Unnamed Scottish Highland Adventure - Chapter 1: The Hunter [NANOWRIMO13]

It was pitch black around the house, the only light coming from the moon and from the light reflected in the eyes of the night creatures roaming around the neighbouring forest. This was the time that people just started to stir in their comfortable beds and animals were finishing up their forage and getting ready to crawl into their own beds.

The dew-filled grass left a thick layer of moisture on Ernest's wellies high enough to slip slowly down his jeans. But it was a comfortable jolt of freshness to his sleep numbed mind. He walked through the forest with a clear goal in mind, a small hill about 3 miles further, with a clear look over a large field featuring the ruins of an old mansion, abandoned for centuries, and surrounded by lots and lots of rabbits. A feast for a hobby hunter like him and a feast for his wife, who was definitely still in their comfortable bed. He would usually come here once or twice a month, fill up his knapsack with about five or six juicy rabbits and bring them back to hang in his shed, waiting for the delicious cooking skills of Mary, the love of his life.

As he walked through the forest, his steps lit up by the faint moonlight, he didn't see the rather large eyes following him through the bushes. If he had, he would have lost much of his composure, as these eyes were large and black with inhuman or un-animal-like red irises piercing into his back. Shortly after, the eyes blinked very slowly once and didn't come back. 

Ernest didn't have much else to his name other than family. That he had lots of. Children and grandchildren and those would certainly have children too before Mary and him passed away. Ernest a farmer and Mary a baker, at some point decided that enough is enough and retired into their little cottage at the edge of the forest. But that didn't protect them from babysitting duties, even if some of those 'babies' were fifteen years old. It was weekend days like this that Ernest cherished and he was sure Mary appreciated the private time without him too. 

He arrived at the edge of the forest. It was a brisk walk up the slanted hill structure that looked like god's hand had come down and pulled up a slab of grass partially and then forgotten about it. If he were to shoot a rabbit, he'd usually try to get a few more, just to save him the walk down. Not like there were predators other than him anyway. 

Mary would sometimes make fun of him, going on his little hunts against these "fearless creatures," something he easily brushed off because he saw if all as practice for hunting bigger prey. From day one, he pretended to be hunting deers that could sniff him upwind and with their big ears detect his movement from hundreds of metres away. Well that last part, he knew, applied to rabbits as well. So, perhaps 30 metres off the top, he secured his gun on his back and started to crawl and pausing for long time if he broke a twig or made another noise. Sometimes if it was raining, he would smear stripes of dirt on his cheeks and forehead, much to Mary's amusement, to prevent his imaginary deer prey from smelling him. Not this time though. 

His gun was an old Remington. His grandfather had owned it, and it had been passed down straight to him. His father, the town drunkard, hadn't had much interest in guns, preferring to beat his son for sport. One day, when he was twelve, after a rather heavy beating, he limped to his grandfather's house, who would usually just let him in silently, give him some soup, and send him right back. That time, however, had been different. He took one look at Ernest's bruised face, let him in, then hugged him. "No more," he whispered. Ernest started living with him then and that was when grandfather would take him hunting for rabbits and teach him how to shoot straight. It wasn't much of a childhood but enough to not scar him too much emotionally. His father passed away in Ernest's mid twenties. It was easy for him not to go to his funeral. 

He got to the edge of the hill. The first thing he did was get out his infrared binoculars slowly. They were in one of the side pockets on his shoulder sleeve. He would usually just look for pockets of rabbits first. The game he liked to play was to find out where they would be most likely to hide, so when he shot hits first and the rest ran off, he would roughly know where to look for them. Every so now and then a rabbit would move off to his resting place and come back again. He'd make a mental mark of those spots. 

There was not a single rabbit on the field of grass. This was a first for Ernest in well over 20 years! He scanned every corner, but no movement could be detected. Finally, he took a closer look at the ruin. It was a place that people in the region had learned to avoid over the years. There was no tangible evidence of its evilness, but people blamed it for all kinds of disappearances that had happened for decennia if not centuries. Whenever something happened like that, someone would eventually shout or whisper it out; at this point it sounded more like the tale you would tell children to not be bad. At least that's the way it sounded to Ernest. His grandfather, not a talkative man, had never shown any indication of what he bought of the ruins, but he had also never taken Ernest inside. They would shoot their rabbits and leave, without approaching it. 

