"The World Beyond" October 18, 2011 By Laurence Eli Imagine a house your family moved into recently. It's a cold raining night with nothing to do and a house to yourself. The powers out and you don't have any signal on your phone and no T.V. You've already explored everywhere. Even that corner in the attic, you know the place. But there is a room, which the previous owner said to never go into - which just made you want to go into it even more. So you decide well no time like the present. WRONG. This story is about a boy who is in the same situation. He couldn't resist the temptation and ended up in trouble. And now, to our main event, the story! The rain pounded heavily down on the little house at 9:30pm. Then suddenly the lights went black. The only light on in the entire house was the glowing light of the full moon. The boy walked slowly and carefully past the forbidden room to go to his room so he could get a flashlight. He walked past his bed and picked up his flashlight on his night stand. He left his room and turned on the flashlight to see only red words, DO NOT ENTER on the door. He decided that it was harmless, so he thought he should go in. 'Creeek' the door had been opened. Our adventure begins. The room seems just like any other room in a house,he thought to himself as he walked in. it had a closet, a bed and a chest. Then, he noticed that in the room there were no windows, only the one door. Finally there were no light switches. He slowly walked forward and then came a slam. The door had closed and walls seemed to fade, but he decided to ignore it - bad idea. 'Click' the door had locked behind him. He ran to the door and twisted the knob but it wouldn't budge. He turned around and decided to go forward in his quest. He walked forward until at one point it actually seemed lighter so he went to the light then, he suddenly FELL through the house, through the ground, through the dirt, until it seemed he fell through the world. Then, THUMP. Snow flew up in his face he looked around and when he got a good look at his surroundings, he saw he thought well I'm no longer at my house anymore. He soon realized he was near a mountainside next to what seemed to be a castle made of ice. He walked around almost aimlessly until he bumped into something. "watch where you're going!" he yelled "oh, it's just a mountain," he said, then turned. But as soon as he was going to walk away, he heard a deep voice say, "sorry I wasn't looking down." Please let that just be my imagination thought the boy then he turned around and saw a giant monster that was made of ice that looked like armor and covered in snow. He then said "excuse me but just - . What are you?" The giant monster chuckled then said, "well I'm a frost giant isn't it obvious?" well I'm no longer in my world the boy thought to himself. "Excuse me but how am I going to get back to my house?" The giant monster paused then said "well you don't look like you're from my Pantheon? what are you?" The child was confused. Then he responded, "well- I'm not from a Pantheon." The giant monster was stunned. Then finally, he said,"You will have to cross through the Slavic myths to the Chinese Pantheon to see the dragon that represents yang and then the phoenix that represents yin the rulers of this world. Next, you must get permission from them to leave." He paused and said, "this is no easy task it is incredibly hard to do. Only one person has done this before. He came by here 10 years ago." That was when the last owner was still here- his train of thought got interrupted by the giant saying, "The Phoenix is closer. He is only about a days walk that way," as he pointed south. "You'll need this," he said giving the boy an ice compass lined in gold and a thick coat. "I wish you luck." then the giant started his walk for the unknown. The boy turned, put the compass in his pocket to start his day long walk down toward the Phoenix. About halfway there was a forest. The forest was dark, gloomy and he had a feeling he was being watched. The forest was so quiet he could hear the snakes slithering around and it was as if a voice was quietly whispering his name. Our hero, having a terrible sense of danger has fallen asleep for the night in the forest. "Wake up" a voice, said nicely that reminded him of his mom then he naturally said, "give me five more minutes." The voice then said, "no you have to get up now!" He opened his eyes to see a woman who had black hair with blue eyes with a white dress and grey head piece he was shocked to see someone actually there. he thought it was just his imagination. As they were almost out of the forest, the boy asked out of curiosity "Excuse me but who are you and why are you here?" she stopped and said, "my name is Morana but you can call me Mora. I'm the goddess of snow. My friend sent me here to help you. I can't believe that kids these days don't know Slavic mythology!" he decided not to ask if the friend was the frost giant but he decided that it was. He was so shocked to see what was at the end of the forest. It was a town where every single building had red flames as grass surrounding the town. There was only one thing that stood out and that was a giant shape on top of the volcano next to the town. As he walked up to it, he saw a movement occurring which startled him and made him jump back next to Morana and he said "uhhh - . I'm sort of new to asking a giant monster to help me. What should I do?" "Just flatter it like almighty Phoenix. Please give me the passage home or something like that," Morana said. "Alright" he mumbled. "Almighty Phoenix please let me get out of here and back home." at this time the phoenix had risen up flapping it's wings of massive flames. "I SEE YOU HAVE GONE THROUGH THE LAND OF ICE TO GET HERE. I WILL GIVE YOU PASSAGE TO THE DRAGON, BUT THE REST IS UP TO YOU." The Phoenix roared as it shot a short line of fire toward the lair of the dragon. Then it said "GETTING TO THE DRAGON IS HARDER THAN IT SEEMS" and with that it went back to rest in it's volcano. "Well?... Let me be the first to say that it was incredibly easy" said Morana as she started walking in the direction of the fire. "yes way too easy if you ask me?" the boy said. Little did they know the dragon's lair would be harder to get to than they thought it would be. They shortly approached a mountain where the trail of fire ended at. "That phoenix tricked us!" said the boy angrily "um no he didn't look up" said Morana. He proceeded to look up where he saw the shape of a mountain carved to look like a dragons head. The eyes solid ruby and the teeth were ivory. The nose was two holes in the mountain lined with gold with smoke slowly rising out while the mouth was just a gaping rectangular hole in the mountain. "Wow - we better get climbing" said the boy as he then started to climb. He was out of breath as he made it to the mouth. He stood in awe because as he looked upon the opening, there was nothing but a door and treasure. He started to approach and get out. As he stood in front of thee door a voice bellowed through the cavern, "GO THROUGH THAT DOOR IT WILL LEAD YOU BACK TO YOUR OWN WORLD. BUT IF YOU TAKE EVEN ONE PIECE OF TREASURE YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO RETURN TO YOUR WORLD AGAIN!" bellowed the dragon. The boy walked past the gold and treasure and opened the door to never return here again. "HMMMM YOU CHOOSE WELL." he saw a blinding light. He then saw his living room with no power. He checked his watch and saw that it was still 9:30pm exactly. He started to ponder what had just happened. With his flashlight, he quickly ran to the forbidden room and saw the ground. A flat circular tile with a dragon and a Phoenix on it. "That's impossible!" he yelled. Then suddenly he felt a random coldness in his pocket. He slowly and carefully reached into his pocket and pulled out his compass and knew at that moment that this was an adventure that he would never forget! In case you are wondering, I choose to write my story from a Third omnipresent perspective. That way I could add a narrative quality to it. I wanted to add a narrative quality because I especially wanted to narrate the beginning so that I could add some important background information. I also wanted to leave the character unnamed so that the reader could sympathize with him and call him whatever they wanted to. By doing so, you could say that the character could have done the same thing that anyone else would have done.