Surreal Landscape: For Angelique

F

FleurDeLis

Guest
Original poster
...with tangerine trees and marmalade skies.
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly:
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
​

It's the simplest thing to take a wrong turn as you open a closet. It is an even simpler thing to follow a white rabbit just off the beaten path and into somewhere else entirely. Perhaps you've missed an obtuse angle and stepped around a bend that wasn't there a moment ago. Suddenly, up may not be up anymore. The ground you are walking on may begin to feel strange and malleable, and what began as a trip the grocery store might suddenly become a voyage into places that human beings should never, ever go.

It all began on an oppressively normal street...
 
Her name was Angelique. A boisterous young woman who refuses to back up from a fight, a pretty one she was, with wavy hair that goes all the way to her waist, and it is as white as the clouds above. "Always up for adventure I am..." She told herself, "Too bad there isn't any..." She sighed and hoped something extraordinary will happen. She didn't hope for much as her green optics saw a fluff of white pass by, a cat? No, it was too furry to be one, a rabbit perhaps. But she didn't expect it to be one. Her black shoes made a soft, echoing clack noise as she walked against the concrete street. She was dressed in a fashion, in which people would find odd, a fancy dress that fit in more of the older days rather than what era she was currently living in.

"Odd I am, they say..." She whispered, she didn't mind their teasings and jokes, as she figured she was her own person and that was that. She walked a bit faster, smoothing out ruffles and creases and fixed the small little bow she had on by the side of her waist. A slim thing she was, as she looked around for something to do, she hoped so badly for an adventure to pass by, but so far she wasn't finding any. She saw the white thing pass by once again. It was indeed a rabbit, with eyes that sparkled, luring her in. She followed without hesitating as if she felt by following the animal will do her some good adventure.

"I indeed say, this scene seems so oddly familiar... Following animals seem to be a habit of mine eer since I was a young lass, I hope it is not a vice." She told herself as she ran, following the rabbit, not knoing wht will come to her if she does, good or bad, she was up for anything at this point.
 
The fluffy white creature bounded half a block down the street before ducking into an empty lot. It was clad in a funny red jacket that covered its arms and neck. Its little ears poked out over the top of its collar as it ran along. It sat in the middle of the dusty, weed-choked plot of land as it looked back and forth and pawed at its face. It turned around and locked eyes with Angelique.

It was not a rabbit.

Oh, it looked a great deal like one, but its face was smooth, hairless, and looked almost like it was made of marble. The ears twitched like those of a normal creature, but the eyes were flat and opaque, not glimmering or shining in the slightest. As it sat up, its body stretched until it was almost twice the length it was before, thin, spindly, and stretchy. It cocked its head to one side before its mouth split into a wide smile, practically splitting its face open as it displayed blocky, white teeth. It leaped forward and vanished. It had jumped into the line drawn by a stack of bricks in the corner of the lot, not the bricks themselves, but an imaginary line drawn from the one little angle where all of them pointed together.
 
When the creature locked eyes with her, she could not help but let her jaw go slack. A interesting creature, not an animal, nor is it human. She had the urge to approach it before stumbling back from it"s creepy yet alluring smile. An odd day today, yet she enjoyed it. An aenture she was encountering at last and it made her horribly happy. Most girls her age should usually be home, playing with dolls, what girls her age should be doing. But no, Angelique was a different type of girl. She herd voices in her head, telling her to follow the mysterious creature, yet her mind said no. Her heart was screaming for it, yet her brain told her a strict no. She regained her composure and gave out a soft sigh.

"They always said to follow you heart, right?" She asked herself as she looked around, wondering if anyone else was there with her. There were none, so she built up enough courage to step in and follow the creature that was bound to make her world upside down. She hoped for the best as her feet seemed to move on their wn, following the steps of the creature as she felt a slight whisper. "No turning back now..." Itt said, it could hae been her conscience speaking, but one will never know as her mind wa already filling up with questions about where she was about to go, where she was about to head to, and what will happen to her. A deep breath she took before running in and giving a small leap, vanishing just like the creature. Her mind seemed to be a blank as cries of surprise were heard, was she falling? No, it didn't seem like it to her, her mind was confused, she just hoped things will be less confusing after this.

She was wrong.
 