He could now see lights inside and he thought he could see movement. Rather than being afraid, he felt anger at what were probably just kids that had decided to camp there and had scared away Ernest's prey. He decided that he needed to reach those punks a lesson. Next, the arduous walk downhill, which required him to backtrack partially the way he came, until he could essentially go around the hill, which stuck out as a cliff over the field. That was a large part of Ernest's frustration, a long walk that he tended to reserve for retrieving his reward, not too tell off a bunch of idiots that this was not their hotel. It started to rain; he cursed for not having taken more than his coat, which offered some protection, and boots. He considered going back, but it was Mary's face—half amused, half disappointed—that prevented him from doing so. After a lot more cursing, he finally arrived at the field, he ruins in full view. 

He could clearly see the light now. It came from one of the windows on the 1st floor. He briefly wondered why no one had done this before. Then, seeing that there was no roof or any kind of isolation from rain or the cold, he concluded it could only be kids on a dare. Who else would be so stupid to... He pressed his lips together, took his gun from his shoulder and kept walking. It would teach who ever was there a good, good lesson. Even if he had no prey tonight, it would hopefully restore his cherished hunting spot. 

The ruin was originally made out of grey limestone (!fact check!). From what he knew of the place, it had belonged to an ancient clan that had eventually been slaughtered by a rival clan, as so many had, after which it had been pillaged and burned, never to be inhabited again. It now looked black in many places, which made it harder to see during the nighttime when Ernest came out here. He walked up to the wall underneath the window and listened closely for any sounds coming out. There was nothing, except perhaps that the wind started blowing harder. He walked around the building for which, he knew, there as a door somewhere on the other side. He couldn't even remember when the last time was that he entered here, perhaps as a kid with his grandfather, but he wasn't sure. In any case, he couldn't remember what it looked like at all. 

The doorframe was rather large, enough to fit a few horsemen through at once, he imagined. It had a type of gargoyle, burned particularly black, above the door. Its head was cut off, making it look like a rather pathetic little dwarf with wings. At least that's what he told himself as he walked into the courtyard. There were stairs to the right and the left circling around the empty square, and both ending at another doorframe that lead into the building and the first floor. He wasn't really comfortable here, his only companions the moonlight, the rifle that he clutched a little tighter, and an eery silence.

He looked around for shadows or signs of the people staying here. Nothing. Finally, he called out: "Anybody there?" Softly at first, then louder. No response. Ernest had always been a courageous man, toughened up by his childhood, there were few things in the world that he imagined could scare him. But this place, the silence, it seriously creeped him out. Still, calling back the many times that he took a leap of faith, he took the first step up the stairs. It wasn't high to the first floor, but he still leaned against the wall when he arrived at the platform outside of the door. Again, he called out to perhaps wake some stoned campers. Again, he was greeted with silence, though he could hear the wind now, perhaps blowing through some window. It was unimaginable that anyone was here, but perhaps there had been recently and that caused the rabbits to disappear. 

He went into the corridor, which lead to the room. Even though it was ancient, the construction felt remarkably elaborate. Very different from other historical sites he had come across in Scotland. Funny that he didn't remember it. He followed the corridor that lead around the courtyard to different rooms, each of which were just openings with whatever was inside burned away. Then, he arrived to the room where he knew he should be. 

This one was different, it had a door. A solid wooden door that looked untouched by the elements affecting everything else. Maybe, and he realised how gullible that sounded, someone was restoring the building? He tried the handle, the door opened easily ... to an empty room. There was nothing inside. Ernest could see the window that he had seen from the outside, just a hole, much like the rest, but for the rest the room was empty... and dark. There was no sign of the light he had seen from the outside, apart from the door, it looked as abandoned as the rest. 

