Distant World Chapter 1

    Chapter 1: The Fall

    Selman was walking home from school.  It was a November evening with the wind blowing.  Trees leafless swayed in the wind hitting against each other making a scraping noise.  The ground was damp from the rain that had fallen during the day.  Selman’s house was a long walk from the school and he figured he could cut down time by going through the forest.  The clouds were deep above with a dark hint to them.  Selman figured it could rain any minute and should get home as quickly as possible.  He came upon the forest densely populated with evergreen and walked in. 

    As soon as he stepped into the forest darkness encircled him.  He looked around trying to get his eyes to focus to see which way to walk.  Once his eyes adjusted it was clear there was only one path for him to take.  It seemed as if someone had been the same way many times with no trees in front or weeds to catch his shoes.  He heard water ahead.  The water finally came into view and to Selman’s surprise there was no way around it he had to cross.  A line of rocks led to the other side.  He headed across the stream hopping from rock to rock.  With the cool air and rain in the skies he started to rush hopping quicker and quicker, but his foot slipped he slid into the water.  He tried to move, but it was no use, he was stuck in the mud. 

    Then out off to the south he could hear growling.  He looked over and a huge Pit-bull was sitting at the edge of the water.  He could see its anger in its eyes.  Then he saw it back up and jump toward him.  He tried to not think about what was about to happen.  Then he was really surprised not to feel any biting.  He opened his eyes and saw the dog about five feet away and it was stuck in the mud also.  He struggled to move and finally started moving slowly, but surely.  He reached out his hand and put his hand into the earth and pulled himself out.  Then he turned around and saw something amazing.  The dog started to change shape.  It became a creature with claws.  The creatures head narrowed and spikes of hair came out of the back of its neck its front paws changed to long sharp claws and the creature became a shade of green with a red neck. In its final part of transforming it’s back shortened and it leaned back on its hind legs that had become longer like a human foot. It reached down and ripped at the mud holding its legs.  Soon it was loose and was after him.  He ran at a full sprint as far away from the water.  The creature got out of the water and then transformed again this time it became a cheetah.  From behind him he could hear the slapping sound of the paws against the wet ground digging in and pulling away, he looked behind him and the cheetah was on his heels.  He couldn’t think of anything to do.  The cheetah was bound to catch him.  He looked around and saw a massive tree with a hole in it big enough for a giant to fit through.  He ran as quickly as he could to the tree. 

    Running through the hole he didn’t have a chance to stop and he ran right off the ledge, but instinct saved him turning as he fell his hands caught the edge of the earth.  Straining his arms digging his fingers into the earth he pulled with all his strength and pushed his feet against the wall trying to get traction.  He finally got his arms on the ledge and he pulled himself the rest of the way up onto the ledge.  The ledge was very narrow hardly enough space for a human to walk on, completely surrounding the interior of the tree.  The rest of the tree was a giant hole down. 

    On the other side of the tree was a ladder that went up and down.  He started to walk on the ledge around the inside of the tree, to walk around without falling he had to put his back to the tree and side step.  When he was about halfway to the ladder, he saw the cheetah come through the hole.

    Then it transformed into what he guessed was supposed to be a human.  It was about six feet tall and it had a hunched back, it had no hair on its head, and it was wearing a plain black suit and black pants.  It placed its back to the wall and started side stepping.  It moved quicker than he would have ever expected.  He moved as quickly as possible.  When he made it to the ladder the man was just behind him.  He started to move down the ladder.  He looked up and saw the man jumped down from the ledge and turned into a giant spider and it landed onto the wall of the tree.  The spider was much faster than he ever could be especially moving down a ladder.  When the spider was getting very close to him he just let go of the ladder and let gravity do its work.  As he was falling he looked up and saw a stream of webbing flying down toward him.  It hit him and he stopped falling.  The spider then threw him against the wall and he was stuck there, while it crawled over to him. 

