I held the object in my hand as Callie leaned over my shoulder to look at it. "What do you think it does?" she asked.
"No idea." It was cold against my skin and I regretted ever picking it up. Without thinking, I closed my hand around it. Immediately, the world started to spin around me. I screamed out for Callie, but by the time the room stood still... I was alone.
I opened my hand.
I held the hourglass in my hand as Callie leaned over my shoulder to look at it. "What do you think it does?" she asked.
ReplyDelete"No idea." It was cold against my skin and I regretted ever picking it up. Without thinking, I closed my hand around it. Immediately, the world started to spin around me. I screamed out for Callie, but by the time the room stood still... I was alone.
I opened my hand and looked at the hourglass and the grains of sand that mostly filled the right side of the hourglass. A few grains had fallen into the other side. Had they been there before I grabbed the hourglass?
I sat crosslegged on the rich loam that felt moist to my touch, but it must have been sterile because I could see out to the horizon in the dim gray light and not a single plant blocked my view. The dim light was similar to the amount of light that had lit the roads when Callie and I had bicycled out to the dam last summer. Yet, here the heavens lacked moon or stars.
I set the hourglass on the ground and watched the grains of sand slide back into the bottom glass with all the others. I picked it up, closed my eyes, and hoped to feel dizzy. I opened my eyes and the dim plain still stretched before me. I slammed the hourglass to the ground so it stood upside down and leaned over it as I gripped it in both hands while I kneeled on the ground. But I was still here.
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
I scrambled to my feet and looked around, but I still didn't see anyone. "Who's there?"
"That won't get you home. I left that hourglass on your world. It's a one-way ticket to here."
"But," my eyes started to tear and I blinked them but my voice still wavered, "how do I get home?"
"I need you to do something for me. If that works out, maybe I'll send you home." He laughed and a wind swept across the desolate plain.
Congratulations Suzanne on the "Naughty List"'s debut.
ReplyDelete