Hey people.
Someone suggested this to me and I thought it would be a great idea. This excerpt is taken from Meeting Death (Kensey's Story). It starts in the beginning of the third chapter and ends a little bit after the Kindle Sample ends. I hope this encourages you to want to read the rest. (Any mistakes such as fusion of words, etc. happened during the copy and pasting process).
Here it is!
“What?” she repeated, following him as he walked past her.
“That, over there,” He pointed into a small patch of woods. “See, look.”
“What?” Lee panted as he ran up behind them.
“Looks like a well,” Kensey said as they approached it.
“It is a well,” William said. “See.”
“What’s a well doin’ here?” Lee asked.
“I don’t know.”
All three peeked into the well. Kensey held her hat to her head so it wouldn’t fall. The well was old, from the looks of it, with moss growing through the cracks. All they saw when they looked inside was nothing but blackness.
“It’s dark; dark like the grave!” Lee said in an Italian accent that he imitated from his Sly Cooper game. He always speaks with funny accents.
“Da-a-ang, that’s a deep well!” Kensey exclaimed.
“Did you guys know this was here?” William asked.
“Nope,” they both said.
Lee walked over to the other side of the well and found a rock the size of a tennis ball.
“Good idea, Lee!” William said.
“Thanks,” Lee muttered without looking at William as he tossed the rock into the well. William, Kensey, and Lee tilted their heads and listened. Moments passed and nothing was heard.
“That’s odd,” William said.
“Oh my gosh! There’s a ladder,” Kensey finally noticed. A wooden ladder was nailed to the inside of the well below where they stood.
“How far does it go down, I wonder?” William said more to himself. The two shrugged. “So, who wants to go down there first?”
Everyone looked at one another.
“I’m not goin’ down there—” Kensey said and then was interrupted.
“Not it!” William shouted.
“Not it!” Lee yelled around the same time William did.
“Not it! Ah, dangit!” Kensey shouted. “Wait, that’s not fair; I wasn’t ready.”
“Well, Lee wasn’t either,” William reminded her.
“How is it you can catch that pretty quickly, but you can’t catch a joke just as fast?” she asked her brother, putting her hands on her hips.
“Because I’m not stupid. Duh!” Lee said, slumping his shoulders.
“Let’s just do it again, ok?”
“Nuh uh, Kensey,” Lee added.
“We’ll do it again,” William agreed. “One, two, three— not it!”
All three said “not it” at the same time over and over again.
“Ok, this is stupid,” Kensey said.
“Yeah, you’re right,” William agreed.
“Well, I’m not goin’ down there,” Lee said.
“Lee, if you go down there first, I’ll play Halo 3 with you when you get it, ok?” Kensey said.
“That’s not ‘till Christmas, though. And I don’t want you to play it with me anyway.”
“I’ll watch you then.”
Lee seemed to be giving in by the look on his face. For months, Lee would want Kensey to watch him play one of his video games, but they were Godzilla, Halo, and Spore; not to Kensey’s taste. She was more of a Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy and scary PC games kind of gamer.
“I am not goin’ down there,” he said again.
“Well, neither am I,” William added.
“Well, me neither!” Kensey said.
“Ladies first, Kensey,”
“Yeah, ladies first, Kensey,” Lee repeated. “Wait, you’re a lady?”
“Very funny, Lee,” Kensey said, annoyed. “So, are you goin’ to go first or not?”
Lee’s smile faded almost immediately and William laughed.
“No!” Lee said.
“Kensey, just go,” William urged.
“Oh, whatever…scaredy-cat,” Kensey said, giving in. She took off her jacket, boots, and hat. “Here, hold these,” and she gave them to William. “Here, Lee, you hold this,” she said, giving the cell phone to Lee.
William gasped, “You still don’t trust me?” he asked playfully. “That hurts, you know.”
“Oh, shut up,” Kensey said as she climbed over the well as slowly as she could. “Hey, Lee, I’ll try to bring you back some new Nunchuks.”
