Young Writers Society

This whole part until she wakes up is going to be changed dramatically, but I don't have the energy to do this at the moment, so read it and try not to be mean. I know it's not too good.

As the sun sank into the sea beyond a horizon of the buildings of the city, Elsa was sitting on her bed. Watching the array of colors as the spread across the sky. From the gold of the sun to the lavender as the sky turned into an indigo blue. She was thinking of paint, and which paints she would mix to get the natural sunset appearance and trying with all her might not to think of what she was missing.

Elsa had guessed rightly to say that she had been grounded and the faint hope of going to Oblivion and December’s show had been outright crushed. She had been thinking of them, how strange they were, and wondering what a performance might be like. But even as her thoughts strayed out the window, she still had the underscore of her parents beginning a new argument in the kitchen. Something about a turkey …

“Elsa! It’s time for dinner!” Fane’s voice was still angry, as the traces of the argument was still audible as she slid off of her bed and desolately marched down the stairs.

Her mother, Darla, was waving an angry spatula at her father, but the words didn’t really seem to reach Elsa’s ears. She was only aware of the presence of sound. The kitchen was filled with the smell of something burnt, and from the stove, small tendrils of smoke were curling into the air.

“The stove is on fire, Mum.” She pointed out, unmoving from the doorway.

Darla Blackwell didn’t reply, but shortly turned around and gave an alarmed shout, yanking the oven door open. The kitchen was immediately filled with smoke. It burned Elsa’s throat and made her eyes water, and she thought she saw flames, but then her view was blocked by her father’s form rushing forwards, and then there was panic.

Elsa stumbled backwards against the opposite wall, coughing. As there came more shouting from inside the kitchen. She was aware enough to notice that they sounded more frightened then angry, and a moment later both parents came rushing out the door. Darla still holding the spatula and sporting burns on both arms. Her father reached out to pull her along, but at that moment, something exploded from inside and large flames suddenly burst from the smoke cloud. As orange and magnificent as the sunset outside.

For a moment, there was something strangely hypnotizing about the fire, and Elsa felt as though she couldn’t move. She was frozen in the hallway as smoke filled her lungs. Frozen even though the heat was burning her face and singeing her hair.

Then there was a tug on her hand and she was being pulled away. She turned to see if it was her father who had come back for her, but all she could see was the smoke. Red-tinged and hazy all around her. She was beginning to feel dizzy. She knew that some people died from inhaling too much smoke, and she dimly wondered whether she was going to die. Then the entire hallway seemed to tilt sideways as a blackness darted in around her vision.

x-x-x

“Is she dead?”

“I hope not. That certainly wouldn’t look good for advertising.”

“I’m glad you have your priorities straight, Renzo.”

“I’m just saying—“

“Ssh, I think she’s waking up!”

The peaceful silence was interrupted by two rather irritating voices coming not far away from her ears. Elsa wanted to go back to sleep, everything seemed so much easier there. The darkness hadn’t even been bothered by dreams, as it was on most nights. How long had she been sleeping? And why hadn’t Fane come to wake her up?

Elsa slow pried her eyelids open. She felt as though someone had glued them together while she had been sleeping. The first thing that her slightly fuzzy vision saw were two painted faces directly above her.

“Whoa!” she jumped up and her forehead collided with both of theirs.

“Hey!”

“Ow?”

“W-Who are you?”Elsa demanded, as she suffered a severe head rush before looking from each person to the other. She took it from their voices that they were male. Though it was rather hard to tell under the thick layer of white makeup they had on their faces. But around there eyes was painted either blue or red, depending on which one she was looking at, while on their heads were pulled a red or blue jester’s cap.

“He’s Rienzi,” the blue one said, gesturing to the red one with a blue-gloved hand. “I’m Javier. Who are you?” This last question was said in unison as they stared with open curiosity at her.

“I’m …” she had to pause and think, which seemed to amuse the twins – as they seemed – greatly. “Elsa. Elsa Blackwell I guess.”

“You guess?” Rienzi said with a chuckle. “That doesn’t sound too confident. And if we might ask, what are you doing here?”

This was a question Elsa really didn’t know the answer to. She turned her gaze from the twins to her surroundings and was extremely surprised by what she saw.

She was in the city. But no city she had ever seen before. In a way, it was much like the city she had come from, except for the fact that it was much whiter and cleaner. Where her city had been grey, it was white. Where it had been filthy, it was polished to perfection. There wasn’t even a piece of trash in sight. There was a soft humming sound, and she looked up to see something a white monorail on a golden track zip over their heads. She was lying in an alleyway, just off of a sidewalk on which she could see men in top-hats and ladies in long dresses walking past, while strange looking vehicles drove on a white cobbled street.

“Where am I?” she wondered aloud, slowly getting to her feet and looking at the white stone walls of the buildings on either side of her with pure astonishment.

Rienzi and Javier were on their feet now too, and Elsa saw them exchange a glance that might have contained worry, but held nothing but amusement when they turned back to her. “Marlot, of course. Where else would you be?”

“Ah …” Elsa was opening her mouth to say ‘Manhattan’ when something stopped her. She was entirely unsure of what had happened to her, and how she had gotten to Marmot, but either she was having an extremely vivid dream or something exceedingly impossible had happened. Either way, bringing that bit of reality into the ‘dream’ seemed to threaten to ruin it, and though her head hurt quite a bit, the dream hadn’t gone very badly so far. “I don’t know,” she managed to say in a tone that she hoped was casual, giving a light shrug. “Somewhere … else.”

The two exchanged another private glance, before giving a small nod and turning back to her. “Alright,” Javier said, “We’ve decided what to do with you.”

“What to do with me?” Elsa was quite unsure of whether this place was quite like the place she had come from, but normally, that was not a very friendly thing to say.

“We’re taking you to our master.” Rienzi replied, ignoring her question. “You’re obviously lost …”

“…and he’ll know what to do with you.” Javier finished, taking hold of one of her arms, which automatically made Elsa pull away, but his grip was surprising strong, as he wasn’t very tall and not overly muscular in build.

“Let go of me!” Elsa shrieked as Rienzi took hold of her other arm, but he firmly pressed his hand over her mouth.

“Quiet.” Javier hissed, nervously glancing around at the rooftops, though it seemed as though no one else was around. “Do you want to bring the Escali down on us?”

“We’re not going to hurt you.” Rienzi added as they started walking at a brisk pace that Elsa was nearly being dragged.

“We’re helping.” Javier added, though more quietly then he had been speaking before.

Elsa wasn’t so sure, but it seemed as though she didn’t have a choice as they pulled her out onto the bustling street.