He didn't realise, but he had moved into the room. As he looked around, still nothing. The door had closed behind him. What was going on? Ernest felt a flash of anxiety. He now knew that this wasn't normal. If his was a dream, it wasn't a good one. He stepped back to the door and pulled the handle. Again, it opened easily. Where he expected the corridor to be, a big shadow stood, in it he could see rapidly moving textures of blackness. 

Outside, a rabbit's nose peeked out of a hiding place. It sniffed the freshness of the air. You could see the little head appear and look around. A loud, piercing scream could be heard. The rabbit briefly turned towards where it came from. It was the ruin and the window on the first floor looked like it was ablaze. It quickly turned around and fled back into its hole. 

~

The box like object glided through the corridor as if it was on wheels. It was in fact floating as the creature behind it followed. The box was made of something semi transparent. Inside, you could occasionally see movement. Ever so now and then an face would press against the side and you could recognise Ernest, screaming. Then it would disappear in a spinning jumble, as if in a laundromat, and you would see endless movement. A door slid open and behind it you could see a green glow. A face pressed against the side of the box looking briefly at the creature. It wasn't Ernest, it had glowing red eyes and teeth that could rip flesh apart like it was nothing. It looked like it was screaming before it disappeared behind the shutting door. 

The creature turned and mumbled something. Then it disappeared. 

Plastic Dream, Part 1

Inspired by the song "On Melancholy Hill" by the Gorillaz. 

"Up on melancholy hill

There's a plastic tree

Are you here with me

Just looking out on the day

Of another dream"

~

"Wake up!"

The boy looked around him. He was outside on a field of grass. Everywhere he looked, a green perfectly flat landscape, except for what seemed like a hill. It was hard to distinguish because the hill was just as green as the grass. But there seemed to be a swelling in the midst of this greenness, a swelling of undetermined mass. It even seemed, to the boy, to be increasing in size as he got closer.

It didn't take long for him to reach the foot of the hill, which now appeared to loom steeply above the boy. As he looked up, he could distinguish an otherness, something other than grass and its constant companion, a bright blue sky. He squinted his eyes to make out what it was. It nearly seemed like a tree. A tree? The boy thought. He could climb it and perhaps see more of where he was.

As he mounted the grassy hill, he tried to think about where he had been before. He couldn't remember. Whenever he tried, it always felt like a hard and cold barrier was blocking his brain from passing to his memories. Hard, cold, and white like… metal? Thinking this hard made him uncomfortable as if he shouldn't even try. It also made him feel weird. His body felt weird as if his limbs weren't really his to command.

The tree was close, very close, but he suddenly felt his legs give out from underneath him. Did he get stuck, he wondered as he fell to the ground. He looked beneath him, at his torso which looked different than he imagined and finally at his legs, which… were gone. Under his torso, which looked as hard, cold, and white metallic looking as the barrier to his memories, there was nothing. He didn't understand.

He looked up again and the tree was right there within the grasp of his hands. He stretched them out, equally hard, cold, white metallic fingers reached for the trunk of the tree. He touched it but instead of the coarse texture of bark, it was smooth and flat like plastic. As he pushed more he felt the tree give away and move away from him. It fell flat onto the ground. It looked like a picture of a tree painted on the grassy hill.

A large bolt of despair rushed through the body and mind of the boy. Where was he, why was nothing as it appeared? Where would he go? He looked around again and saw nothing that would offer a hint to any of these questions. There was only him, the grassy hill, the flat plastic tree, and the blue sky. But he did feel heat and as he turned around on his back, he could see that the sky wasn't blue any more, instead it was a flaming orange circle of fire that seemed to be growing in mass the longer he looked.

"Wake up!"

The boy felt his hands give away and without looking knew that they were no longer there. Pretty soon there would only be, perhaps, his consciousness.

"WAKE UP!"

