandpa. Now Grandpa Phil won by default. Good old Joe had been helping Cousin Susanna with her car when he fell asleep under the car and died. Just died under the car. He looked so peaceful lying in that plush box with his eyes closed and his hands crossed ever so gently across his bony chest. Eli saw Grandpa Joe as a silent napper having a wonderful dream on a lovely bed. Eli had never seen him sleep so soundly.

The little boy on the ground did not look peaceful in any way. Even for an eight year old child, he already had little crows’ feet on the sides of his eyes and the wrinkles in his forehead crowded together to make a most unhappy camper and a pitiable face.

Waiting and thinking and thinking and waiting were the only excitement Eli could derive from the 10 minutes of empty time of waiting for the little girl to return with help for the boy on the ground.

Just when Eli had given up all hope of her ever returning for him, three figures appeared out of the dark shadows beyond the apparent entrance of the cave. Eli stood slowly and tried to make a serious face that wouldn’t crack under pressure.

“Hello there. Have you been watching this boy for me?” The shortest of the group stepped ahead and knelt beside the small child. “I will take care of him now.” He felt his wrists and leaned in to hear his breathing. “He is fine. I just need to take him back to the office to take care of him. Come here boys. Pick him up and carry him back.”

The two goonies bent over and both shifty eyed gents glanced each way in the anticipation of danger and looked back to each other and nodded. “Wait!” Eli shouted. “You can’t move him. He’s hurt and you can’t move him.” Eli stormed over, grabbing the man at the boy’s head’s wrist, yanking it away. “I was left here to protect this boy from strangers. Only the girl can make me leave.”

“Elaine sent me! Silly boy! I am the only doctor in town. She asked me to come and get her brother here and bring him home. Trust me.” Frustration and confusion overwhelmed Eli. He had no idea who to trust, who was right and who was deceiving him. It hit Eli that he didn't know the name of the girl who gave him instructions. This man knew what he was talking about. The man smiled warmly in the din and walked around to where Eli stood. “Don't worry about a thing. Elaine is waiting for me back at the office.” Eli relented and stepped away from the body.

The three strangers nabbed the boy and left in a haste.

Eli sat back on his perch and waited for something to happen. With no clue of the layout of this strange land, he couldn't move and hope to find his way back. He waited and waited until finally he heard little footsteps pattering closer and closer. Off on the mound Eli jumped as the girl showed up into the light of the large cave. The footsteps suddenly sounded one right after the other, faster and faster until they carried the connected body to where the boy had been lying, collapsing every muscle on the empty space.

The girl brought life back to her neck, raising her head slowly with the look of pure spite and hate burned into her brow. "You. You. You!" The girl shrieked the final word and leaped out of her deadened position up to Eli's neck, ready to strangle the stranger in a matter of seconds. "Where. is. my. brother? What have you done with my brother?" The midget was much more intimidating at her full height, on tip-toes, and with a vengeance at his neck.

"H-hold up li'l missy!" Eli breathed heavily after snatching the girl's wrists. "You told me to watch him. I did. A man came and said that a girl named Elaine sent him. I didn't even know the boy's name or yours. Come to think of it, I still don't! You were going to sit here and watch your brother die and do nothing while these people had the heart to come and take care of him. I did what I thought was best!"

The girl shrieked and wriggled in Eli's grasp and shouted, "You moron! You imbecile! I was trying to protect him from them! They are after us! You just gave my brother up to the enemy! I hate you!" She squirmed more, kicking and wiggling in attempt to hurt the one who stole her life. "I have to go and save him! let me go! I have to save him! Michael!"

"Wait! Stop! Stop!" Eli yelled back in the child's face and squeezed her wrists tighter. "What do you think you are going to do? You against those three bigger men! Pah! Good luck! Listen to me! Listen!" He let go of her left wrist just long enough to get a grip around her shoulders to hold her down better. He held on tighter than a bull rider in the national championships and sat down. "Listen to me missy! We can do this together. I messed up--"

"Yeah you did."

"--and now I want to make it up as best I can! You can't do this on your own."

"Wanna bet?"

"If you go in there on your own, you run a high risk of being caught yourself and then the whole thing will be bust! Do you want you and your brother to die alone in prison in separate cells?" The girl quit squirming and settled down on the ground in front of Eli. "First things first. My Name Is Elijah Marxely. Call me Eli." Eli nodded his head. The girl jumped up and spun around to face him.

“Elaine Bianca Friar." She did a deep curtsey. "I go by Bianca, not Elaine.” Bianca stood up and looked at Eli. "Welcome to Antolsai. Ready?" Bianca spun on her little bare toes and headed off.