Lost

This is my first assignment from my advanced creative writing class. The work is obviously unfinished but we weren't tasked with a 'completed' full work.

Lost

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
                                                                              -Albert Einstein
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Part I: Awakening

The screech of tires echoed distantly in my mind as I stood with a bright yellow windbreaker in the fog that surrounded me like a thick white blanket, a faint memory I realize now, lost in dreams where only the smell of acidic rubber and the wail itself remained. For how long I wandered that place neither here nor there I do not know, only that I did. I felt trapped and smothered by the fog as I walked endlessly. Not seeing anything but white and gray until an old woman with a scratchy voice called out from somewhere in the fog, "Over here, girl, over here."

But where is here? I wondered wordlessly fisting a hand through my light brown hair, frustrated and tired from this endless white of nothingness. About to ask, the fog parted around her, becoming a faint mist and melting into the ground as she rocked back-and-forth back-and-forth on her wooden rocker that groaned with each motion. There was a ball of rainbow spun yarn rolled up in a basket at her feet as she knitted a bright colorful afghan. Her hair was liquid silver as it flowed around her shoulders and her face nothing but wrinkles reminding me of a pug, smiling with one side twisted up as she knitted with her eyes closed. Personally I do not think she could have even opened her eyes if she had wanted too.

"You need help, my child?" she asked, her hands nor the movement of the chair stopping, "You do not look as if you need this path or the temple, but I have been wrong before, that I have." Her face grew more crinkled as she chuckled to herself.

I considered the walls of fog that surrounded my other three sides. "I-I do not know. Where am I?"

"Lost."

Frowning, my gaze came back to her. "Well yes... I know I'm lost, but what is this place?"

She chortled, again not once stopping her rocking or her knitting. "Lost is here, child. You are in Lost."

"Okay..." I licked my lips, trying to count to ten mentally and calm my ire. It did no good to snap at the old woman and maybe she was losing her mind with age. Besides, who sat in a rocking chair knitting, in the middle of nowhere? "How do I get un-lost or out of Lost?"

With my words she actually stopped knitting -but not rocking!- silver brows rising and yet eyes still not opening. "Why that path right there, my child." She gestured with her shaking bony hand to her right. I followed her pointed finger and my mouth dropped open upon finding a smooth rock path that had been obscured by the fog until she revealed it. "That will lead you to the Temple of Lost Ones. But are you sure you need it?"

Closing my mouth I gave a nod as I glanced back at her as she started to knit in time with her rocking once more. "If it is the way out of here then yes, I need it."

She shook her head with another laugh. "No, you only go to the Temple of Lost Ones to become found, or un-lost as you said. Taking that path there leads to a journey of self-discovery before you can ever hope to-"

"Thanks anyways, Ma'am." I knew cutting her off was rude -my mother had taught me better- but I had the sensation that if I let her she would have continued on-and-on forever and I was not in the mood for that.

Grasping the shoulder straps of my backpack -I only then realized was there upon touching them- I shifted the weight on my back and stepped forward with all my most prized possessions nestled safely within the blue zipped fabric. Faintly, as if a great distance and not a mere yard separated us, the old woman yelled about being careful, something about the path but I paid little heed as a few more steps took me above the fog and the sight stole the breath from my lungs. There above the fog I found a Roman arched bridge stretching up from the white nothingness. Not just fog but a sea of white and gray, the top of the clouds I had just been in, swirling and floating on either side of me, nestled between jagged mountain peaks. This white murky water licked around the edges of lesser mountains in the valley, small gray peeks, islands in the sea of white. But it was more than that. The clouds even tumbled off of a few jagged mountains, looking like waterfalls as they filled the sea.

How is it possible for clouds to look like this? The warning that all was not as it seemed flickered in my mind and I turned to ask the old woman what was going on. But she wasn't there anymore. The sea of white and gray had swallowed her up as it flowed like surf on the bridge at my feet, climbing up until only inches separated it from me before it slipped back down a foot away and then back up again. Gulping nervously, I stepped farther up the bridge, not wanting to temp whether or not these white gray clouds could sweep me away.

I faced forward and my gaze followed the bridge until it disappeared under one of those massive white waterfalls. Where does this path lead to? I see no temple. No, all I saw was white, white, and more white littered with ragged mountain peaks. But what other choice did I have but to follow the path? Was it not better than the fog from before?

Taking three more steps I glanced on either side of the bridge. Worried at how it felt like the width was shrinking. What would happen if I slipped off the edge? Of course I then pictured myself falling off, my foot slipping and tumbling off into the white nothingness. With nothing to catch me I would fall some great distance before splatting on the ground far below. Or maybe there would be some mystical property that would catch me, and I would hang there, suspended before my death. But I didn’t slip or fall. No, I remained dead center with each hesitant step. Concentrated as I was on my task of not falling off the then two foot wide bridge I barely noticed when I was nearing the giant white waterfall, only noticing due to the cool mist that flittered over me.

Bells tolled in the distance. With no warning wind rushed by, chilled by the crisp mountain air and I was forced to take a step back and brace myself against the strong current. Shielding my face with my arm, the yellow sleeves of the windbreaker rippling in the wind. I shivered as through my cracked eyes I watched the white waterfall before me divide into to, parting just before an alcove of carved stones with a large wooden door and fall safely away on either side of the bridge.

Other than the size, it was an ordinary arched door, the wood dull and worn pale with age. As the white waterfall thinned I could see the structure of the temple. A gray temple made from the very stone of the mountain that made it appear to grow from it much like a plant or tree spouting from the earth. The walls of stone covered in dampen moss extended further than I could see both to my left and right, while above it rose into spiraling towers that jetted out from the top of the white waterfall like the jagged mountains surrounding it.

My thoughts were stilled when the door opened suddenly and I stared blankly, face pale and eyes wide as I took in the creature that had opened it. I would later find out that this creature was named Tutith, and he was one of the permanent caretakers of the temple. He gave me a yellow toothy smile, his gray skin pulled taut over a tall lanky skeleton that loomed over me by two feet and his white hair braided neatly down the nap of his back. He had no eyes and a faint bump of the skin with thin flatten holes for a nose. His ears however, were huge. Human like in the basic structure and yet two sizes of her palm. His chest was naked, finger painted with a rich blue and red dye that swirled together in intricate patterns while he wore a vibrant orange and yellow skirt.

Stepping forward, he offered his hand for my backpack and still stunned I shrugged the object off my shoulders without any thought. He jiggled the backpack casually in his hands, contemplating the weight and pondering, then said softly, "Need not this anymore," before flinging it over the side of the path.

I watched it fall, mouth gaping open and imagined my most prized objects inside. My mother’s delicate tea set with the roses? My collection of the first addition Iron Man comic books? Certainly pictures of my two cats Oppa and Appo. I’m also sure there were other important objects. Something round. That went on my finger and sparkled… But I couldn't recall then as the memories and faces of my past slipped through the clouds with my backpack and plummeting to the earth below.

“Come, come, Lost One.” He waved me in with his long four jointed fingers.

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Any feed back on this would be very helpful and I'd love you forever and ever!