William chuckled.
“Huh?” Lee asked with a confused look. Apparently he didn’t get the joke (like always).
“Just in case I end up in China, Lee. It was a joke, ok? Geez.” She shook her head at William.
“What?”
“Explain that to him, William,” Kensey asked, a little flustered with Lee.
William explained the simple joke to Lee as Kensey climbed down the well. Finally, Lee got it and laughed. “Oh! Hey, could you bring me back some Chinese Checkers and one of those triangle hat thingies.”
“Yeah! No wait—” She climbed back up the ladder. “I don’t want to go to China anymore.”
“Who wants to go to China?” William added.
“Not me,” Lee replied.
“I’d rather go to Japan.”
“Yeah!”
“Ok, well, if I’m not back in five minutes, I’ll probably be in Narnia. So don’t come get me,” Kensey teased as she headed back down the ladder. William chuckled and Lee rolled his eyes.
As Kensey descended the ladder, she glanced upwards to see the boys watching her. As she entered the darkness below, something strange happened. With every step she took, the darkness below her moved down too. She experimented by taking one leg off the ladder and extending it downward into the darkness. The darkness retreated further. Or was the ladder moving up? It didn’t feel like it was moving up. She put her leg back on the ladder rung and the darkness followed. Either way, she kept moving downward. Looking up again at William and Lee, she noticed that their faces were fading away. They looked like little dots.
“Hey, guys!” Kensey called out to them.
“What?” she heard faintly, but couldn’t make out who had said it.
“Can you guys hear me?!” she called again. No answer.
With that, she climbed back up.
“Hey, didn’t you guys hear me?” she asked as she stopped at the top of the well.
“Barely,” Lee said.
“We could barely see you either,” William added. “So what’s down there?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t gotten to the bottom yet,” Kensey answered.
“Well, keep going until you touch bottom.”
“Ugh, fine.”
Kensey climbed back down the ladder, and when she passed the point where she had stopped earlier, she looked up; their faces were blurrier than before. She kept going. Maybe this did lead to Narnia. Or something like Narnia. Either way, it was a different world below. That’s what kept her going. Kensey loved the stories of Narnia and Harry Potter and others like them. She was going to find a new world. Then it’d be her world.
When she looked back up again, she didn’t see anything. Not William. Not Lee. Just blackness. Total darkness. However, she could see her hands clearly. It was almost as if there was a light surrounding her and following her as she climbed down. Darkness below her. Darkness above her. Not around her.
“Hey, guys!” she called out. Again, no answer. Giving up, she continued to climb down. When was she ever going to reach to the bottom? Suddenly, in mid-step, she felt a pressure against her foot. What the heck? You know how sometimes when two magnets just won’t stick together? No matter how hard you try to force them together, they push themselves apart. That was similar to what Kensey was experiencing, but she felt she could get past it if she tried hard enough. Which she did try. She tried to take a step down, but when she did, her foot felt as if it were being forced back up. She didn’t think she could get past this. It was the weirdest feeling she had ever experienced. Yet she kept going. She hooked her foot underneath the next rung. The pressure increased and traveled from her feet, up her legs to her thighs, and then to her hips, and moved higher as she descended lower, making her descent more difficult. As she paused to rest, she looked around in disbelief. She saw the rock her brother had thrown into the well floating across from her at waist level, which was exactly where she felt the pressure on her body. She felt as if she would fall but didn’t know which way. Fall down or fall up? It was like the gravity changed and her lower body felt upside-down, while her upper body felt perfectly normal. Unbelievably uncomfortable.
Kensey descended a little lower to where the pressure was at chest level. Turning around, she faced the rock, reached out with her hand, and pushed down on it, but it felt as if she were holding the rock in the palm of her hand instead. Quickly she pulled her hand away and the rock floated, or fell, back up to where it was originally and bobbed like a cork in the water. She picked it up and threw it up into the air. The result was similar to watching something being thrown into the air, falling into the water, and then floating back up to the surface. Next, she brought her hand down on it as hard as she could. Just like before, it was as if it had been thrown into the air, had fallen into the water, and had floated back up to the surface, yet upside-down.
