Tales of PulchraGea, Vol. 1

1: Dawning (final version/1513)

As I stuck the Key in the lock, the door flew open. A flourescent gold fluid shot from the doorway like a geyser. It was too fast for me to avoid. The instant it grabbed me, it sucked itself back through the doorframe and took me with it. On the other side the liquid launched me out the other side like a a human cannonball going for the distance record. The landing hurt and I tumbled end over end for several feet until friction and inertia brought me painfully to a halt. After several minutes of groaning the pain away, I raised my head to observe my new surroundings.
The sun was rising, shimmering red and gold coalescing into oranges and pinks, then adding blues, greens, and purples, until the whole sky looked like an ocean of light. The colors danced of the grass, the portal, even my skin. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
'Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore,' I thought to myself as I looked around. I mean, technically I'm actually from Texas but that's neither here nor there. The takeaway should be that I wasn't in an environment with which I was familiar with, by which I mean my home planet of Earth. I wasn't there, I was somewhere else. Before me grassland spread farther than the eye could see, but not ordinary grassland like you might imagine; no long, sweeping amber waves or grain or austere Serengeti savannah. This grass was unnaturally short, thin, and soft, like organic astroturf or a genetically engineered and flawlessly manicured golf course. It stretched for seemingly hundreds of miles in every direction but one.
I'd assumed the roaring in my head had been due to the tumble I'd taken from the portal, but as I stood and looked around I realized that the back of the gateway arch was situated against the edge of a steep cliff edge hundreds of feet high. At the bottom of this lay the cause of the noise pollution. I'd neither seen nor heard of a river so violent or so wide. Even this far up flecks of foam gently kissed my face, sent rocketing violently upward by waves that boomed like an endless herd of buffalo. This river was wider than a lake, so much so that only with great effort, concentration, and no small amount of squinting could I see the opposing shoreline. And this only, it seemed, because the shore was taller twice over than my own perch.
After staring in awe at my situation for the better part of an hour, it remained for me to decide where to go. I could return through the portal provided that it was one-way, or I could stay in this strange, new place. Though the life on the other side of the golden gateway was an unhappy one, it was familiar and provided a certain surety of safety, shelter, and food. This new world was wholly unfamiliar and nothing was guaranteed, but it offered me a chance at a life of freedom and satisfaction. It was a difficult choice. No one likes uncertainty of safety. The primal fears of whether or not one will survive often override the fears of freedom and individuality lost. I'd already proven to myself earlier that I was perfectly capable of choosing freedom over survival, and in the end I simply stepped away and began walking. The destination was beyond me, I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. My steps felt much lighter than I a was used to, but I attributed it to the weight of the burdens that had been lifted from my heart. For the first time in my life, I was free from my old life; I felt like a house elf that had just been given a sock.

I walked for hours on end, no telling exactly how long. I did notice something a little off about the sun, although I couldn't quite put my finger on it. eventually, though, the sun began to set and I knew that I'd have to stop for the night at some point. I decided I'd hoof it just a little bit farther if I could. At some point I must have dozed off while walking, because I jerked awake due to stumbling on a rock under my shoe. I felt and heard the wind begin to pick up before I felt a roar and something heavy slammed into me. I kicked desperately and in a panic. Something was attacking me, but what? I was completely unarmed and didn't stand a chance against predators. Finally whatever it was let me go just long enough for me to roll away and catch my bearings.
A dragon, an honest to goodness dragon. Or more accurately a wyvern. It was about four feet tall, six feet long, with a roughly twenty foot wingspan. The main part of its body was a burnt orange, while its underbelly, wing skin, and the crest of scales running down its back were a foresty green. Its wings were unlike anything I'd ever heard of, with only two long, unjointed fingers that curved inward toward each other in a pincer-like fashion. The arms of its wings were short but well muscled. Its eyes were equally crazy: it had compound eyes that glistened like a gem inside its skull, colors swirling across it like the pixels of a television.
The dragon stood tall on its legs and stretched its wings to their maximum extent, then roared threateningly at me. Like an idiot, I ran. It flapped its wings powerfully to gain enough lift to give chase. Looking over my shoulder, I knew it was going to end here, before it had even really begun. I had no regrets, but at the same time I wasn't going to make it easy. Off to the side I saw what might have been an antler, bone, something; all that counted was that it was long and sharp. I reached down and grabbed it at a full run. As the dragon stretched its legs out to grasp at me, I turned around and blindly lashed out at it. I stabbed blindly at its face, once, twice, three times, until the bone stuck and wouldn't come back out. The dragon fell back, roaring and writhing on the ground, spewing fire everywhere in an attempt to fry whatever was attacking it. I didn't stick around to see where I'd caught it, but I was reasonably confident that it wouldn't be seeing either.

I ran until I collapsed on the ground. I couldn't move, couldn't feel except for a wet stickiness down my side. I lay like this for what felt like an eternity. When feeling returned, it was only pain. It took a tremendous effort of will to stand up, and I blacked out several times in the process. I was somehow able to look down at the tattered bloody remains of my shirt. My vision blurred quickly as the situation began to sink into my thick skull. The wound didn't feel deep, but it was wide and bleeding steadily. It was also likely infected. I could feel the heat coming off of it. How long had I been out? I needed to find water to wash it, quickly. I remembered that I was right by a river, even if it was way below me. There had to be a way down further along the cliff.
I looked and, there in the distance, I saw a massive mountain skirted by some smaller ones all around, just a line of purple bumps on the horizon. They hadn't been there before, but there would have to be a way down there somewhere. My fevered mind never even considered that it was miles and miles away, that there was no possible way I'd reach it in time. I just kept walking and walking. I blacked out several more times, each time in a very different place from the last, but always with the river and cliff's edge to my right.
My movements were automatic, completely independent of conscious thought. I was basically unconscious for the majority of the journey but I knew I'd travelled a great distance. The flat terrain had become much more hilly and difficult for my increasingly weak body to navigate. The previously barely visible mountains loomed ever closer, with the tall, majestic peak I'd seen first stretching so far into the sky I doubted that I could see the peak with a telescope. It loomed directly over me. It made me afraid for a reason I couldn't comprehend. I was so terrified that I left the cliffside altogether, despite the life-saving river I was trying to reach being only fifty feet below me. It could be that the sun was setting behind it, bathing it in a sinister red and deep black shadows. I honestly don't know, I only knew that I had to head west, away from the setting sun.