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Disclaimer!
All characters are over 18 years old.
The story is over 13k words and there are no sex scenes. What it has is world building and a slow burn towards the next part of the story. I like stories like these and this is one of them, and if you do too, then please continue and enjoy...
***
Joseph Asger was cold.
He could see nothing.
His wrists were tied.
Joseph, or Joe as he was more commonly called, was blindfolded and his wrists were tied with a loose knot. The chair he was sitting in was narrow and hard and with its back leg almost rotten through. It was late autumn now, and the leaves were golden orange and most were already falling down; the winds from the north had picked up and the walls of the cabin leaked cold air inside. The log cabin was cold and lifeless. Next to the front door was a window with a crack running through it, almost broken, but not yet.
Joe knew that nobody had come to the cabin in many years. The dust was coating was thick everywhere, and when they arrived, the front door was ajar. Nothing had been stolen, for there was nothing to steal from the almost-abandoned cabin. He had swept some dung balls outside before setting the old chair in the middle of the only room.
Vanessa had said that the place was perfect. It was exactly what she needed for what they were about to do. Joe had been sceptical coming up here. Now he was more so. Now he was anxious.
"Vanessa! What are you doing? This is silly."
"No, it's not, Joe! You're the one who's silly. This will work!" came a feminine reply. The young woman was in a hurry. And she was excited. Joe heard footsteps rushing all around him; it was Vanessa, who was almost tripping over some of the left-over trash on the floor.
Nobody had cleaned the place up before they left the cabin, and on the floor were still a few dusty bottles from years ago, and a box of old cranberry juice. Vanessa could not remember how many years it had been since the party here. She had just turned sixteen and was out here in the northern woods celebrating with her friends years ago. How many years ago was that now? She could not remember.
"Not a teenager anymore," Vanessa thought to herself and finished marking the floorboards with white chalk. She had used up many for the masterpiece now laying on the wooden floorboards, but it will work out. Because if it won't, that would mean she's crazy. Crazy or desperate. Probably both.
"There!" she said victoriously and got up, throwing the tiny piece of white chalk in the cold fireplace. Many half-burned branches laid there still, left over from all those years ago. Keeping a fire going is constant work, and none of them knew that before they went to sleep. In the morning, hung over and groggy, they woke up to a cold cabin. They then left in a hurry, with Vanessa driving, and never came back for years.
The chalk lines were done. But where were the candles? Vanessa looked everywhere for them; they weren't on the old and dusty table, which was still standing for god-knows how many years. Also not in her bag, stuffed full as it was, nor were they lying somewhere on the floor.
"Where'd you put the candles, Joe?" she asked, standing in front of the poor young man, hands on her hips. She was thankful he could not see her excitement. It had been a good idea to blindfold him first, and then prepare everything else. Less chance of him backing down. Then all of her efforts would be lost.
"You brought candles?" Joe asked.
"Duh! How else is it gonna work?" Vanessa said dismissively and stormed outside.
The only place left over to check was her old beat-up Toyota Tercel, which was a mechanical wonder that it still worked and drove. Though she took good care of it and always drove safely. And indeed, there the candles were; lying all the way under the passenger seat where Joe had been sitting in all his dumb, self-confident manner. Always knowing everything and lecturing her about this or that. So infuriatingly blind to other people.
Vanessa didn't know whether the whole thing would even work without those candles. Apparently, they were very important, and very expensive. Especially to her limited budget. Working as a painter did not bring in a lot of money, and neither did Joe.
But that will change!
Well, not the making money part. But a whole many things will change soon enough, because what she was doing will work! This had to work, because this was her last option. Writing all this nonsense on the floor was not silly, because she read it from that old goddamn book Emelynne gave her. And Emelynne was weird. Even her name was weird. So how could her plan not work?
Vanessa stormed back into the cabin to find protection from the icy wind. The old door crashed closed, shaking the nearby walls and lengthening the crack in the window. She turned around and looked at the glass for a second, hoping the whole window wouldn't come crashing down. Luckily, it didn't.
Her itchy and coarse duffle coat was not as bursa escort warm as she was told, and she had been silently cursing the entire drive here. "Thick winter coat," they said over the military surplus store. Yeah, right! "The sailors wore them during the war."
