More updates. I'm currently working on a transition into the fantasy realm that doesn't feel weird or out of place. At this page's point in the story, the characters are deep in the woods, after starting the wolf hunt. They follow tracks down to the 'portal', and stuff starts happening.
***
Not wanting to break anything, you take the incline down. There are more tracks down there, but they go...right into the stone wall.
"Uhh..." Gabe stutters. "That's not a thing wolves do right? Do they just disappear?" He's the only one to even open his mouth. You and your friends stare in disbelief at what you see.
"There has to be some....maybe....maybe they just wiped off the mud, and that's why there aren't any more tracks," offers Damion, but you all know what bullshit that is. There is simply no explanation for what's in front of you.
"The only way they could have gone is...through the wall," you say. You think about how stupid that sounds, but what other explanation do you have? As your group continues to stare in awe, you hear a rustling behind you. Everyone turns around to see a lone wolf standing in the treeline. For a moment, everyone is silent. Wayne is white with terror (Well, he was already pretty pale, but, like...paper white).
Sammy is the first to act. He takes his stick and slaps the ground with it. "Begone, beast!" Your body is pulsing with adrenaline. You're expecting the wolf to jump out and devour Sammy, but it doesn't. It simply turns around and leaves.
"Well," Damion says after the wolf is gone, "Now we know they're here."
"That still doesn't explain the wall phenomenon," you point out. You stare at the tracks, trying to think of a way the animals could have changed direction, or buried the tracks, but nothing comes to mind. Suddenly, the rustling comes back, and the wolf is at the treeline again. This time, you aren't as scared.
"I thought I made myself clear! Begone beast!" yells Sammy, and he almost looks like he's about to walk up to the wolf. As you open your mouth to stop him, the wolf backs up and lowers itself. The hair on the back of its neck stands up.
"Sammy," you whisper, "Sammy, no..." Sammy seems to catch on to the fact that something is wrong, and backs up, but he's too late. The wolf launches out of the brush, barreling towards Sammy. Panicked, you throw the rock, but it hits the ground far behind the wolf. You expect to see the wolf pounce on Sammy, but instead it brushes past him, and leaps directly into the wall.
A slight ripple is created, as if the wall was liquid.
The five of you stand there, frozen, in complete, dead silence. Your mind rushes to make sense of what you just saw. That was no trick of the light. That just happened. Finally, you drop to your knees. The stone wall is still rippling from the collision.
You sit in silence for a few more minutes.
Sammy, being the brave idiot he is, is the first to approach the wall. Had you been in a good mental state, you would've reached out to stop him, but you're still waiting to wake up from whatever crazy dream this is. Sammy slowly approaches the wall, and reaches out to touch it.
Finally, you come to your senses. "Sammy, wait!" You get up and rush over, but you're too late. Sammy is pulled into the wall, and disappears just as quickly as the wolf did. You stop, right in front of the wall. The surface looks...fake, somehow, like this isn't a stone wall at all, but a detailed cover for something else. This can't be the same wall you've climbed for years. You put your hand out to touch it yourself.
Now, normally, this isn't something you would be doing, but the wall has some sort of property that attracts you to it. As soon as your fingers come in contact with the stone, your world changes completely. You're on a different plane of existence to the rest of the woods around you. Time seems to slow down, the idle noises of the forest die out, and you are traveling.
Traveling, through some sort of tunnel of light, watching things go by, people, things, entire timelines dying and being born right in front of you. Are you dead? Is this what happens after you die?
No.
Eventually, you regain consciousness. Consciousness in your body. You're lying facedown on the grass, in a forest. But not the forest. Not your forest. There's no stone wall in sight. The trees are towering, with thick vines that you've never seen wrapping around them. The grass is thicker, fuller than the clearing you know. You look around, for something familiar...
Sammy!
He's laying there too, facing the sky. He looks visibly shaken up, like he was in a car crash. He's breathing slowly, very slowly. Soon you become aware of others, Damion, Wayne, and eventually Gabe. You're all here, but....
Where are you?
***
Since I'm telling this from the kid's point of view, I'm trying to make the warping journey from the real world to the fantasy one kind of ambiguous, but I've rewritten it five times. Especially looking for feedback on the way the character feels once he's traveling, and when he arrives. Is this a good transition? If not, how could I make it make sense and not feel out of place,but at the same time make it ambiguous and nonspecific? This isn't just a main character, I'm attempting to tell a story from the point of view of a young kid who doesn't have the best judgment, and certain things (portals to other worlds, for example) go over his head. But, yeah, criticize away.
