The Greenhouse Chronicles

Chapter One - A Guest Arrives

        My feet pound the ground, my heart beats against my chest as I willed my legs to carry me as fast as they could manage; every breath I pull in falls short. The sun has long since fallen, leaving me blind to my surroundings, whether it’s good I can’t turn around and see the figure chasing me; I’m not fully sure.

       My eyes frantically search for somewhere, anywhere for me to hide. I couldn’t face the truth that haunted me, both physically and mentally. I shook my head quickly, trying to hold back the tears.

       “I can’t afford another handicap!” I screech internally

       Just as I had blinked tears away rapidly and looked up, I nearly run into a large structure. My heart suddenly stopped, my feet quickly following suit. I hadn’t been breathing or at least it didn’t feel like it.

       I look the building up and down, broken windows, vines, and neglected garden tools bare the outside grounds of what I quickly gather to be a greenhouse. The whole place holds an olive hue, like the reflection of a murky pond. There’s a large center archway, where a door seems it should be. I walk the whole perimeter and find no door. My mind twists with questions:

        ‘What’s a greenhouse doing all the way out here?’ ‘What good is a greenhouse without any sunlight?’ and the biggest question, ‘Where the hell is the door?’

       I find myself again in the archway, I step closer to the glass seeing if maybe in the darkness I was missing something. My fingers glide along the surface, but soon catches against something; I pause nearly inches from the glass I press my finger against the slightly raised fragment.

       “What is this... a button?” I mumble out loud to myself, when a sudden crash makes me jump backwards, the sound echoes across the woods. I trip over a flower pot and land on my bottom ungainly. A bright light follows the edges of an oblong window. The window was much taller myself and reached all the way to the ground. The light dimmed enough for me to look closer. I stood once more and stepped forward.

       ‘A doorknob? What? Wh-‘, I hadn’t had time to vocalize my thoughts, which were quickly interrupted by a voice scream in the distance.

       “CHARLOTTE!” My heart triples in speed and my legs turn to jelly.

     “Shit,” I whisper, having forgotten what I had been running from, but being suddenly reminded. I grab the handle and swing the door open, quickly scampering inside. I close the door just as swiftly behind me. I grope the wall searching for the same button to make the door knob disappear. I found the button in the same place as before, the light and crash following, making the door once again disappear. I step backwards from the door, my chest heaving. My foot catches on something once more, only instead of a flower pot, it’s a soft surface; Carpet.

       “We have a guest.”