The impossible angle swallowed Angelique up and closed behind her. She floated through orange mist, thick and opaque with a sickly-sweet smell. The fog blew against her face, but whether it was still and she was falling forward or she was hovering in space and it was rushing past was impossible to tell. Still, she could catch glimpses of what looked like the rabbit-thing up ahead, a darker blotch in the middle of the mist. It rolled and pirouetted as the haze began to clear, edging from orange into purple as shapes loomed up around them. The violet coalesced into a sandy expanse as gravity took over again. Angelique was deposited in the middle of a lilac wasteland, surrounded by purple sand dunes. Hexagonal rock formations jutted out of these, and indistinct shapes that might be fish swam from cut-glass edge to cut-glass edge. White linoleum tiles were strewn here and there, some intact, others cracked or fully shattered. The sickly-sweet scent had gotten stronger, as though someone had crushed a wilting flower under the girl's nose.

The popped and fizzled with bloody static, flashing red and white by turns that made it very hard to look at and flashing the landscape into crimson every other second. It was very bright out, and it hurt to look upward for too long, or even above the horizon line. That, at least, was normal. The Rabbit-Thing had vanished, though a set of misshapen tracks wandered off into the distance, leading over the nearest dune. It appeared to be moving very quickly. However, there was someone standing in front of her, barring her way ahead.

It was a woman or something woman-shaped. She was slender and wiry, and wore a sort of skin-tight body suit covered in rainbow swirls. Her face was obscured by a steel, gothic helmet with he visor down, which was hooked to a sort of shawl made of silverly ball bearings. She folded her arms and tapped a foot impatiently, as if expecting Angelique to speak first.
 
A soft thud was heard as she landed, she had a hard time looking aroound her, as her eyesight was still used to darkness and the orange mist with violet shades. She groaned out and shielded her eyes, squinting them lightly to see what was around her, trying to get used to it. The scent of something sweet started to burn her nose as it was too sweet for her taste, making her cough and gag. Breathing through her mouth helped her a little bit, for now the scent wasn't burning her throat due to the intensity of the scent. She slowly stood up, dusting her dress as she looked for things that were actually normal and not... odd. She flipped the hair out of her face as she looked for the Rabbit like creature. She decided to follow the creature as her interest levels for it was still high. She was about to run after it but then she realized that there was this woman, blocking her way. She looked impatient and waiting for her to speak. She tilted her head, and curtsied, just in case if she was some royalty or if she demande respect. This environment was new to her and she wouldn't want to raise any trouble for anyone.

"Hello..." She spoke out, her voice gentle and pleasing to the ear, a soft soprano that seemed to echo out.
"Would you mind telling me where I am?" She added slowly, turning around before facing her again.
 
The rainbow-clad woman stalked towards her, looking her up and down. "A fine mess is where you are, yes," she growled. Her voice sounded normal at least, though her colorful outfit shifted and shimmered, colors changing as she moved. "A fine mess indeed, yes it is. Still," she murmured, bringing her helmeted head in even closer, "You have a pretty voice and that is worth something, yes it is…" This process finished, she turned and began to walk away. It had not been apparent before, but she had a long, thin rod of some sort strapped to her back. "Follow me if you wish," she said offhandedly. "It's your best chance of getting out of here the way you came in."

Her feet left dainty prints in the violet sand and she walked away, following the path the Rabbit-Thing had taken.
 
She frowned as she hasn't answered her question. She pouted in a way and saw the rod that was strapped to her back. She looked at her figure and was immediately reminded of her sister, who wandered of to who knows where. She wondered if she was here as well, but she shrugged the thought off as she nodded, following the woman before noticing the color of the sand. She looked at the woman again and thought that she didn't seem to fond of her as she looked at her earlier expression, of calling her a mess, she didn't mind as she was used to these kinds of things back in the real world.

"Violet... such an odd color for sand..." She looked at the things around her as she followed in her footsteps, as she let her thoughts drift away to the Rabbit-creature, to real world rabbits back to her sister and back to the rainbow-clad woman. She followed right behind the woman as she started to hum soft little tunes to pass the time.
 