    It walked under him and made a web that covered the entire area of the tree.  He struggled to free himself as the spider moved toward him.  A whistling sound streamed through the air and an abject passed closely to Selman cutting webbing around him.  The spider turned up looking around searching for the culprit taking its meal.  Then the sound came again slashing more webbing around Selman and with that his body weight tore him free from the webs and he fell.  Trying to free himself he wiggled, but he could only move his hands which didn’t help.  Struggling to get free he never seemed to look down and when he did it was too late.  Selman crashed into a large reservoir of water.  Causing a massive splash that flew up into the air ten feet.  When he hit the water he did not hit it straight on.  His side hit a rock which split through the webbing but also cut into his arm.  Gasping as his arm hit the rock he swallowed a bunch of water going in.  He tried to get out as quickly as possible.  His head came out of the water and he just shook his head getting water out of his ears while choking out water trying to breathe.  He rubbed his eyes to find shore, and then swam to it with his one good arm.  Pulling himself out with his good arm gasping from exhaustion he looked up to see where the spider had gone.  When he saw nothing to fear he just laid on his back and took in some deep breathes.  He had so much adrenaline going that he didn’t notice his arm.  After sitting and catching his breath he looked at his arm.  It was covered in blood with a deep gash in his shoulder.  He leaned up got to his feet grasping his injured arm and tried to walk.  He didn’t know where, but he did see that he could walk straight ahead, after a couple minutes of walking Selman fell to the side landing unconscious.

    Selman woke up screaming in pain.  Grasping his injured arm he noticed that it had been bandaged.  He looked around completely confused on where he was.  It looked like the inside of the tree from the walls but he was lying on a table of some sort and there was a blanket under him.  He tried to get up but as soon as he did he became light headed.  A woman ran in yelling “What are you doing you can’t get up you lost a lot of blood.”  The woman had a white coat on with white shoes.  She looked like a human with brown hair and green eyes.  She was about 5 feet tall.  

    Selman pushed the lady away “Who are you?”

    The lady just looked at him for a second then spoke “I am Thurma, I am the nurse here.”

    “I’m so confused where am I?”

    “You are in the city of Cantol,”

    “Ok, but where is this.”

    “Underground, you should know where it is you fell down to us.”

    “Wait, so I am in Cantol, but what are you.”

    “I am a Cantolian.”

    “Ok I need to get out of here and get home.”

    “That is not possible you are in terrible condition you cannot leave.”

    “No I’m fine, watch.”

    Selman leaned forward and off to the side.  He got off the bed slowly pressing slight pressure on his feet.  With no problems he took a look around.  The room he was in was circular with a dome ceiling.  It was part of the tree like it was a giant root.  He turned to Thurma “See I told you I am fine.”

    “Well that may seem the case for now but you are in no shape to deal with that creature.”

    “How would you know that there was a crazy creature chasing me?”

    “Do you remember a whistling noise?”

    “Yes I do it saved my life.”

    “Well that was one of our elite guards or Cantol.  He saw that you were in trouble and couldn’t let you die.  He wanted to keep you from falling but he had to deal with the Sempian, to keep it off your back.”

    “Wait is he ok? And what do you mean Sempian what the heck is that?”

    “Yes the man who saved you is doing quite well he caused the Sempian to run off, but it will be waiting for you. And a Sempian is a creature that can take on any shape that it chooses.  You are very lucky you got away.”

    “Ok well as you can see I can walk I just want to walk around get some blood flowing.”

    “As you wish just don’t push yourself to hard.  I don’t want to be seeing you anytime soon.”

    With that Selman turned around and noticed a door in front of him.  He turned the handle opened the door and proceeded forward.  He was now in a sort of hallway that was lit with glowing rocks that sat on the sides of the wall held up by cracks in the tree.  He just kept wondering how he was going to get home, and what he would do against some creature he had never heard of that could change at any moment it wanted.  The hallway wasn’t really well lit and Selman didn’t notice the door that opened in front of him and he hit his head against it falling back.  A man came out with a shocked look on his face. 

    “Oh gosh I’m so sorry.”  The man reached down to help Selman up and Selman just looked at him and said “Who are you?”

    “I am Cornelius; I am the leader of Cantol.  Are you the boy who fell into our lovely city?”

    “Yes I am, I am Selman.  I’m trying to get things straight.”

    “Ok Selman why don’t you have a talk with me in my office.”

    The man showed Selman throw the doorway of the door he had just hit into.  This room was slightly smaller then what Selman figured was the infirmary and this new room was a square shape, but it still had a dome ceiling.  The man just walked ahead and sat down behind a desk and pointed to a wooden chair. 

    Walking over to the chair rubbing his head Selman sat down and asked “I need to get home, but I don’t know how to get there.”

    “You cannot leave it is not safe. They will be waiting for you if you are not prepared you will perish.”

    “What do I need to do to get prepared?”

    Cornelius reached his hands under his desk and pulled up a piece of paper wrapped up.  Unraveling the paper Selman noticed that it was a map of some kind.  Cornelius pointed to a room and stated that this is where you are.  Dragging his finger across the paper he made a path for Selman to take. 

    “This path will take you to the range.”