“That’s so cool!” Kensey said aloud. The whole “going to another world” thing seemed likely now.
Kensey continued to hook her feet underneath each rung when suddenly the pressure had climbed so high, her strength could not handle it any longer and her lower body fell. Now, as she held onto the ladder with her hands, her body floated. Panicking, she decided to climb back up and see what William or Lee could make of it, but unfortunately, she had forgotten which way was up and headed the wrong direction from where she wanted. If you knew Kensey, it would have surprised you that she did lose her sense of direction. She’s not the type.
As her face passed through the area where the gravity shifted, Kensey felt as if she were suddenly lying down. It made her head spin. She pulled herself up the ladder using just her hands, turned herself around, and placed her feet on the ladder rung once again. It was a relief that the pressure was gone. Up and up she went. The sky was coming into view, and the darkness was fading. Finally, the darkness was completely gone and the light, the sunlight, was back. The sounds were different though. More birds were chirping than before, and she couldn’t hear the sound of cars on the highway. William and Lee weren’t looking over the edge either. Scared, she slowly placed her hands on the top of the well and looked over. No park, no William or Lee, no roads or people. But…trees.
She noticed a pair of legs stretched out where someone was sitting with their back leaning against the well. Now, she was really scared. As she headed back down, she realized what had happened. Just as she thought, she was in another world. All her dreams came true at that one moment; she couldn’t just leave. Regaining her state of mind, she once again slowly climbed back up the ladder. The pair of legs were still there. She peaked over the edge and noticed a head of curly brown hair in her face. It was a boy sitting there, tearing apart blades of grass.
Suddenly, the boy froze for a second and then looked up into Kensey’s eyes. “Whoa!” he screamed and jumped from his spot in the grass. Backing up, his and Kensey’s brown eyes stared at each other. He was shirtless for some reason and had his pants rolled up to the knees. He seemed about her age, maybe a little bit older.
As she turned to the left and to the right, all she could see were trees. If you were floating overhead, it might have looked like a large empty circle surrounded by trees with only a blackish-gray dot in the middle. Tree houses were in the trees, humongous tree houses; and they were perched higher up than you would see back in our world. Some figures, not many, were moving around in the woods.
“Ok,” the boy breathed out. “I’m hallucinating.” From the sound of his voice, he was definitely older than Kensey. There was something about him that seemed off.
“Well,” Kensey said as she climbed out of the well, “I guess we’re both having the same hallucination.”
“Ok…I’m just gonna…go now,” he said, backing up.
“And I’m just gonna…stay here,” she mocked him. She sat down on the edge of the well, placed her leg over her other knee, and crossed her arms, looking all around her. “So…this is what the center of the earth looks like, huh?” she joked.
“You’re from— no…I’m staying too,” he said, walking slowly to her. “This isn’t the center of the earth because this isn’t earth, you understand?”
“Yeah, I know where I am. Well, maybe not exactly but…yeah, I know where I am.”
“Ok…this is real. Oh my gosh, this is real, isn’t it?”
“Well, I guess so!”
“I’ve been waiting for this my whole life, but I never thought it would actually happen.”
“You’re telling me.”
“Look— can I sit next to you?”
“Sure.”
He sat on her right. “Look, this isn’t earth. This place is called Mundus.”
“That’s funny…Mundus.”
“I could say the same thing about Earth. Weird name. I have read so many books about Earth. Are there really seven continents?”
“Yes!”
“Oh, wow!”
“I know! I’ll be right back—” As she turned to head back down the well to go get William and her brother, she noticed something that made her queasy and the color disappear from her face. “Where’s the ladder?” she asked pitifully. The ladder had disappeared along with the darkness. All there was in that old well was water down below. “What did you do?!”
