Alice Almost (page one)

>>>Page One<<<

Breezes wisped about a dry hazed wasteland, and at the bottom of a little crater surrounded by other giant craters, there lay a lump misted with smoke.

“Ugh …” It stirred and gave a groggy moan. Eyes blurred and throat dried, Aschka sat up with effort and blinked at her surroundings.

“Whe-where am I?” she stuttered out loud to herself.

The smoke slowly cleared and though the endless skies were slightly misted with placid vapor, you could clearly distinguish the outlines of the cliffs and craters of the land. In the skies there were five moons. Each of their own individual size and color that gave off slight rays of light illuminating the skies with blurs.

The girl stood up slowly and steadied herself on her feet. The gravity was light and she felt airy. She rubbed her eyes with balled fists and frowned at the sandy-dusted dirt.
“What the hell…” she whispered under her breath.

Aschka was confused and couldn’t believe what had just happened. Today was her twentieth birthday. She had just woken up from a long slumber she thought she had awoken late for class, but instead finding herself in this dream-like state. She thought she knew herself better now, but at this moment she felt lost as if she was stuck in a dream, no more like in a coma. Aschka Skell of Fruitvale, Michigan of the United States of America. Was she even on Earth anymore? Obviously not, seeing as there were about five moons hanging in the skies and though it looked like a desert, it seemed more realistically like a war had come over. Or better yet, an apocalypse.

She stumbled as she pulled herself up and out of the crater where she was laying before. At the edge of the crater and on her tummy, she lay bedazzled in thoughts. Feeling lightheaded as she stood up and observed her surroundings better, she couldn’t think of anything but confused jumbled questions circling like buzzing fireflies around her head.

Aschka pinched her arm and felt a sting. “Ouch,” she whispered in dismay as she understood in no way was she dreaming. This was real. She was real. What she saw and felt was too real. Scared now with her knees shaking slightly, she muttered to herself again.

“Where the hell am I?”

After walking about the place and tripping over some crooked rocks, Aschka sat down on a knee high boulder and sighed. She was shaking in frustration and chilled to the bone by the cool vapor that lay like a thick coat of fur about the place. The sky was always light and never seemed to tell of time.
Aschka’s feet were bruised and dirtied with the sandy dirt that seemed as endless as the blurred skies. She felt exhausted already, even though she just woke up. Still wearing her sleepwear and having no sort of object to protect herself just incase some aliens were bound to find her and drag her off into their misted laboratories. Then dissect her like something from those old damned movies about aliens and anal probes. She shuddered and shook her head as if trying to dislodge the thoughts running in her mind to seep out through her ears as she shook back and forth. She sighed again and laid her hands over her head as she drooped down into this unknown dusty planet.

“Be strong. Be strong. Don’t break down now. Now is not the time. Don’t lose your head, Aschka. We’ve gotta keep it together.” she told herself with a slight sliver of hope in her voice.