The Esoteric Occurence

Sam stumbled along in the dark. She was freezing, soaked to the bone and her boy cut hair was plastered to her head, splattered with mud. Her arms stung from various cuts and bruises and her bare feet had become numb a while ago. A part of her knew that she wasn’t going to make it; knew that she was going to be a second too slow. Sam was not the type of person to give up, though, so she kept going. Unfortunately, her foot chose that moment to get caught on a tree root and she tumbled down the muddy slope where another tree just seemed to be waiting for her. She groaned. That was going to be sore in the morning.  She began to pick herself up, but stopped when she saw a glint in the moonlight. What could that be? Maybe if it is something valuable then I can use it for money, she thought, but more than likely it’s just a reflection off the water. Still in the mud, she slowly made her way to the object. Although she had hit the tree pretty hard, there was no real damage done to her body. She crawled for the simple fact that the mud felt good on her aching skin.  The object was in front of her now, half-buried in the wet earth. Silver- it looks silver. I might be able to get a good deal for it at a pawn shop. As Sam was contemplating how much she could get for the silver object after she unearthed it, sounds cut through the forest. Sounds she wished she could forget forever. They were catching up to her. She quickly dug up her would-be fortune and ran in what she hoped was the direction she was running in before. It wouldn’t do her any good if she was dead or if it was in the ground. It was too late, though because in the time it had taken her to realize she had been caught up to and for her to dislodge the small silver gadget, they had surrounded her. Samantha Withern was doomed and she knew it. She closed her eyes and wished she was anywhere else than in that damned forest. Sam was about to attempt escape and probably die in the process, even though there wasn’t much of a difference. She died in both scenarios, but one was murder and the other suicide. She was preparing to open her eyes and run when she stopped.

            Something was different; a subtle change in temperature, smell, the feeling of the earth beneath her bare feet. She took a deep breath. Should she dare? Could she peek before she tried to get away only to find her worst nightmare staring back at her or keep them closed and take off blind? Sam inhaled… and opened her eyes.  “What the…?” Her brain had trouble processing what her eyes were seeing. She wasn’t in the forest anymore. It wasn’t even wet were she was. It was dry and a clear night; under a tree on the edge of a field. Maybe I am dreaming? Maybe I was dreaming and woke up?  She didn’t know and at the moment, quite frankly, didn’t really care. She was tired, sore and just glad that she wasn’t dead. The disappearing act would have to wait until the morning. She went to sit down by the old maple and realized she was still holding the silver object. She took a quick moment to look it over. It was pentagonal in shape and larger than she initially thought it was. It looked as if it had a faint bluish light emanating from it. Did it look like that before? It could be that her eyes were playing tricks on her. It wouldn’t have been the first time this night. Exhausted, she settled into a gap created by the ancient maple’s roots and closed her eyes. She fell asleep with the change of her surroundings on her mind; the shift of the earth on the pads of her feet. She wouldn’t wake until well after sunrise.

            The clatter of hooves on brick woke Samantha and she lazily opened her eyes. She jumped to her feet and examined her surroundings. I wasn’t that out of it, was I, to start hallucinating? She was standing now in the yard of a Victorian style house under a magnolia tree. Well, the “under a tree” part hadn’t changed much, but a whole lot of other things had.  There were coaches, the streets were cobblestoned, and the people were dressed weird with long poufy dresses and trench coats. Where the heck am I? She did not remember any of this. How did she get from the field to here in this person’s yard? And then she remembered even more. How did she get inches away from imminent death to the field? Her head started to hurt. It was all so unreal, she half expected to wake up in yet another random place. Maybe she was asleep, but where did she fall asleep then- in the forest, in the field, or someplace else? Was she going crazy? Sam had to sit down. She didn’t feel crazy, but people who are crazy think that they’re completely sane, right? So didn’t that mean that she was sane because she thought she was crazy? It was twisted, but had its own sense of logic. She sighed deeply and put her head in her hands. She just wanted to lay down in a comfortable bed and go to sleep; she did not want to have to deal with this or anything else that had happened to her lately. Not wanting to give up, though, her brain slowly put the pieces together. When it finally clicked it was atomic. The realization hit her so hard that she literally fell while sitting down. She had been at three different places and all within minutes if not seconds apart, as well, with no indication to how far away from each other they may have been. But how is that possible, Sam thought. As she lay on her back and stared into the heavens, she wondered if they would reveal the answers she sought. How was it possible for her to go from one place to another in the blink of an eye? People were starting to notice her and based on what they were wearing, how they acted, and how they spoke… let’s just say Dorothea wasn’t in Kansas anymore. So that meant time travel. Great. That meant time travel and teleportation; a part of her argued that she just wasn’t being rational anymore, while another argued the sense it made. It would explain the different places she ended up in and the reason they looked so different; especially the Victorian get-up staring her straight in the face. She began to dissect the information bit by bit trying to find what caused her to teleport or “time travel”. Sam began to toss her treasure back and forth to give her hands something to do; right, left, right, too far left. She over-shot one of the little tosses and her object ended up in the dirt. That was it! Her little pentagonal silver thingy allowed her to move through time and space. It was the only thing that had really changed since her crazy journey. The object had to be it. Now that it was light outside she could make out strange, unfamiliar designs and symbols in the metal. She wanted to test her theory.  Before, it seemed as if all she had to do was think of another place, really want to be there, and she would arrive there or someplace similar. Perhaps that was all she had to do now. What could happen, Sam thought. It’s not as if I could hurt myself. Her own remark, however subconscious it might have been, got her thinking and she hesitated. What if she could hurt herself? What if her arm landed in Cairo, her leg in Moscow and the rest of her fell in New York? Any other person might have backed down or perhaps they would have just said “screw it” as Sam did. Samantha was not a quitter and she had to prove it to everyone constantly - sometimes that included herself. That was the reason that after taking a deep breath, Sam appeared about ten feet away. She landed directly in front of a moving horse and carriage about two hours in the future.

Author's Note

The title is a little weird, but what the Hey! That's what I'm all about. :)

Reviews

[ScottWinchester]

Foremost, I see that you have a talent for writing. Trust me, that isn't something I just say to others in reviews... I mean it. The structure of your sentences and the atmosphere that you create evidences this.

There's no need for me to critique it; what work of fiction is ever perfect? Yes, I do see the occasional hiccup here and there, as I do in my own work, as I do in even published writer's works. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that you do possess a natural eye and ear for creative writing and that can be built upon wonderfully if you choose to.

Rule number one? Enjoy what you do; if you enjoy it, so will we, usually. Rule number two? Read as much as you possibly can.

After that, it's all good ;)

- SW

[Joe Walters]

I like it. Well written, with a few errors here and there but the structure was put together well, although I could envision the first paragraph a little shorter. Things to work on could be word selection in description. (For example- "crazy journey" could be intoxicating, insane, unbelievable, or anything using an adverb and adjective) I liked the fact that we don't know what she's running from. It was interesting and had the opportunity for metaphor. But, must I point out, that the moral of the story, "if you take a risk you will die," saddened me a bit, even though I know you weren't attempting for that to stand out to the reader. Good idea for the ending, but I think, a quick rewrite of the ending could keep the same story, but with the addition of a sentence after or before such as "she was glad she tried" type of sentence could lighten the moral a bit. Thanks for the submission, I enjoyed it, and I hope we can read each other's work more in the future

[Monster]

Thank you for your input. I will edit it as soon as possible. I had planned on going over all of my writing again anyways, but thanks! This really helped. I knew there were certain things that it needed, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.