He opened his eyes, only to look at an elderly gentleman, white-haired with the broadest moustache imaginable. On of his rather sizeable nose was a very petite pair of glasses, at least relative to everything else. The man smiled, showing his yellowed crooked teeth. "At last, you are here." He reached out with his hand and patted him on the head. It made a hollow sound. "Not quite here." The man made the exaggerated grimace of a sad face. It didn't seem quite sincere.

The man walked to the back of his workshop, with lights sparking up as he stood underneath them. There were literately little sparks flying off the lamps onto the man's bald spot on the back of his head. The boy wasn't sure if it was because they were broken or because of a reaction to the man's presence. The man retrieved a tool from the back of the workshop and something that he balled into his hand, away from the boy's site. The light dimmed behind the man as he returned.

"Let's take care of that little problem, shall we?" The man took the screwdriver and unscrewed something above the boys head. He could hear the screw falling down his skull and onto the floor as the man grabbed both sides and started to pull. Apparently it was difficult, because he stood up and pushed his big stomach against the boy's face. Finally, hearing a loud pop, he pulled something loose, stumbling back a little before sitting down again.

He held what looked like the top of a skull in his hand, but made of the same material as he saw in his dream. He then placed it next to the boy out of sight, and started tinkering with it. He was busy for well over 30 minutes before sitting back down and holding it up for the boy to admire. It looked completely different.The colour had changed from white to a light pink skin-like shade and it had a bush of brown hair attached to it. That must have been what the man had balled in his hand. He placed the part on top of the boy's head gain, he could hear a hiss and a click, and finally he screwed the screw back in. The man then reached around the boy's head, his stomach pressing against him again. He first thought that it was a hug, but then everything turned black.

~

He woke up on the grassy hill again. The sun was shining and he felt warm. Next to him was the plastic tree, stretching high into the sky as if the previous incident never happened. The boy leaned on his arms and raised his legs up to his knees, both of which were re-attached to his body. He tried to block away any thoughts of what had transpired in the workshop, but felt panicked and trapped. He had to leave this place and leave the man who seemed to be assembling him as if he was a toy.

At least here, it seemed, he was free but it was hard to tell for how long. He decided to resume his original plan of climbing the tree to see if he could find a way out. The tree wasn’t flat anymore, but instead its trunk appeared to be made of wood, at least feeling the texture of the bark it felt rough and alive. He could get a good grip on it and the lower branches were within reach if he managed to climb a metre or so above him. He didn’t think long and just reached around it and grabbed it with both hands, using his feet as a lever to lift him up a short distance at a time. Soon enough, his head reached the first branches and he could use them to push himself farther up. The tree was solid enough for him to get to the top, standing with both feet on a branch and using the tip as a pole to lean against, while peering into all directions.

To the left of him, which he guessed was the West as the sun was floating in that direction, was a desert-like land, a reddish brown and flat, with as its only distinguishing feature a shiny blue mass, which could be water reflecting the sun. Every other direction was as green as the hill he was on. So, he decided to head there. Perhaps there was someone there that could help him move across the desert.

As he climbed down the tree, he suddenly felt a branch collapsing under his weight. He tried to reach for another branch, but it was too late. He was falling with the ground racing towards him. He started to scream, but could only utter a little yelp before his face hit the grass. It didn’t hurt. He knew that he must have fallen at least 5 metres or more, but he might as well have sat down on a  chair. He got up, realising that even if he wasn’t quite normal, he was extraordinary. And that thought made his heart soar, where it previously had felt pressured. Even if he was lost and trapped, he couldn’t get hurt. He felt so free that he started to run downhill, jumping and tumbling towards the desert.

It was hours later and he hadn’t stopped running. He felt perfectly energised, his motivation in part to beat the sun that was sinking and to find out what else there was out there. The sun started to set when he reached something that stopped him dumbfounded. The brown mass that he saw hadn’t been land at all, it was an incredibly large amount of brown-furred donkeys. There were donkeys next to donkeys, donkeys on top of donkeys, and even donkeys that were just lying there, sleeping, while other donkeys just stepped above them. They donkeys, obviously, mostly grazed furiously at the grass, much of which had disappeared, leaving behind the loose dirt underneath. A large brown mass of donkeys and dirt.