The rainbow woman adjusted her helmet. "Sand should come in every color," she murmured. "it's a little dream of mine to make everything in the world all colors, but I haven't found a way to do that that doesn't just go back to a brownish, gretyish mess after a while." She said nothing for a time, but as Angelique hummed her snatches of music, the woman's gait began to change, growing more and more erratic until she was literally dancing along the dunes, everything from walking like an Egyptian to waving her hands in the air in ever possible permutation to performing handsprings and cartwheels up and down the sloping piles of sand and dust and laughed and laughed and laughed.The fish in the transparent monoliths watched the pair as they went along, and even the sky seemed to flash and fizz to the rhythm of the humans melodies, simple as they were.
 
She listened to the woman and she nodded until she noticed her movements to her simple humming. She twirled to see what was happening around her yet she never stopped her melodies. She gave out a giggle as she found this the most amusing as it was. She laughed and skipped along behind her as she enjoyed the sight and things that were happening around her. She laughed again until she had no more breath and she fell on her knees on the multi-colored sand. She giggled until she slowly stopped, regaining her posture as she stood up.

"I say... That was the most I have laughed in such a time..." She gave out a short giggle when she said it before making her skips into a slow walk. She smiled and watched the sky spark and fizz, all because of her simple tune. She wondered what else she could do to bring such dazzling reactions onto this place.
 
The rainbow woman let out a little chuckle. "You do have a lovely voice after all," she said. She executed another twirl and continued on, though she walked next to Angelique now, not ahead of her. "I am called Sira," the helmeted woman went on, "And this is the Arid Space." A fish in one of the glass monoliths pressed its mouth against the transparent divider before flitting away. The sky seemed a little calmer now, and the red flickering and flashes seemed less jarring, calmer and more refined.

Suddenly, the air was filled with a strange buzzing sound, a sort of droning hum that set one's teeth on edge. Sira reached for the object on her back as she whirled around. "Stay close to me," she whispered. "Don't make a sound." The fish had all disappeared from the crystal obelisks.
 
She looked at the woman and nodded as a sign to show that she was listening, she gave out a quick and small curtsy as she introduced herself. "Hello Sira, my name is Angelique." She furrowed her brows and laughed at how formal it sounded as she listened, and watched the things happening around her. When she said the name of the place of where they were currently at she gave out a slow nod and repeated her words.

"...This is Arid Space..." It seemed to have sound familiar but Angelique couldn't put her finger on where she heard that name, she shrugged the thought off as she was about to speak of how she got here where she heard that noise. She clenched her teeth as she seemed to gasp for breath, unable to talk properly as she heard Sira's instructions. She watched all the creatures around them hide or disappear from fear, maybe? She held onto Sira's clothing as she wondered what caused the sound, where it came from and how to make it stop.
 
The droning grew louder until it became a roar, drawing nearer and nearer until it seemed to surround both of the travelers. Sira grabbed Angelique and pulled her down with her until both of them were flat on the ground. How making noise could possibly be important in a din like this was impossible to say, but a second later, the source of the noise came into view.

A shadow swept over the land as a huge, churning tangle of green and blue flew overhead. It looked almost like a starfish or an octopus, five thrashing arms around a bulbous center. Hundreds of wings, hands, arms, legs, and wiggling tendrils extended from those, flapping with all their might to stay airborne. There was a great, gaping mouth in the center that exhaled a gaseous trail behind it as it flew. The creature was at least a hundred feet across, but did not appear to have noticed Angelique or Sira. It remained far above them and passed them by, rocketing off into the desert back the way they'd come towards the circle of monoliths. As it left, it became clear that there was someone or something mounted on its back. Other than a glint or glimmer, there wasn't time to get a closer look. The column of gas began to disperse and descend, filling the air with a sort of sickly-sweet smell, like fruit that had been left out too long.

At last, Sira got to her feet and offered Angelique a hand. "You don't usually see a Mongrid this far out into the wastes," she murmured. "It seems I'm not the only one who thinks you have a lovely voice. We must leave now, as quickly as we can."
 
She gasped and covers her ears, looking up suddenly as she saw the creature which created that noise. Her jaw went slack as she tried looking at every detail of the creature. Was that a sea-creature? It looked like one, but the feathers... This all confused Angelique as she just stayed close to Sira. She bit her lower lip as she tried making out the small thing that was riding the creature's back. A human? Or another creature perhaps. These things confused Angelique, yet she enjoyed her current adventure. Once it left, the sickly scent entered Angelique's nose rather suddenly which stung her nose and made her cough a bit.