“I didn’t do nothin’! Look, I’ll tell you later, but for right now I want you to meet my family, if you’re ok with that?”
“Um…sure.”
“I’m Marcus Hays.”
“Kensey Harris.”
“Well, Kensey, welcome to Volo Castra,” he said as he stood up.
“I thought—”
“Oh no, Volo Castra is just the village.”
“Oh.”
“C’mon, let’s go.” As he turned around, another thing made Kensey sick to her stomach.
“Whoa!” she shouted.
“Shh! We don’t want anybody to know you’re here yet. What is it?’
“Your back.” His back had two deep, long cuts on each side of his backbone.
“Oh no, it’s not what you think. We all have ‘em.”
“Why?”
“Humans don’t live on Mundus, Kensey. Now c’mon, I think everyone’s inside now. It’s almost supper time. We can go without anyone seeing you.”
“Why don’t you want anyone to see me?”
“Well, for one, they’d freak out since nobody has seen a Human before, and two, we just need to keep it a secret for now. There are some bad creatures here as I’m sure there are some bad Humans in Earth.”
“Sick ones, too.”
“See my point. But, here, they’re a lot stronger. Now, let’s go. My family had to go to the market, and my little brother is at a friend’s house, so they should get back pretty soon. Follow me.”
Kensey immediately jumped up and followed Marcus into the woods. It all seemed to be going so fast. They jogged through the woods, jumping over large tree roots along the way. The grass was greener and softer than anything imaginable. It was how grass was supposed to be. Soft and green. The trees were thick and tall, reaching high into the air and spaced far apart from each other. Each one had a tree house built on it with a ladder that rose from the ground to underneath the porches that encircled the houses. They all looked similar although some were positioned higher than others. The inhabitant’s names were carved into the bark of the trees at eye level.
Suddenly, Kensey spotted something brown in the distance. At first, she thought it was a tree but then realized it was too small. As she jogged farther and farther, the brown figure came closer and closer, disappearing behind the trees, then reappearing. She kept looking to her far left and then down at her feet to make sure she didn’t trip on anything. Getting closer, she realized that it was a person off in the distance who appeared to be wearing a long brown coat or cloak. As she got even closer, she noticed the coat was a high-collared ankle-length Andromeda coat with flared sleeves that reached to his knuckles. A breeze blowing revealed his black leather boots. When she was parallel to the Hooded Figure, Kensey stopped in her tracks to see what he would do. Even though the hood of his coat was covering his eyes, Kensey was sure he was staring at her, as she did him.
After a few seconds of staring, the Hooded Figure darted behind a tree on the right.
Kensey resumed running in the same direction she had been before she noticed the Hooded Figure. “Oh!” Kensey said as she tripped over a root, stubbing her toe. Unfortunately, she missed him. He seemed to have disappeared. Maybe he was hiding behind the tree…
“Hey, are you ok?” Marcus panted as he approached her.
“Yeah, I just tripped,” Kensey replied while staring into the woods. Marcus looked in the same direction not knowing what to be searching for.
“What’d you see?”
“I saw a guy with a brown coat thing looking at me!”
“Where?!” he asked her worried.
“Over there a little ways,” she pointed in the direction where she had spotted the Hooded Figure.
“Maybe we should run a little faster.”
Ok, that's it. I didn't look over it (I'm kinda being rushed) so, if there are any fusion of words or anything like that, it happened when I copy and pasted it. I hope you guys like it and I hope that you'll pick it up and read it. Remember, I meant for this book to be a lighthearted and fun read. I don't expect it to win any awards in the future. I just want you guys to be like, "Well, that was really fun to read. It was cute and funny, yet scary too! I'll have to read it again sometime." or something like that :) I know it's not the most perfect thing, but perfect is boring. It might not be the best of writing, but I just want you guys to read my story. That's all I care about. The story.
