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Member
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Southampton, England
Gender: Female
Posts: 2
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Just Out Of Reach
Silence filled the sorry excuse of a garden. Timber lay sprawled randomly over the dark mud. The trees gnarled, un-kept, branches clawed at the darkness, drawing it to them and enhancing the shadows that fell on the ground in the moonlight of the full moon. Little or no grass grew from the ground and the trees had long since lost their leaves, their bitter hearts hatefully leaching life from the ground. From somewhere just out of reach church clock chimed midnight, but not even the pure sound of the bell could wash away the silence in the garden.
Time ticked by, but that was little comfort to anyone in this realm. The animals had long turned to the darkness, and the plants had joined them soon after; all that was left now was the people. These same people hid behind locked doors and pulled curtains. These same people ignored the world around them and, as they always had done, got on with their meaningless little lives in the vain hope that it would sort itself out. But as more and more people turned bad each night, their neighbours were forced either to take notice or turn their backs; and sadly, the cowardly option was often the preferred one as is with many things.
Something scrawny, and barely recognisable as what it once was, crept slowly out from underneath a leaf-bare hedge. It was not cautious in it’s entry of the garden, it was just biding its time. Sneaking under what once could’ve been a green house the thing waited – it was early.
Still time ticked by, but as with anything, time seems slower if you are waiting for something. Still the thing waited. Still the branches of the trees grabbed at the darkness. Still things turned to the night and shuddered into unrecognisable shapes.
In the distance the same church clock struck thirteen, it was not a fault; the clock had been built to repel evil and, in this realm at least, the number thirteen was lucky.
But not this night.
From somewhere, considerably nearer than the church clock, another bell rang. The bell was harsh, and clattered as if it had been made without a tune to play. Then, out of the ground, a Lift appeared. It was made from harsh dulled metal and at the top a dial with many numerals sat. The hand on the dial was pointing to a number thirteen – this was not a coincidence; this realm had once been seen as one of the luckiest. Now the realm neared collapse. This was why The Lift was here.
The two doors on The Lift slid apart to reveal a velvet interior to The Lift, two men stepped out.
The first of the men wore a midnight black top hat, a pair of polished black shoes, a black suit and bowtie, a pristine white shirt and, although he was obviously too young to need it, a monocle over his left eye.
The second man looked out of place with the first and wore a pair of, very worn, denim dungarees, brown work boots and a red and yellow horizontally striped shirt.
Both men had violent red hair and bright green eyes though the first mans hair was very short compared to the second mans long dreadlocks.
The first man, whose name happened to be Jeremy, looked around… he had been here before, but this was not how he remembered it. The garden had once been as beautiful as the woman who lived here; he remembered her laughter filling this garden. Now the garden was silent and bitter. Her laughter, if still the same, would’ve filled the garden and made it grow good, but now that he saw the garden and the way it had twisted, he doubted very much that she was the same.
Jeremy turned to the other and took out his pocket watch. He flipped it up nervously and glanced down at it; then he put it away in his pocket once more,
“She’s late Tom,” he said seriously to the man next to him, “Sliders are never late, it’s part of the Code!” his voice was rich and thick as well as slightly posh, almost as though he thought of himself as superior,
“Your watch is probably a few minutes fast,” answered Tom lazily, as he inspected his hands and began twisting the signet ring around his middle finger, “stop worrying, she said she’d meet us here and she will…”
“I’m not sure…” said Jeremy voicing his worry for the first time, “Tom, I think this realm’s collapsing… it used to be better than this here, it used to be beautiful…”
“Oh stop worrying, it’s just because it’s dark,” Tom did look up and around though, indicating that he too was starting to feel nervous, “too many realms have collapsed already this year. This one can’t be collapsing too… can it?”
A rotting apple fell off the tree above Jeremy’s head and hit the ground with a thud making them both jump.
They waited in the dark as a wind picked up and whistled through the trees. A set of, once immaculate, wind chimes, which were now rotten and rusted over, swung gently in the breeze and created a ghostly melody, which seemed only to deepen the silence. Neither of them spoke, it somehow seemed wrong in this death-like place. In the distance the church clock chimed, declaring that it was quarter past one. Both men heard and listened. Jeremy flicked open his pocket watch;
“One fifteen,” he said nervously, he turned to Tom, “what should we do?”
“I don’t know,” replied Tom with a shrug, “we could go back to The Library I suppose,”
“Without Val?”
As Jeremy said this there was a sudden noise further down the garden. Tom and Jeremy looked at each other, both thinking the same thing: did they want to know what that was?
They moved closer to the place where The Lift still stood, almost backing into it. The darkness crept closer to them. There were several more noises coming from the lower part of the garden… it may have been both of their imaginations, but the noises seemed to be getting closer.
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Lillimoth (soon-to-be URL here) 
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