Well, perhaps the sailors wore something thick and warm under that damned coat, because she was freezing her ass off. But that didn't matter now. What mattered was that everything was almost ready.
"Found them!" Vanessa said and skipped next to Joe, rolling the thirteen deep purple beeswax candles between her fingers. Then she started laying them down in a seven-pointed star shape on the floor, right in the chalk-marked positions.
"I did this right," she repeated to herself. "I did everything properly. This will work."
From her overstuffed bag, she dug up her old phone and checked the photos again. Emelynne even made a mock-up picture of how everything should look like, and everything matched up perfectly, save for the black-and-white checkered floor.
"Vanessa!" Joe cried out in frustration. "I'm so cold. Let me at least make a fire before you do whatever you're going to do. Actually, why did you tie me up first? This is so stupid! I don't even know why I went along with this."
"Because I had no other choice," she whispered, almost to herself, but louder than she wanted to. "Because we had no other choice! You said you'd do anything for a better job. Well? This is anything!"
"Yeah," Joe replied, still tied up and blindfolded. "But not this. I meant anything normal people would do."
He was now shivering and feeling the cold seep into his bones.
"This is normal, Joe. And we are normal."
"No, it's not. This is-"
"Silly?"
"I was going to say crazy. But let's go with silly again. Vanessa, this is silly! Untie me, let me make a fire and let's just eat and drink something and talk."
But Vanessa didn't want them to just talk anymore. Not even one more time could she handle a day of just talking. She had been going mad these last months. Joe was thick as a fucking brick! Slow on the uptake, as he said loved to say.
Well, it wasn't entirely his fault for being slow this time. Vanessa wanted Joe to understand something that was unusual. People would not understand and normal people do not think these thoughts. But she did and had been for many years. And she was tormented by those thoughts. This was the last straw; her last gamble. Either this worked, or...
"Joe! This is not crazy. And even if it is? What do you have to lose? Let's just do this, and then I'll let you do what you wanted to do," Vanessa said. "Now... Where'd I put the goat's blood?"
"What!" Joe shouted and almost jumped up in his chair. The rotten leg almost broke under the jump, and Joe now sat almost sideways, with the thin frame of the chair digging into his buttock.
"I'm kidding, sheesh," Vanessa said and rolled her eyes. She hoped Joe could've seen that, at least.
"Where did I put the goat's blood?" she thought to herself.
Going to a farmer's market and asking for goat's blood was not among her fondest of memories. The look on the farmers was distressing. And then explaining that she was not joking; how then everyone turned serious and politely asked her to leave. She then heard an old man shouting and telling her he has what she wants - goat's blood. It was a lucky victory.
Vanessa then dug through her bag again and pulled out a small 0,5 l bottle filled with dark red liquid. It was thick and almost syrup-like. Well... blood-like, to be precise. In that bottle was exactly 333 milliliters of goat's blood. She measured it last night with as much precision as she could, doing this in candlelight and chanting some odd words.
Next to the chalk lines, Vanessa then painted a secondary line of symbols, which she had practised many, many times at home. She didn't know what any of those meant, but Emelynne told her it was what she needed. Joe had said that Emelynne probably sniffed paint during break time.
"You know, sis, I'm beginning to really question my sanity," Joe said and shifted in the chair. He seemed to accept his situation, finally, and he was only trying to keep warm.
"You and me both, bro," Vanessa thought as she finished the last strange symbol. It was an odd triangle, with all three of its sides pierced by a different shaped arrow. What was that mean to symbolize again? She could not remember anymore. It also didn't matter.
"All done," she said, leaning against her knee as she stood up from the floor. There was only one thing left to do, and she grabbed a small needle from the beige plastic box and held in between her fingers.
"I'm going to take your right index finger now," she said and grabbed it before Joe even said anything.
"What-" Joseph could only call out before he felt a painful pinch in his finger. A warm, flowing sensation followed.
"It's fine, Joe. Almost done."
Vanessa then pierced both of her index fingers, bursa escort bayan and with her right grabbed Joe's bleeding fingers, and hovered her left hand over the final marking on the floor; made with chalk, blood and illuminated only by candlelight.
