Webber's Story Cubes

Away From Green

     ONCE UPON A TIME, I was sitting in my house, all alone, bored out of my mind. I was in the living room, staring at the TV, which was turned on to some nature channel. I huffed and turned around to look outside my window. My gaze instinctively turned to the tall, leafy, and green tree standing in the lawn, which was also painfully green. I groaned and turned back around, only to be met with another douse of green from the television. Feeling a scowl beginning to grow on my face, I knew it was time for a vacation.

I didn't bother to pack; at least, not yet. I just hopped into my car and drove to the only traveling agency in my knowledge. It was a tall office building with many windows and two front doors. I entered through those doors and approached the woman at the front desk. After explaining my...predicament...to her, she nodded gravely.

"I've seen this before," the elderly woman mused. After a moment, she stood up and beckoned for me to follow her. "Come, to the back room. I know just what to get you."

"Oh?" I allowed her to lead me where she wanted, but arched an eyebrow in question anyway.

"The special treatment."

I didn't know what to say to that. I figured "the special treatment" was a sweet deal with lots of money off, or plane tickets to the front row of seats. Boy, was I wrong.

The woman turned around and pulled a stick out of her pocket. I furrowed my brow. "Wh - ?"

She cut me off with, "Have a nice trip." With a flick of her wrist, I realized that was no ordinary stick - that was a magic wand. The next thing I knew, I was anywhere but the traveling agency. And wherever it was, it definitely wasn't green.

I spun around and recognized where I was to be a desert. I lifted my arms and rubbed my eyes with my balled up hands. How am I going to get out of this one? When I opened my eyes, I choked on a gasp and took a step back. A large, blazing fire, probably born from the dry environment around me, towered over me. Or, at least, it would, once it reached me, which would be in about...five minutes?

I turned around and ran as fast and as far as my legs would take me. I don't know how long I lasted, but eventually I did trip over my own feet and fell onto my knees. After a quick scan of my surroundings, I knew the fire was behind me. But I had bigger problems now.

My throat was so dry, all my attention was on that instead of my aching limbs. I lifted my arms again, even though they were as heavy as lead, and rubbed my eyes. First things first: I need to drink some water. I opened my eyes and they widened at the sight before me. A pond? In the middle of the desert? Well, what the heck, it meant water.

I climbed to my feet and, dry throat suddenly forgotten, I sprinted the few yards between the pond and me. Even though I had just gotten off them a minute earlier, I dropped to my knees and began to lap up the water in front of me. When I finally believed my thirst had been quenched, I leaned back on my haunches and breathed in. But instead of being sated, my throat just felt rougher, drier.

Then, I realized I hadn't been drinking water. I've been eating sand!

I started to gag, coughing up all the grains I could. When I figured that was the last of it, I fell onto my side and squeezed my eyes closed. After a minute or two, I slowly opened my eyes again. A shriek - a manly yell, that is - tore its way out of my mouth. I bolted upright and scooted backwards, away from the giant, disgusting bug before me. But I froze when it morphed into a scorpion. No sudden movement meant I wouldn't be targeted, right?

The scorpion sized me up before lifting its stinger and aiming it at me. I exhaled a shaky breath. No, no, no...

Its stinger melted clean off and its shell turned into scales and- I felt queasy and couldn't watch the transformation any longer. After a second, I opened one eye, and what I saw prompted me to also open the other. A brightly coloured fish flopped around in front of me, gasping for breath as I had gulped for water moments before.

The bright colours hurt my eyes and I was forced to shut them again. I was afraid to open them, especially when I felt a suspicious breeze brush past me. But soon enough, keeping my eyes closed made me more scared, and I tentatively lifted my eyelids.

I gasped once again. I was in the back room, with the old lady standing before me. She was still holding a stick, but this time, it was clearly a cane. "What...?" I whispered, looking down at my hands and clothes, which were devoid of any sign of my recent...travels.

The lady smiled knowingly at me when I had finally made eye contact with her after patting myself down a couple times. "Still looking for time away from green?"