Gilded Vengeance

by DenyTheWitch

Prologue

Raining, it had to be raining, rain so thick that I couldn't see 5 metres in any direction. I suppose I should be glad that I was in the car when it started, after all it was a long walk to the car from the university. Didn't help that is was 10 o'clock at night either, boy that lecture sure went on forever. Professor Wolfe may teach good history, but boy could he make it boring, and from me, that's saying something.

I love history, and I'm not half bad at it either, the stupid specifics like the date this happened or who was at this meeting aren't easy for me, but the bigger pictures like why this happened, what happened and that stuff come really easily too me, and when I heard that Professor would be looking at the 30 years war, I was ecstatic. That time period in general isn't looked at nearly enough in Australia, all we ever talk about is the world wars, the cold war, and a bit of ancient roman history which is interesting, but its been done to death. Yes I'm a history geek, live with it.

Anyway I was driving back home after that long lecture, very slowly, ironic considering the way my mum would always complain about how everyone in Perth would drive at snails paces when it got wet, she hates that. But I just got my full licence, and I'd seen enough of those presentations on how my group was where most crashes came from, well not me. But now I'm rambling again, I do that a lot, so driving home, I think I was about three quarters of the way home when my phone started ringing, luckily I have a hands free so I can talk in it whilst still driving.

"Hello?"
"Hey Jacob! what's going on?" I rolled my eyes, of course it would be Kyle, my little brother called me to announce every important event in his life, he wasn't the most humble person. "Nothing much, just heading back from another lecture, what happened this time?"
"Just got back my exam results for first semester, three A's, a B and a C, much better than whatever you got I'm sure." He also has a habit of being overtly competitive.
"Yeah yeah whatever, well I'm glad to hear your first year 12 exams went well."
"Of course they did, got anymore tips for next two semesters?"
"Gee I don't know, it was all two years ago, hard to remember that old stuff," I chuckled at my own joke, hey it was funny to me, "Just keep doing what your doing and you should be fine."
"Sweet, anyway you got mum's present yet? Remember its from all three of us."
"Of course I do, its at home, any other 'world changing' news?"
"Ha, nah that's it, anyway, see you next week."
"See you." I shook my head with a smile, he may be irritating, but he was still my brother, its like they say, 'Family, can't live with them, can't live without them,' in fact I wonder where that saying even came from anyway, probably a movie, yeah, that sounded about right.

Before my brain could go on another rambling streak, I arrived at my apartment block, I pressed the clicker as I drove the car into the garage, parked the car then got out. As I stretched my tired muscles, I threw a quick glance at my watch, huh, five to eleven, that drive took longer than I thought, probably explains why I'm feeling so tired all of a sudden. I reached back in to grab my books before slamming the door and locking the car behind me, and then trudged up the stairs to my apartment, not for the first time I was glad my apartment was on the second floor and not the fifth, the walk up to just there tired me out.

After locking the door behind me I lumbered into the bedroom, dropping my books on the kitchen desk before switching to my pyjamas, and flopping onto bed, I didn't even set my alarm clock before I went to sleep.

<-------------------------------->

The first cruel rays of sunlight struck my eyes, causing me to stir, "nnn, go away sun," I thought grumbling as I lifted my arm to shield myself, wait, why is my arm wet, in fact, why is my whole body wet, and cold, very cold. Before I could dwell on that any longer the sun, which had been just barely striking my arm, suddenly seemed to jump up as my face was subject to the full force of the sun. This, combined with the cold wetness of my whole body, and the sound of multiple birds tweeting, served to quite effectively wake me up.

I grunted/shrieked as I quickly sat up and opened my eyes, to be greeted by not my small apartment but wet dewy, trees? I blinked and rubbed my eyes and yep, still trees. I turned my head left right, and even looked behind me, still trees. Now I began hyperventilating, "shit," is what probably would have been appropriate at the time, and was what I tried to say, before my throat seemed to catch and all that came out was a low grunt, almost a growl really. Now before I was on the edge of fully panicking, now I was in total panic mode. "Fuck," was the only thought I could manage as I scrambled up and looked all around me again, trees, trees, and yep, still more trees.

"Aaaaah!" I tried to run forward but apparently I had woken up near a bunch of rocks, and so as I tried to run around screaming I instead slipped on the rock and fell back down. I grunted in pain as my back and head met the grassy floor, it seems I missed the rocks, and now I just lay there thoughts running wild through my head, "Stuck in the middle of a strange forest, this must be a dream, no wait, can't feel pain in dreams, definitely felt pain there, hallucination, unlikely, never had one before and I don't think I've done anything to warrant one. Whatever first things first, deep breaths." I closed my eyes and inhaled, before exhaling, inhale, exhale, freaking out, however tempting it may be wasn't going to help me, and considering the results so far, could probably be hazardous for my health.

