"TRICK"

BY SKYLAR ALEXANDER

Prologue

It was an eerily bright day—the kind of day where everything reflected the sun and it hurt to look around. I was walking in a field of dying grass; I couldn’t tell what it was made up of—some sort of tall grass, like wheat or something. I looked down at my feet. They were cut and bruised, but it didn’t hurt as I dragged them through the dirt and pebbles.

There was an open sky above. It was blue for a time and strangely cloudless, but the brightness of the day bleached the color away. The golden grass around me shined in the sun, and I felt my arms tingle from the strength of the sun’s rays. The grass smelled musty with dying age and was coarse and brittle as I crushed it between my fingers. I realized it was dead, and it’s gleam faded and disappeared altogether. There was a great tree in the middle of the field, and my feet were going towards it. There was a man standing under the tree.

My dream self recognized the man and ran up to him. He had peculiar brown hair and an olive complection. He was dressed in a military style outfit, dark brown in color. I noticed with a start that he vaguely looked like he had broken out of a straight jacket. Furthermore, he seemed to have a sepia tint to him that made him look like he was from an era long past. He went to embrace me, but saw my feet and jumped back in fear. I reached for him, trying to calm him down, but he disappeared around the tree trunk. I stumbled after him, the pain from the wounds on my feet all at once hitting me.

I soon discovered that I was the only person under the tree. It was dead silent. There was nothing there but me, cloudless skies, and fields that stretched for miles.

Then, suddenly I could hear something—it took me forever to register what it was. There was a low growling coming from somewhere; I was growing more and more certain of it. I looked to each horizon for some sign of life, but as the fear rose in me, I couldn’t find any trace of anything alive at all. The growling was growing louder from somewhere dangerously close. Leaves floated past my vision from the tree above, and I snapped my head upwards in alarm.

I had only a few seconds to take in the horrible creature in the trees. It was wolf-like in form, but possessed some uncanny features that made it seem almost human. It’s growl had turned into an all-out snarl. It’s body was sickly out of proportion, with it’s torso being unusually long and it’s back legs curled up under it like it was going to pounce. I couldn’t shake the feeling it’s eyes gave me—eyes that screamed the malice only a human could have, glimmered with only the intelligence a human was capable of. Livid, acid-green eyes surrounded in a fringe of blue-black fur. All at once, the creature let out a horrible howl and bounded down the tree branches and attacked me.

And then there was pain.

I was living death.

“Helana!” my mother called up the stairs. I let out a groan, shaking off the sweat and the terror. A glance at the clock told me I had overslept.

“Get up, Helana! You’re going to be late for school!”

Commentary:

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Skylar. I began this story in the summer between my 8th grade year and my freshmen year of high school. I finished it over the christmas break of my junior year. Through writing this story, I have discovered a lot about the nuances of writing, and have applied those learned skills to everything I have written since. Please don't forget the fact what you are reading now was written by a fourteen year-old, and although I am (as of today) going in and doing basic spelling and grammar clean-up, the actual draft itself is not only marginally being edited. The revised version of Trick will most-likely never see FictionPress in it's entirety. Capiche?

Let's enjoy this journey together, shall we?

-Skylar Alexander (12 June 2009)