Magic Tales: Sea and Snow

(The Signs, The Soldiers, And The Hand)

Amy was falling, plummeting, through a beautiful, blue, sky. She twisted and flailed until she hit the ground with a dull thud. The landing was hard enough to let her know she was still alive, but not  hard enough to cause injury. 

Amy got to her feet slowly and cautiously. She absentmindedly brushed some dust from her clothes, while looking all around warily.

"What in the world just happened?!!!" She internally screamed. 

"Where am I?" She thought, managing to calm down. But only slightly.

Amy noticed that she was on a dirt road. If you could call it a road, it was more like a big path. She also noticed that there were trees to her right and left as far as the eye could see.

Amy looked behind her and saw the same. Brown dirt road, green pine trees. Green trees, brown road. Brown, green. Green, brown. Was all she could see until a bend in the road obstructed her vision.

She turned around and saw quite a ways ahead, a fork in the road. But more importantly she saw not one, not two, but three signs! "Maybe these can give me some clue to where I am."

She jogged over to the first sign, hope flaring inside her. The left hand path was lined with ancient oaks and silver birch trees, crowned in a leafy wreath of green. They made a friendly atmosphere. In the distance Amy saw a little glade. She heard the tweeting of birds and the trickle of a stream. 

The sign read Happy Hollow. "That's a cute name." She thought, then she sighed "But it still does not give me any idea where I am."  

Amy quickly moved over the right hand sign. Desperately hoping for a clue. If she didn't find out where she was soon, she just might lose the last shreds of herself control. It was the only thing keeping her from screaming her head off.

This path had oaks and birch trees too; but the effect they created was quite the opposite, from the beautiful woods. These oak's had gnarled faces; their branches look like they wanted to grab ahold of Amy and pull her into the darkness. 

The birch trees did not look silver; instead they were white, bone white. These trees did not look healthy and whole. Instead they were sickly skeletons.

Unlike the shafts of sunlight streaming through the leaves of Happy Hollow, this path was shrouded in fog and mist. It was eerily quiet and spooky.

The sign read The Wolf Woods.  "Seems fitting but still no clue." The tiny hope she was harboring was slowly getting squashed. 

Finally Amy went to the middle sign. Needing a sign of where she was. And if the sign wasn't contained in this last sign, then she might just lose her sanity! 

This path looked normal enough, but off in the distance she saw a mountain range. The mountains looked like the spines on a dragon's back, or a row of fangs. 

There was one mountain that rose above all the others. It was a Giant among giants. It was so tall that Amy could see only the base of the mountain before it disappeared into the clouds. "I imagine the tip of this humongous mountain is pressing against the top of the world."

Speaking of the sky, the area around the mountain range was dark and menacing. This gloomy storm filled sky was very unlike the sunny, blue, and warm air of Happy Hollow. It was even different from Wolf Woods. Although very scary and foggy; it wasn't filled with swirling eerie lights.

"They sort of look like the northern lights back home. The only difference is that these are WAY more menacing!"

The patch of sky around the mountain range was black, gray and purple, all the way up to the edge of the atmosphere.