The boy wasn’t ignored though. One of the donkeys, apparently wearing a jacket and a hat, looked at him and started honking loudly. Soon, other donkeys turned towards him, many of them wearing clothes as well, started honking in unison with the instigator. He felt like perhaps this wasn’t the best place to be, but he had no other choice but to walk forward.

As he approached the first donkey, it first looked at him intently through its dark eyes, but then it moved to let him pass. The next donkey repeated this behavior, and the next, and the next. Some honked at him, but most stayed silent. 

As he moved deeper into the herd of animals he came upon one that wouldn't move. A chubbier donkey than the others, it just stood there looking at him, sadly it seemed to the boy. He approached it slowly, only its head responding to his movement. When he tried to squeeze past it, the donkey moved closer to its neighbouring donkey, blocking his path. When he tried to crawl under it, its hooves kicked out sharply into the air, making him flinch away. He finally picked up the nerve to crawl over it but, just as he sat down backwards on the animal, it turned and started to move into the direction that the boy needed to go to. He had found a ride.

After hours of shaking--the boy had tried not to fall asleep out of fear of waking up in the workshop again--the donkey stopped. They were at the blue shiny mass that he had spotted from a distance, it was a large lake surrounded by thousands of donkeys, some drinking, some sleeping, some swimming in the water. He could only faintly see the other side, but he thought he detected human-looking figures, children it looked like, standing there. He tried shouting and waving, but he didn't think that they could hear or see him.

He had to get to them. He pressed his feet against the donkey's flanks, but it just stood there, unflinchingly. He slapped it, but no reaction at all. When he finally kicked the animal again, it suddenly surged forward towards the water, breaking abruptly before, causing the boy to fly over its head straight into the water. He dove in head first, and tried to react as quickly as he could, but all he could do was sink. Apparently his body wasn't designed for swimming. He tried to breathe, but all that happened was that water came into his lungs so he held his breath.

He sank for what felt like forever. The water kept getting darker and looking up, he could see a bit of light very, very far above him. Finally his feet landed in soft sand. He looked around him. No indication of what direction to take. There was nothing left to do except start walking, hopefully he would reach one of the edges of the lake.

Holding his breath didn't seem to be a problem, making him wonder again what he was exactly. He couldn't get hurt, as his tree fall had proven, he didn't need oxygen, and he certainly couldn't float. His only clue was the workshop and seeing the man just take off the top of his head, which still made him flinch inside, more than the thought of being stuck at the bottom of the sea did.

He hadn't walked very far when he saw a shadow on his right. It was small at first, but kept getting bigger. He stood there, more curious than anything else, hoping that it would help him out of this situation. As it got closer, he still couldn't discern its exact shape. Suddenly, it moved above him and he could see that it was a rather large fish with a white underbelly. Large may be an understatement, it could easily be as big as a house. The creature just floated past him and he looked at it until it turned into another shadow disappearing in the other direction.

He kept walking, sunk in thought about the events that had transpired since his "birth" into this world. He didn't know whether this was the dream, in which case it was an adventurous one, or whether the workshop was a dream, in which case it was a nightmare, or at least the beginnings of one. He remembered the sparkling lights above the man's head, his crooked yellow teeth, and his insincere smile. He wasn't sure if the man was evil and had imprisoned him, or if he was rather setting him free. He liked where he was now and even though his memories were blank he could see himself transforming into that what he most wished to be: human. Though his current body did come with some advantages, he smiled.

Suddenly, he felt a bump on his back. It was soft at first and he didn't feel particularly alarmed while turning around. But then the bump was harder and he stumbled forward. As he fell on his behind, he could see an enormous grin in front of him. White long teeth filled the mouth of the biggest fish he could imagine. It was a whale in fact, likely the same one that had floated above him. He couldn't see its eyes but suddenly teeth floated apart, the mouth opened, and the creature swooped forward, inhaling the boy with it.

To be continued (after Nanowrimo)...