"Here goes nothing!" she said.
Vanessa then shouted loudly five strange words, only holding in her mind the one goal she wished to accomplish with this spell.
"Fiftharash-" she yelled and plunged her left hand in the middle of the strange pierced triangle, where was a tiny drop of goat's blood.
And then.
Nothing.
Nothing changed. She was still just kneeling next to Joe, feeling their two bloody fingers touching, and seeing white chalk marks on the floor.
Those strange white chalk lines. So very strange. What was their meaning again? Emelynne told her a few weeks ago. She said that- Wait, what did she say? Vanessa couldn't remember anymore. It was supposed to...
What was the spell supposed to do?
But the chalk lines were, indeed, strange. An interesting artwork of five interlocking circles, drawn on top of each other, and finished with ancient symbols made from blood. The blood which looked so rich in the candlelight. Almost like it was glowing. Dancing.
Then the candles snuffed out, and all light disappeared from the cabin. It was pitch-dark outside now. Vanessa could not see outside the windows. Only pure blackness. Like a void. It should not have been so late, it was only...
What time was it?
Time?
What does that mean - what time was it?
Someone heard someone say something.
Vanessa was it? Vanessa heard someone talk right next to her. But the voice was growing distant and distant and distant, almost like a quiet thunder now.
Like a quiet thunder, but it grew louder and louder.
Lounder ever more.
Even louder still.
A thunder, cracking and bright and loud and painful and so loud and so bright!
And there was someone talking still, right there in the distance; still talking and crying. Who was the one talking and what was he talking about? Why was he shouting, who was shouting?
Then.
A flash of light enveloped her.
And a flash of light enveloped him.
An all-encompassing light, like a warm blanket shielding from the cold. From the so very cold void.
And then, slowly but instantly also, there were things again.
There were all around them leaves of green and tall trees swaying in the sun. It was summer, it seemed, warm and caressing. And there was a slow wind blowing; soft and gentle. And underneath them was green moss and a few loose straws of grass here and there, tall and thick. Far away a stream flowed, again calm.
Under the green and olive-colored moss was a young man called Joseph Asger. He was the first who could move. With a painful groan, he rolled and stood up. Eyes still fuzzy, and with a loud ring in his ears, he shrugged the loose ropes off his wrists and ankles. Ropes which only a moment ago were tied to an old chair. An old chair which did not exist anymore.
There was no chair! There was no chair anywhere! But there was something else everywhere which was not there a moment ago. Joe was sure of it. They had just been in their old summer cabin. Were they? He was not entirely sure, but as he looked around, dumbfounded, memory came rushing back.
"Vanessa!" he called out a pitiful cry and fell to his knees. Knees which felt livelier and springier. And with a voice which sounded more formidable. And as Joseph Asger was bemoaning on what was happening to him, on the ground right next to him appeared his sister - Vanessa Asger. Joseph was certain she had not been there a second ago, but now there she was, hollering and vomiting.
-
On a mossy hill somewhere in the middle of a forest there were a brother and a sister laying down. One was coughing and grumbling and holding onto her belly, the other laid beside her, and held her shoulders in comfort. In their ears there was a ringing, loud and sharp, and in their eyes there was a cloudiness. It was a strange cloudiness which transformed their vision with an added sepia filter, like on those expensive cameras. And where it had just been freezing outside not a moment ago, it was now warm and pleasant and their skin was sweating.
They were also sweating because only a moment ago, both of them had been throwing up whatever was left in their stomachs.
"Vanessa!" Joe cried again, this time firmer. And this time, he stood up again. His down-jacket was smoldering and there were many tiny holes burned into the outer shell.
Vanessa replied, but in mumbled gurgles and wails of crying. She did that for some time, and Joseph held her shoulders until she stopped.
"What... What the fuck!" Vanessa said with a deep, guttural voice.
"Your stupid spell!" Joe said grimly.
"How is this my fault?" Vanessa then asked after hurling one final time, but nothing came out.
Her brother Joseph sat beside escort bursa her now, looking all around him as in a daze, and said: "What do you mean? Why do I have to explain myself? It was your fucking... magic thing that you did."