She slowly stood up, standing beside Sira and listened to what she said. She was confused even more as she tried figuring things out as best as she can. Although she knew it was no use. She was as confused as a rock, probably not though, for she thought that the rocks in this place had minds, and they probably knew what was going on. She sighed in confusement and slight frustration.

"Why must we leave? I don't think that creature meant any harm, no?" She asked quietly, tilting her head a bit.
 
"They take people away," the rainbow-clad woman said. "People and beautiful things. We never see them again." She stood up and grabbed Angelique's wrist. There was a tension in her body that hadn't been there before. It almost looked like there was something glowing behind her steel visor and her free hand was clenched and unclenching. The scent of old fruit was all around them now, and the gas dyed the violet sand a strange brownish color. Th sky had calmed down some, and was no longer pulsing red like it had been for the past half hour or so. "I'm not going to let that thing take you away," Sira insisted, tugging at her arm. Her hands were surprisingly cold, almost like her fingers were made of ice or something similar.
 
"O-Ow!!" Her wrist stung due to her cold hand. She never meant to be rude but she couldn't help but whimper in pain. She thought the best way to avoid more pain is to follow her, but she wondered why she acted like this. She stood beside her and thought of other things that may come upon their way. She felt her nose being stung by the scent and she seemed to choke on her breath. Gasping lightly as she walked beside her, her thoughts too much as she had to ask some things. "Where do they take them? You mean, they disappear?" She wondered and blinked, before suddenly blurting. "Who was the human on the creature's back?" She herself was a highly curious girl, always wondering and always interested, and this adventure seemed to be taking in crazy directions.
 
"I'll let you know in due time," Sira hissed. "For now, pick up your feet and run!" She considered this for a moment, then simply dropped down low and swept Angelique off her feet, carrying her like a bride. Despite her slender build she was much, much stronger than she looked and bounded across the ground like a gazelle. Her arms were cold, her body was cold, and in this position, it looked as though there was something shimmering under her helmet that did not look very much like a head. What it was wasn't completely clear, but it glowed unpleasantly as they dashed through the clouds of greenish, sweet-smelling fog.

The roaring continued off in the distance, but did not get louder. The Mongrid wasn't following them for the moment. In addition, the landscape had begun to change. The sand slowly changed color as they ran, going from violet to red and then to orange as they whipped through the wasteland. The crystals standing upright in the desert changed as well. There were no more fish-filled obelisks. Now they were strange, inverted pyramids, gently whirling around on the tips of their lowermost points. What looked like octopi slithered and jetted about inside them, vanishing from view much as the fish had.

Sira executed a leap over a whirling polyhedron standing in her path, landing with a gentle thump on both her feet. The rainbow woman slowed to a walk and then set Angelique down."The Gondril are the riders of the Mongrid," she said, "They are something like men, something like fish, and something like a light switch. I do not know where they come from, but I suspect that those taken by the horrible, writhing beasties are changed to look like them somehow." She laid a hand gently on her shoulder, and the glowing lights behind her visor dimmed somewhat. "I apologize for my roughness, but I simply wish to keep you safe."
 
Angelique was about to run until she was picked up like a bride, she shivered from her cold body yet she had no choice but to cling onto her, either that or fall to the ground, get hurt and probably risk her life by being found by those... Mongrids. She looked under her helmet and wondered what caused such colors and glows. Waves of panic and fear washed over her, making her eyes shut tight and making her cringe slightly, as if the smallest thing could hurt her. After a few moments she forced an eye open, and she saw a lot of changes in the landscape around them, the sand, the creatures, almost everything. She furrowed her brows in confusion and thought to herself. 'Do these creatures really strike that much fear...?' and the other thought was 'I bet this is a dream, all a dream, lucid dreaming perhaps? But I have no control...' She shut her eyes and bit her lower lip, thinking of happy thoughts like ravens, as she found them peculiar and smart creatures. She felt standing on her own two feet again, looking at her as she seemed to have calmed down. She nodded and whispered, as if her voice was caught in her running and escaping.

"What's so special about me...?" She asked, wondering why. Sure, probably she didn't want her to die, but aside from that she seemed to be panicking and it's not just about her life. Was there a reason why she was here? No, it was just coincidental, Angelique forced herself to believe that as she waited for Sira's reply.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back