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Fog covered Daine’s small town in a cold embrace. It may have been early morning, but the fog was so thick that it would probably fight for control with the sun until noon. The town was quiet and mostly everyone would still be settled in their beds for another hour or so, everyone except for Daine Patterson.

She looked outside her bedroom window at the woods behind her house. Eventually though, she realized she had to get breakfast ready for her parents. Daine got up and grabbed some clothes out of her dresser: a T-shirt and a pair of pants. After hesitating for a second, she also grabbed out a light jacket because the fog outside made things cold. Looking in the mirror beside her dresser, Daine saw a girl with green eyes and amber hair looking back at her.

Going downstairs, Daine started preparing the morning meal for her parents, fixing some pancakes for them and grabbing a bowl of cereal for herself when she discovered there wouldn’t be enough. Soon she could hear the distant mutterings of her parents starting to wake up. She smiled, knowing they had been fighting recently and had currently come to an agreement. What that argument was about and what agreement they had come to was a mystery to Daine.

As soon as her mother saw her, she smiled and said sleepily, “Oh, good morning, Daine, I didn’t think you would be up this early.”

“Good morning,” Daine replied, “I thought I would get up early and make you breakfast. Is that so wrong?”

“No not at all, dear.”

“How are you this morning Daine?” Her father asked.

“I’m good.” Daine answered.

So the family ate their breakfast together with light conversation. Soon, however, it was time for Daine’s parents to go to work. Daine did not have school since it was the weekend with school ending the following week for the rest of the summer. At the moment though, Daine was alone at home and after doing her chores, she walked outside.

The weather was brisk with the fog still dominating the entire town. Daine shivered slightly from the cold’s icy fingers and was glad that she had grabbed a jacket, however light it was. She wondered how it could be this cold so close to summer, but the thought faded away into the background as her gaze tried to penetrate through the fog to look upon her little town.

From what Daine could see, the houses were still small and simple, but all of them had a homely appearance. Daine knew where the roads were and knew that if she followed them they would eventually lead out of her small neighborhood and into town square where there was a restaurant, a movie theater, a school, and a few other buildings. There wasn’t much here since it was a small town and fairly isolated from the rest of the world. The only thing really that kept them in touch with the rest of the world was the T.V. and newspaper.

To Daine, the town she had spent her entire life in seemed extremely boring. There were not a lot of kids her age and of those kids, Daine really only hung out with one of them. The other kids her age were mostly guys with a few girls, but guys dominating. That made for too much testosterone for Daine to be able to handle.

Her one friend was a guy actually. His name was Sheith. She missed hanging out with him in the woods behind her house, which were endless. He had gone to some boarding school far away. He would be back in a week or two though since school was ending for him as well. She wondered again what this school was. Sheith avoided telling her why he went and his parents told her it was some name that she couldn’t remember and had never heard of even though, supposedly, the school was famous.

Before her thoughts could take a sour turn, Daine became aware of a voice. It seemed to come out of nowhere and at first it was so faint that Daine wasn’t sure it was actually there. Then it got louder and Daine turned in a complete circle trying to figure out where it was coming from. Suddenly she understood what it was saying, “Daine, help! Help me!”

Daine didn’t recognize the voice and replied, “Where are you? Who are you?”

Ignoring her last question, the voice answered, “I’m over here, help me….” The voice sounded as if it were fading. Daine felt a strange pull, but for some odd reason all of her suspicion was gone. She followed it and realized that it was heading into the woods where she used to hang out with Sheith before he went away.

“Maybe Sheith came back early and is playing a trick on me…” Daine murmured as she continued along through the trees. The prospect of having Sheith back even if he was playing a prank on her made Daine suddenly happier. She had missed him a lot and only talking to him on the phone was annoying and hard to come by.

Going into the woods, Daine followed the pull which somehow made her avoid hitting trees. It seemed that the fog was holding close to everything in the woods and it was harder to see anything at all. Daine could hardly see the hand in front of her. It was a miracle that she hadn’t hit a tree yet as if the pull was leading her around trees and other obstacles so that she wouldn’t even stumble.

After what Daine thought was an hour, she was convinced she could not find her way back to the house even if the fog lifted now even though she had once been certain that she knew most of these woods like the back of her hand. Daine walked about feeling confused and at the same time almost as if she were in a haze, unable to think clearly.

Suddenly, the pull stopped altogether and again she heard the voice. “In here! In the cave! Come quickly!” Daine finally felt she might be able to tell the voice was masculine, but definitely not Aster’s. She stopped at the entrance of the cave that had come out of nowhere, suddenly suspicious.

“Who are you? Why do you need my help?”

The voice didn’t answer, but suddenly Daine felt the pull again except this time it was much harder to the point that Daine was starting to take steps inside. She struggled for a few minutes before finally managing to stop her progress. The darkness in the cave seemed to envelope her in an embrace that made it hard to breathe. She took a blind step forward….

And suddenly found that she was falling, falling through a hole that had come out of nowhere. Daine screamed as the she descended through the pit, the echoes reverberating around her. Daine was unsure of when she fainted or even if she had hit the ground yet…

Daine opened her eyes, feeling completely sore and having no idea where she was. It wasn’t dark anymore, in fact the light in wherever she was made everything quite clear. Looking around, Daine discovered she was in a library of some sort. There were ancient looking bookshelves which seemed to go on forever. The light was just there; no lamps or light fixtures were to be seen. It was as if she were outside in the sunlight, except there was no sun or place where she could tell the light was coming from.

Daine suddenly heard screaming, loud, long screaming. She cringed and covered her ears. The screaming increase in volume and pitched into a shriek. Daine winced and screwed her eyes shut, holding back tears. She hadn’t even realized that she had been moving around until she moved her hand forward and it touched smooth leather.

The screaming stopped. Daine opened her eyes. “What was that?” she asked to no one in particular. She looked to where her hand had touched, where it still was actually. It was the spine of a leather bound book. Daine grabbed it and pulled it out.

It was a thick book, but it weighed almost nothing in her hand. She turned it over, looking for a title, but there was none. The book looked old but as if it were also timeless which confused her slightly. Daine opened and saw that the pages were blank and wondered if someone had wanted to write in it, but had misplaced it in this giant place. It’s brown leather was soft to the touched and it almost seemed as if the book purred as she moved her hand along its pages.

Daine suddenly became aware of the problem that she should’ve already had on her mind: How was she going to get out of here? She looked around and even upwards. Daine could not see where she might’ve fallen in and also had no idea how she was going to get out.

She sighed. This was just great; she was going to starve in some huge library far away from home. She looked down at the book again, having a sudden desire to write. Maybe if she wrote down a plan, it would help her think straight. Daine was a very talented writer and pulled out a pencil from her pocket.

When she touched the tip of the pencil to the page she had turned to, she suddenly had an idea. She started to write:

I suddenly found myself outside of this library. I want to be outside the entrance to the cave. The fog will be gone by now…

Daine stopped, finding this foolish. How was this going to help her? Then the book started to pulse and Daine looked down as the gray words turned golden. “What the-“Daine was cut off as the words floated off the page and swirled around her. Suddenly, everything went black.

For a second time, Daine woke up completely confused. She was outside the cave and the fog was gone, just like she had written. Had she been dreaming? Or had what that had happened been real? Looking around, Daine saw the book lying on the ground. She picked it up and she with relief that she had left tracks on the moist ground and realized she could follow those footprints home. She smiled and took the path home, not even realizing that she had the book under her arm….

The End…or is it?