As I lay there breathing in and out, trying to calm my thundering heart, I began to notice just how cold it was, and I mean freezing, like 12 degrees (I'm Australian, that's Freezing for me, OK!), and my Mr Grumpy Pyjamas were doing very little to prevent said cold. The fact that I had a high metabolism, (meaning I'm very skinny) didn't help either and soon my teeth were chattering despite the rays of sunlight. So as I lay there, freezing to death for, I don't know how long, probably five minutes, contemplating the strange situation I was in, I suddenly heard a rustling noise behind me.

I quickly sat up and whirled around, trying to say "who's there," but instead all that came out was a low grunt, making alarm bells ring at my constant failures at speaking, still it got the attention of whoever was behind the bushes as I saw a distinctly humanoid shape burst out from the bushes and run in the other way. I scrambled up and gave chase, making sure to avoid the rocks this time, and attempting to shout after them, but instead only got a loud shouting growling sound, almost a bark really, "that probably didn't help," I thought and decided to give serious thought as to what was happening to my voice later on, but right now, chasing took priority.

My quarry ran through the woods and as I chased them it became clear that I had woken up in a clearing, as the undergrowth was seriously thick, I had to slow down in order to avoid tripping over the numerous bushes and shrubs. Whoever I was chasing had no such problem and zipped through the undergrowth at startling speeds, and soon I lost them from sight completely. After running forward for a bit longer I eventually came to a stop at a nearby tree to catch my breath. "I need to work out some more," was all I could think as I stood there gasping for air, "now what?"

Then I heard something up ahead, some splashing, and some more rustling. "could be wild animals, but can probably wait them out, besides I need water," I stumbled through the forest before bursting through a particularly large shrub to see that I had come to the edge of a lake, and it had people near it! Nude people apparently, yes, there were about seven people there of mixed genders, including two children, who were splashing at the edge of the lake whilst the adults watched on from the shore, and none of them were wearing any clothes.

Upon my loud arrival though, all the adults turned around to look at me, giving me a nice eyeful of their privates. I hastily diverted my eyes upward, feeling quite certain I would be remembering that for some time, and looked at their faces as they stared at me. "Well this is awkward," was all my brain could think of before running blank, I considered trying to say hello to break to tension before remembering that I couldn't talk, so I just settled for waving sheepishly. It seemed to work though as one of the men pointed at me and began grunting, this was followed by the two other men and then the two women as they all began grunting at me while continuing to point at me. "OK, before, this was awkward, now its just weird," as I took a slow step back, figures I would run into a bunch of crazies first thing after waking up.

At my step back one of the men, took a step forward and began to grunt more aggressively, and now I began panicking again, "OK, crazy and angry, well time to leave," just as I went to turn around though the man was hit with a little zap of shiny blue light before falling over, seemingly unconscious. I just stood there dumfounded before I felt a sharp tingly feeling on my back, I then began to feel drowsy and fell over. I wish I could say that my last thoughts were some summary of my day today or even some quirky remark at my luck or how stupid and crazy this all had been, but really, my last thought as I slipped into unconscious was simply "what?"

Author's Note:

In case it wasn't obvious, I'm Australian so if I do something like say a temperature or distance, I mean it in Celsius and metric system , same goes for when I spell some things differently

Comments

[Maromar]

As I stretched my tired muscles, I threw a quick glance a my watch

Should be at

huh, five too eleven

Should be to.

"Aaaaah!" I quickly tried to run forward

Saying that he tried to run forward is enough, as the verb already implies rapidity, therefor, rendering the word "quickly" redundant. It is similar to saying; "As soon as Pinkie Pie's front hooves managed to circumvent my sides, she proceeded to relentlessly tickle away at my unprotected belly. I buckled and clamped down hard on my tongue but could only resist for a mere second before I burst into an uncontrollable fit of chuckling laughter ".

Repeating words with similar meanings and using them in support of the same clause can disrupt the flow of your text because it forces the reader to repeat the same action/feeling/thought over again in their heads, much like a lagging image on a tv screen. While one or two instances of this may not even be picked up by readers, if you end up allowing it to pass, you might just find yourself using it with enough regularity in later chapters to cause annoyance.

That aside, I like what you have thus far, I'll be watching this.