West Wood

Preface: Maddie - Westwood - 2007

Blackness. I think thats all sleep is really. A large world full of blackness with colours streaming in throughout the night, which, in the morning, leaves you confused and dizzy and satisfied with the world thats stuck in your head.  It's a nice world in there, no death, just pure life and innocent thoughts. I was only four years old.  

I was immersed in a deep sleep, a sleep in which faces would fly accross my vision, giving me a brief glance of a different emotion every time.  My cousin appeared in my head and i could hear her voice. It didn't make sense to me at first, the words a ramble and unclear.  Her voice was getting louder and clearer and i could feel the light coming through my eyelashes, the gorgeous black dust was slipping away and i could feel the real world forcing my eyelids open.  I gave in and allowed them to open slightly so i could peek into my aunty’s own eyes.  The light had been artificial, my mind had conjured it up as part of the sleep, the room was as black as the nothingness i had been witnessing a second ago and i could see the moon shining in the night sky outside the castle. "huh?" my mouth could barely move, i was full of fatigue. Ellie's eyes were shining in the moonlight and she was still wearing her nightgown. She closed her eyes, a sign that meant 'listen.'

 I closed my own eyes and allowed my mind to connect up with the nerves in Ellie’s head that were filled with gold, sparkling blood that was now intertwined with my own.  Our minds worked as one and we strained our ears to hear the voices outside, i could hear my father, his and ellie’s father immersed in a what seemed like an argument.  the crash of glass echoed through the empty corriders, into our room.  “you betrayed us!” i heard Ellie’s father scream.  “I did not! i only...” their words were muffled and uneven, the doors blocking the sound of their threats.  “You come near my family again and i’ll...” “i hope the... (something) tear your family...” it was bad.  i could tell at four years old. “Shall we go see what’s going on?” i whispered. Ellie put her index finger on her lips and shook her head.  we sat there for several minutes listening to the curses, threats and violence.  Silence.  The ear-splitting silence hit us and immersed us in it’s darkness.

 “AAAAAAAAGGGHHHH” Ellie’s father came screaming and charging into the room and scooped me up in one hand.  The pain of his nails caused me to let out an ear-piercing scream and Ellie fought to get me from him.  He hauled me to my own father and he then chucked me accross to him.  We both crashed to the floor and i heard a sudden gush of a hurricane.   I felt a sudden rush of intense fear.  My dad had hit is head on the glass doors which had swung open to reveal the darkest part of the whole universe.  The largest black hole in existence. Behind us was the worst death any person could experience, immense torture and pain, torn into a thousand different pieces, killed a thousand times and put back together for burning, freezing, starvation and any kind of pain there was to experience. The black mist spiraled uncontrollably into a world of nothingness.  My aunty gasped and reached to grab me but it was too late.  Her dad kicked us into the world of oblivion.  

I could feel my heart burning but there was no pain.  I could see my father being dragged into the black mist and tried to scream but found that i couldn’t. An invisible force slammed the crystal doors closed and turned me over.  Infront of me was a silver mist, there were flecks of silver shattered accross the sky, which was splattered in eyes. Green eyes, blue eyes, hazel eyes, brown eyes, yellow eyes, grey eyes and in the middle was a light, brighter than any sun i had ever seen before.  I fell towards it, spinning uncontrollably, which was when i realized that instead of falling into the oblivion of everybody’s nightmares i was going to fall straight back into life.