It Was All Wrong
MOTE Prompt Response
Xander staggered to a halt, panting. He leaned over, resting his hands on his knees. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. He was stumbling through the dark woods behind the Dragon’s Tale pub trying to find the woman he’d last seen appearing to glide across his parking lot. Her long pale dress dragged on the ground behind her. Xander didn’t know much about fashion, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t a wedding dress, despite the pale color. It looked more like something he’d seen on celebrities going to awards shows.
Straightening up, Xander controlled his breathing and worked to slow his heartrate. That was when he noticed there were no other sounds in the woods. No crickets, no owls, no rustling of small rodents through the leaf litter. Nothing.
“Okay. This is not good,” he muttered to himself. His voice sounded loud in the stillness. He peered between the shadowed trees, trying to get his bearings, spot something, anything, familiar. The pale light from the half moon allowed him to see some distinctions, but no detail. Wait. That was a straight line. No way that was just another tree. Xander took a couple of deep breaths and started toward what he figured was a building of some sort. After tramping through the thinning woods for what felt like forever, Xander stopped at the edge of a clearing, staring at the impossible building in front of him.
It looked like a Greek temple. Or at least like a Greek temple like he’d seen in movies. Graceful columns, supporting a domed roof, created something that resembled a huge marble gazebo. Xander saw moonlight and shadows beyond a second row of columns, telling him the building had no walls. In the center of the giant gazebo he could make out a large rectangular block with something that looked like a person lying down, on top of it. The shape on top of the block moved and Xander sucked in a breath. It was a human. He scanned the area around the temple but detected no movement. His gut told him he was alone except for the figure in the temple.
Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Xander started toward the center of the marble gazebo. Somehow he knew whatever he found meant trouble, but he had to know who or what was on top of that block. He walked slowly and deliberately toward the gazebo, never taking his eyes off the block and the person lying on top of it. Xander was about five feet away from the block, which sat in the exact center, under the point of the domed roof, when he heard a sigh drift up from the person on the block. Xander froze and stared at the body. The slight movement of a hand at the waist told him that whoever or whatever was lying there was alive. Something in the back of his head informed him that “alive” could be good or could be bad.
Xander swallowed to try to moisten a suddenly dry mouth and cautiously stepped forward. He breathed a small sigh of relief when he saw the figure was female. It was the woman he’d seen crossing the parking lot. He was certain of that. But now she was wearing a tiara. Somehow Xander knew that this woman was a princess, and further that she was most definitely not supposed to be lying on this… altar… in the middle of what he now realized was a temple. Somewhere, the story had gone wrong.
The sudden snapping of a branch had Xander whirling around to find the source of the sound. A pitch-black shadow, barely visible in the muted moonlight, made its way through the trees, and slid across the clearing toward the gazebo.
Once again, Xander’s gut screamed at him to get the hell out and run back to the pub. In fact, his gut screamed at him to run as fast as possible. Turning quickly, Xander took two steps to do just that through the other side of the temple and promptly tripped down two shallow steps. Twisting around, he saw the shadow moving faster than should be possible before it disappeared. He whipped his head back and forth trying to find it. He felt, rather than saw, a presence looming behind him. Xander twisted once again, just in time to see an ink-black arm raised to strike. Xander ducked and rolled to avoid touching the shadow. As he rolled, he dropped down another shallow step hitting his head.
Jolting awake panting and sweating, Xander stared around the unfamiliar room for a moment. A glass of water stood on the nightstand and he reached for it as memories came flooding back.
Oh, right. He was in the Dragon’s Tale Pub. He’d arrived earlier that afternoon and this was his new apartment over the pub.
Shaking his head over the way the dream, nightmare really, had felt so real, Xander climbed out of bed and padded into the small bathroom. He splashed water on his face and stared at himself in the mirror.
“Just a nightmare, dude. Nothing to get worked up about,” he muttered to his reflection. He made his way back to his bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, trying to calm his racing heart and swirling mind. A wave of calm seemed to flow out of the walls of the pub and apartment, surrounding Xander and creating a sense of peace in the room. He closed his eyes and relaxed into the sensation feeling the last vestiges of terror from the nightmare drifting away. He managed to crawl back under the covers.
Just as he drifted off again, Xander thought he heard a voice whisper, “Sleep well, my friend. I have the watch.”
******
This week Parrish Baker challenged me with: In a dark wood, anything could happen. The princess lay alone in the temple. The story had gone wrong. I broke it up and used the idea rather than a complete quote, but I think I kept the spirit of her challenge. Make sure you check out More Odds Than Ends to see what everybody else came up with in response to their challenges.