So my English tutor got me to write a short story on the theme "A lost world". Here's what I came up with feel free to comment :)
Dust rose like clouds, enveloping her as she walked and guarding the secrets of what lay ahead. Slowly – inch-by-inch – she crept forward into the forgotten world, peering into the gloom. What lay hidden from her sight? As she walked her mind sensed the memories locked in this crumbling land.
“Why won't Mummy and Daddy stop fighting?”
The whimpers of a heart-broken child echoed through the decades. Suddenly there rose out of the mist a mammoth pillar, tattered and fallen. Looming before her, an obstacle to be overcome in the twilight world. She stretched out and grasped a hold of the straggly pieces of rope, all that was left of the broken leg's fur – once so thick and glossy. Rising out of the dust she surmounted the relic of a distant age. Her new world stretched out before her. Ahead she could see a plateau partially submerged in the dust like an island floating in a sea of shadowy mist.
“Where is my teddy Mum?” Asked the child with tears in his eyes. “I told you Daddy broke it's leg so I've put it somewhere safe,” was the reply. “But It's so dark in there, teddy will be scared.” The child pleaded. “You're teddy doesn't have feelings. Now stop whining and go finish packing your bags!”
The fading land's doleful memories washed over her as she looked for a place to call her own. Descending once again into the shadowy fog, she left the leg and forged towards the plateau, well aware that time was short. However the ground felt different to her. It was smoother than before she had overcome the pillar. As she looked down her legs disturbed the mist enough for her to see. An oblong sheet lay on the floor. Three sides appeared smooth but the fourth side was a ragged edge, distorting the picture that occupied the expanse.
“How had it come to this?” The woman wondered as she held the torn photo in her hand. The photo of their family that was now just a photo of her.
Leaving the photo and the family's memories behind she reached the beginning of the climb that might lead her to her home. Desperation drove her like a pitiless master. They were coming and instinct told her that she wasn't ready. She fought, struggled, and battled and then she was there. She had made it to the plateau. But there was no time for her to recuperate. Despairing, she scoured the face, body and arms of the plateau, an inborn thought told her that this was the wrong place. Then her cheek tingled. Reaching out her face she strained all her senses. Somewhere deep inside her a pale flicker of hope blossomed into flame. She could feel the slightest of breezes and she knew where she needed to make her dwelling. Racing across the plateau she sprinted down the side. Mist billowed around her as the demented dash took her to the one place her family would be safe.
“Wait!” Despairing he tore after the car but it was no use. “Please come back! I'm sorry! I'm sorry.....” They were gone. He returned to his home but it was no longer a home. He had lost the things most important to him and he would never get them back. He hurriedly packed a bag, locked the door and left never to return to the place where he had ruined everything.
A dying memory for a dying land.
Her hectic dash didn't stop when she reached the boundary of the expanse. Instead it carried her up all the way up the wall until she finally came to a stop in the uppermost corner. The one place where the dust could not linger. A crack in the wood allowed a faint breeze to seep into the nook and she knew that she had succeeded. She gazed over the path that her journey had taken. She looked at the teddy bear that was slowly succumbing to the ravages of time and she watched as the dust settled after her flight. Silence reigned over her home. She had chosen the right place, her babies would be safe. And as she lay dying, consumed by her struggle, new life was born into the fading land. In an old cupboard, under derelict stairs, in a disregarded house, defenceless, little spiders tentatively explored their new world.
