Travelle by Libby Graham (classic reads TXT) 📕

His hands covering his face; eyes peer out, over into the vast body of water. The sun is setting, pink and orange colours dance over the rippling waves, casting a reflection of perfection. Clouds roll gently by, fluffy and white. You hear the chirping and caws of birds in the distance, imagining the flapping of large wings as they soar slightly above the flowing waters. A ship, sails raised, catching the wind, flowing smoothly with the graceful current. A fish jumps, leaps out from the river, a gull narrowly missing it’s dinner. A man is swimming in the crystal clear water, his legs kicking softly as he makes his way up stream.
The boy gets up, feeling as if he’s had enough, the misery that had taken over his soul was gone now, hopefully to never return again. He starts to walk, his steps slow, synchronized with the beat of his heart. He takes the long way home, the scenic route.
He is suddenly surrounded by trees, barely enough room to move around. Branches litter the ground, causing even more trouble as he carefully treads on the moss covered soil. Leaves have fallen everywhere, and continue to as the boy walks forward, skipping leisurely through the dense forest. It begins to grow dark, and he picks up his pace, not wanting to be stuck in the woods during night fall.
A path is soon found by the boy, and he follows it up to a cave, just as darkness surrounds him. He feels for rock, but his hand only grazes over oddly shaped wood, and then a cold metal. He continues to search for the cave’s surface, but is again only met but the smooth wood. His hand falls upon the metal once more, and he soon discovers the caves secret. It does not have an opening for all to enter, only few can find it, let alone open the doors.

Swirling, twirling, spinning.
Hypnotizing, enchanting, enthralling.
Colours, brightness, far away is the lightest.
They mix together, into one large combination.
Changing the land, a portal within.
The time, it goes forward.
Yet the world spins faster.
Into a room,
That spider weds cover,
Something that seems,
Impossible to discover,
A world of portals,
Large and round,
Different lands and places,
To be seen and found

The boy feels sick as he steps out from a glowing blue disc. His legs are like jelly and his arms like spaghetti. He walks slowly away from it, his eye sight blurry. He can see blue hues, bright and morphed in his vision. The boy stumbles and barely catches himself, leaving him wobbling where he stands. As his vision clears, he is more aware of his surroundings. He slowly walks forward, gazing in awe at the bright round circles. It seems as if they are filled with a liquid, and curiously the boy reaches his hands into the substance.
He’s engulfed in a mushy, watery material, but can still breath, the thing had sucked him in. It was taking him somewhere, and he felt a sudden pang of déjà vu, as if he had been in this thing before. The liquid swam around him, speeding up, faster and faster it went. His eyes were open, the colours began to change, from an exceptional purple, to a dark yellow-ish colour, bright shades of green merging with the orange of the sun, creating a murky brown. Then it all stopped. The liquid-y substance ceased flow, and the colours paused at a glowing sky blue. The mushy matter pushed him from it, and the boy emerged into a strange land, a place like he had never seen or even imagined. A place like no other; Faylyn.