"Oh yeah! Some chalk and candles teleported us to where ever we are," Vanessa said loudly. She then immediately started coughing and rolled over, further away from the pool of vomit which was now seeping into the moss. "Yeah, it's my fault for sure. Because things like this happen all the time, so you know exactly who to blame!"
"What else could it be, Ness? Please tell me, because if you have any other idea, I'm all ears," Joe said and gently lifted his sister closer to him and farther from the contents of her stomach.
"I don't know! Maybe we froze to death and this is the afterlife? Fuck if I know."
"Sure doesn't feel like I'm dead."
"Sure doesn't feel like it at all. Everything hurts too much to be dead. And if we are dead, then this sucks!"
Vanessa agreed, sat up and examined what was around her. They were sitting on top of a small mound overlooking the nearby area. She could see nothing other than tall trees she could not recognize with bright green leaves, some thick bushes here and there, some moss, and grass.
"If this is the afterlife, I guess it's better to spend it with you than anyone else."
Instead of replying, or perhaps even really hearing what Vanessa said, he was sitting in silence, unmoving and in deep thought. His brain was already playing through the many scenarios which could happen and prioritizing the actions they had to take.
"Can you get up?" Joseph then asked some time later.
"I think you have to help me," Vanessa replied weakly, and reached out her arm.
Leaning on his knee, Joe got up. He shook his down jacket clean of the dried straws of grass and tufts of moss. Although his bones hurt, and his muscles were tense and exhausted, and the constant ringing in his ears and the strange sepia filter, Joseph felt more than he had been in the cabin.
He couldn't explain what had changed, nor did he want to, and he pushed those thoughts, out of the many hundreds, deep down to be forgotten or ignored until more information was gathered. What they needed to do was wrap their minds around what was going on. And it was more simple to do that by focusing on one bizarre thing at a time, rather than panicking about everything at all once.
Vanessa was keeping calm, for now, and that was reassuring for Joe because usually she would be driving him insane with her worrying.
Getting up felt easy this time, not comparable to what was before. Joe had injured his knee some years ago from that dammed fall. Kneeling and getting up used to be such a strain every time. But this time Joe got up without trouble, without that disturbing clicking and crunching sound. Every passing month or two, Joe thought the clicking sound got worse.
He exhaled loudly and extended his arm to pull Vanessa up. Then they stood there, next to each other for some time, simply looking and wondering and pondering what the ever-living-fuck was going on. They could see to their right a small clearing, from where a pleasant breeze blew towards the thicker part of the forest. The surrounding trees had wide, hand-shaped leaves, which almost seemed to glow golden if they squinted their eyes. Or rather, almost resembling rhythmical breathing coming off of the leaves and tree trunks. The bushes and grass and moss had none of that. Joe chose to ignore that strangeness as well.
Suddenly Vanessa felt weak again and grabbed her brother's arm and leaned against it. She then nuzzled her face against his shoulder and closed her eyes. Perhaps he would not mind this physical touch, considering the circumstances. It was definitely a dangerous move, Vanessa thought, but what else did she have to lose? The spell might have gone awry, but that should not stop her from at least trying to accomplish what she wanted.
"What are you thinking?" she then asked, after some more time had passed. Joe stood unmoving for some time again, seemingly lost in thought or lost in shock. Vanessa couldn't quite figure out which.
He then suddenly said, loudly and clearly: "We should find something to drink and then find some kind of shelter. Just in case, you know."
Vanessa looked at her brother, studying his face and those lines she knew all so well. How he already had a barely noticeable stubble developing, and how he looked so handsome and so...
"Are we in a survival situation?" she said, stopping her train of thought. That usually lead to her becoming rather excited, which she chose to not pursue this time.
"Um, I don't know. Maybe? It's kind of hard to understand what kind of situation we are in."
"Yeah," she said and faked an obvious laugh. "Like you always say, better safe than sorry. In your case, always safe and never sorry."
"I'm not that bad, am I?" Joe asked, this time paying attention and in a sincere tone. But he did not notice, or perhaps ignored, was how Vanessa tightened her hold on his arm.
"You're so cautious, Joe, that you should walk around with a hard hat and a reflective vest," she said, deciding to interject some humor into the situation.