Chapter One

The first chapter of a work-in-progress. Enjoy.

She woke up in a panic before she was shot at again. Blurs of green and brown rushed past her as she simultaneously tried to collect herself and run. Everything was too fast – too confusing. She couldn’t make sense of what was happening. In the moment, she couldn’t even remember her own name.

As she took in her surroundings, she found herself in what seemed to be a forest. She ducked behind a nearby tree as another shot rang out. A door to her left opened and an elderly man beckoned her inside. She barely had time to register that what she was seeing was impossible as she stepped through the dark green oak frame and the trees around her disappeared. In a moment like this, it’s normal to be taken by surprise, have a million questions, or faint from the excitement of it all. Instead, she looked at the man who had saved her and the question came to her lips before she could stop it. “Are… um, are you a dwarf?” The man sighed as he hung his garment by the fireplace. “You were always one for jokes, but is now the proper time? The Guard has been on high alert for hours trying to find you, and here you’ve been! Gallivanting through Eckleton and picking fights with Norbs. Honestly, have you no sense?”

The man looked up at her through his long and grey eyelashes before he chuckled and turned back towards the fire. Questions began to swarm and the girl wondered if she was about to faint. As the dwarfish gentlemen continued to talk about The Guard and other things she couldn’t comprehend, she began to study her surroundings. The longer she looked around, the more confident she was that this was a dream. Pictures of creatures and places she had never seen littered the floor: giants with four arms, massive bear-looking things that walked on their hind legs, vast landscapes full of blueish sand and castles made of emerald. Looking past the artwork, she scanned the rest of the small, circular space. The fireplace seemed to be in the exact center of the room, and behind her was no sign of the door through which she had entered. Instead, there were multiple windows lining the walls. There was nothing particularly weird about the view outside each window except that each window showed a completely different landscape, including the forest she thought she had just come from.

She marveled at what lay before her, inwardly congratulating herself on her ability to create this world in her sleep. “Gen. Genevieve?” The old man’s persistent voice brought her out of her reverie, although not quite enough for her to form a rational response. Instead, she simply looked at him, studying his features, once again amazed at herself for the intricate detail of this entire world. The face across from her turned to frustration as no answer came. Frustration, however, quickly turned to apprehension. He studied her like she did him, speaking slowly. “Genevieve?” This time she tried to respond, but all that came out was a hoarse squeak. Shock, it seemed, had rendered her speechless. The man started to pace back and forth, quite fast for something with as short as legs as he and mumbled to himself. “Not again. No, no, no, no, no. It’s happened again.” He stopped abruptly and shot her a desperate look before entering into a string of questions. Still, he received no reply. She couldn’t seem to make sense of the words he was saying, they just sounded like gibberish coated with worry. Even more concerning than the weird little man in front of her was the fact that she had not yet woken up. She rarely remembered her dreams, but she doubted that they were this elaborate or long.

While pinching her arm, she simultaneously looked around for some sort of escape from the intense little guy a few feet in front of her. All she saw were the windows and their various landscapes, there wasn’t even a door.

“Wait.”

It was the first work she had spoken since she had been in the presence of her new companion. Slowly, she was gaining enough clarity to understand that this was, in fact, not a dream. Even more concerning, the pair of them seemed to be in some sort of imminent danger.

“Wait. Stop,” she repeated. The man looked at her quizzically, tilting his head. The questions spinning in her head started to form into words. “I don’t… I don’t know who you are. Or what you are. I don’t understand what’s going on or, or how I got here. I was in a forest… What is this place? I don’t think - ” The questions started to tumble out, giving the man no time to respond. But she cut her last statement short, not knowing if she wanted that particular answer just yet.

“I’ve been afraid of that. Ever since I saw you in Eckleton, I suspected… Dear one, my name is Elias. I am the Gatekeeper of this place - Sanstori. Well, one of them. My brothers and sisters are all on assignment. Looking for you, in fact. Like I said, The Guard has been on high alert in search of you.” Elias looked at her, a touch of sympathy in his eyes.

“This isn’t making any sense to you, is it? I suppose I should start at the beginning, but the beginning was many stories ago, and if we were to attempt to tell each one, well, I suppose the world could not contain that many books. No, I shall start from the beginning of your particular story, and maybe you’ll remember along the way.”