Buildings loomed in the distance, casting long shadows upon a blood red coloured floor. The tops of the skyscrapers reached the clouds, splitting them apart as they swam through the air. The boy saw no animals, no plants, only the buildings on the horizon where there should be houses, only the floor where there should be dirt, and only objects that looked kind of like fire hydrants where there should be cacti. He felt weightless as he began to walk, the amount of gravity like that of the moon.
The buildings drew closer every second, and he was soon gazed upon by the giant structures in all their glory. They seemed to go on forever, in height as well as distance. There were so many of these frightfully tall buildings.
The boy began to walk faster, his steps becoming urgent and quick. No people wandered through the streets, it was like a modernized ghost town. The boy’s pace gradually slowed as he became more comfortable with his surroundings, though they still felt oddly unearth-like.
“Beep, beep, beep!” The shrill noise sounded through the city, like a fire alarm in a school or office building. The loud screeching sound continued to blare, and as soon as it did stop it was replaced by a new sound, one completely different to the high pitched wailing of the beeps.
The streets became flooded with people, who looked strangely humanoid. The echo of chatter rose from the large crowd, like ash would from a volcano. They spoke a language that the boy was completely unfamiliar with, one that took English words and twisted them, spinning and mixing them up, then polluting them with new pronunciations and sounds. To the boy some of it sounded like to cats hissing at each other, preparing for a fight. Whereas other words were beautiful, flowing softly from their mouths like water from a pebbled stream.
Each person seemed to know where they were going, setting off like a spy on a mission. They all held their heads high and pushed their way through the crowd. When they all had entered a different building, the beeping noise sounded again, ringing in the boy’s ears. He found himself in one of the buildings, having been shoved into it by the numerous people heading in that direction.
He stood before a large glass fountain, droplets of water glistening in the sunlight that cascaded in from the floor to ceiling windows like diamonds. An ornate chandelier made of white gold hung from the shiny metal ceiling, the glass beads dangled from it precariously, like an icicle on a snow covered tree. The soft and calming sound of the fountain mixed with an intense whirring noise that came from another room.
The boy stepped up to a grand and poshly decorated door. He quietly opened it, pressing down the door knob and twisting it in a strange sort of way. The whirring noise was louder, making the boy press his hands to his ears and wince in pain. He coughed as an overwhelming stench of rotten fish and gravy found their way into his nostrils.
A large machine was situated in the middle of the cramped room. Boxes marked with strange symbols lined the walls, and a dark grey paint peeled off of them in long strips. The boy ducked around the contraption, plugging his nose and his ears, as this was where both the noise and the smell were coming from.
Behind the great big machine were pipes, rusty ones, shiny ones, black ones, and white ones, that were all attached from the machine and to the ceiling. There was also a hatch situated on the ground next to the many pipes that was painted a dark blue-green colour. As the boy was about to open it to see here it lead, a young girl, about the same age as he, emerged from it.
She wore a dirty, faded pair of jeans that rested low on her hips and a shirt that reached her thighs. The girls dirty blonde hair was tied in a messy pony tail. Her face was covered with oil and a charcoal-like substance and it was plastered with an expression of dread, as if she had been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to.
“English?” The boy asked, though knowing it was very unlikely that she would speak the same language as someone from another world.
She looked at him, she was awestruck rather than devastated, “Yes!” She replied, a smile playing on her lips. “I thought I was the only one here who knew English.”
The boy quickly decided whether he trusted this girl or not, “Well I’m not from this world, I’m from Earth. We speak English there... and other languages too.”
“Earth? Never heard of it. We speak English in my world too though. That’s pretty amazing when you think about it,” she paused for a moment. “I’m Lillian by the way.” She put out her hand for him to shake. He took it.
“Sam,” he said smiling, “Nice to meet you.”
“You too.”
 

Hinges squeaked as Lillian open the hatch that she had only moments ago appeared from. “Where does this lead?” Sam asked her.
“Shh... I already told you, it’s a surprise!” Lillian said smiling as she began to climb down the ladder.
“It’s really weird and gloomy down here Lillian, I can’t see a thing,” Sam complained as he was engulfed in darkness. “And this ladder isn’t very stable either, I feel as if I’m going to fall off of it.” He was beginning to get frightened, he was in an unknown place, in an unknown world, with an unknown girl.
“Quit your complaining, it’ll be light soon enough. There are some torches down in the caves,” she told him.
“Caves!?” Screamed Sam. “No one said anything about caves!”
Lillian kept her temper to herself, there was no point in getting mad at this boy who she had only just met, “No one told you anything about anything, so shut your yapper,” her emotions weren’t fully concealed.
The rest of the trip down was made in silence, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, it was a comfortable one. The ones you want to be in, like a quiet work space, or while watching clouds roll by in a hushed valley.