The Magical Adventure through a Time Portal

[CaterpillarGirl]

Chapter Five
Without even a seconds thought, Lena and Mia turned and ran towards the voice. It came from a small hole beside a rock that had just appeared a short way from the path. The two of them immediately jumped down the hole and landed with a gentle ‘splat’ in some soft green mud.
“Follow me” said the small voice squeakily, and they heard it pitter-patter away down a corridor to the left. They looked at each other and Lena shrugged.
“Can’t get any worse I suppose” she said, and took off after the voice.
“Well I’m not staying here by myself” Mia stated, and ran to catch up. They followed the voice through various tunnels, twists and turns, some vast, echoey caverns and some tunnels so small Lena had to crawl through the mud on all fours. It was pitch black down there and neither could see a thing, following only the sounds of the footsteps of whoever was in front.
“I’m not so sure about this” Lena could hear the worry in Mia’s voice.
“What do you suggest we do? Go back to the top?” She asked, trying and failing to look back at her fluffy companion.
“We could try a different tunnel,” Mia replied, “I’m just not sure I trust this… voice” she kept her own voice low.
“You thought those cloud things were harmless,” said Lena “I think we need help right now.” Mia sighed, but continued to follow Lena as Lena continued to follow the squeaky voice. After a while they entered another huge cavern, except this one was filled with a warm, glowing, yellow light and they could see a few pieces of homemade furniture, cobbled together from bits of broken wood and stone. The ‘voice’ turned to face them, it wasn’t much bigger than Mia; the colour of carrot cake, it had a squirrel-like face with long, thin, pointed ears and it’s body was round and fat, covered in long, flowing, silky fur. It held out a podgy hand towards them,
“Malemming, please ta meetcha” it squeaked, a rosy blush entering its cheeks.
“I don’t understand” Lena replied, “what does merlemmin mean?”
“Malemming, tha’s ma nayme” the creature replied, its arm still outstretched.
“Oh, sorry, Lena” said Lena, shaking Malemming’s hand vigorously, “and these is my dog, Mia, she can’t shake hands”
“I can speak for myself,” said Mia, reaching a paw out towards Malemming, Malemming gripped Mia’s paw in his hand and shook.
“Please ta meetchas both” he said again, and grinned broadly, still blushing, “please excuse tha state of ther playce, don’t get manys in the way of visiters” he said, indicating the cavern with his arm.
“That’s ok,” said Lena, “you saved our lives, how can we ever thank you?”
“Oh yous don’t owe me nothin’, couldn lives with maself if I’d let yous get got by them there critters up there, theys evil they is, yous’ll be sayfe down ere wi’ me.” He busied himself tidying up the cave, “would yous like summink to drink?” he asked.
“Er, sure, thank you” Lena replied, perching on the edge of a large piece of rock that may or may not have been a chair. Malemming pottered around in one corner of the cavern and returned with two wooden cups filled to the brim with a sickly sweet smelling sparkly blue liquid. Lena took a tentative sip and felt a happy glow flow around her body.
“Wow, that’s amazing” she said, completely astonished, “not what I expected at all” the drink made her feel good, but slightly heady, and she lay back gently on the rock chair. Mia took a sip of hers and instantly felt as though she were floating.
“I could get used to this,” she stated, as a fuzzy feeling of warmth filled her head. She lay down next to Lena and before they knew it they had both drifted off into a blissful sleep.
A few hours later they awoke to find the cavern empty,
“Malemming?” Lena called out gently. There was no reply, she got up, feeling more rested that she ever remembered feeling in her life, and wandered around the cave. Mia stretched and rolled over on the rock,
“What’s going on?” she asked Lena sleepily as her mouth stretched open in a big yawn.
“Malemming’s gone,” replied Lena, she had stopped in the corner at Malemming’s kitchen and was hunting for more of the fabulous liquid. Then, out of nowhere, came a terrible, awful, resonating sound,
“Thwonk” it said, “Thwonk, Thwonk, Thwonk, Thwonk,” the walls shuddered and the ground shook, Lena and Mia swallowed hard in unison and looked towards the gap in the wall where the sound was coming from, opposite from where they had come in. They stood frozen to the spot, staring, listening, waiting.

[CaterpillarGirl]

Chapter Three
They both ran as fast as their legs would carry them along the path that continued to grow in front of them. Neither dared to look back but they could feel the sky darken like a heavy curtain and huge drops of bright orange rain began to plop down onto the ground all around them, fizzing ominously as they hit.
Lena threw her arms up over her head in defence and ducked down as she ran while Mia tried to keep shelter under her legs. The rain burned angrily as it pummelled Lena’s arms and left behind an itchy sensation as though covering her in tiny little bugs. Lena tried hard not to cry out as she started to lose the feeling in her legs and struggled to take in air.
“I don’t like this day anymore!” she shouted to Mia, “I want to go home, back to the ordinary rain and my boring game, I changed my mind”.
“It’s too late now,” Mia shouted out in reply, “we have to keep going; we can’t let them catch us!”
They ran on and on, the path twisting and turning like a large snake slithering across the desert sand. Up ahead there was nothingness, a blinding white empty sky that turned dark and filled with orange rain as soon as they entered it. Tears began to stream down Lena’s face, mixing in with the trickles of orange that had managed to break through her arms.
“It’s going to be okay,” Mia tried to comfort her but she could hear the fear in her own voice and she wasn’t sure that it was going to be okay; it seemed as if nothing would ever be ok again.
Soon the sky around them began to turn white and the rain slowed to a drizzle, the path in front of them started to slow down too and the two of them switched their run for a jog and then turned it into a walk. Lena risked taking a look behind her, the creatures were still in the sky, twirling and writhing around each other, they were still heading towards them, but slower now and they had managed to put a fair distance between them. Lena let out a massive sigh of relief, she felt like she’d been holding her breath for a lifetime, and plonked herself down on the floor.
“What are you doing?” Mia asked, “they’re still heading this way, we’re not safe yet.”
“I… can’t… go… on…” Lena answered, taking in big gulps of air between words, “so… so… tired…”
Mia glanced anxiously over her shoulder and gasped in horror as she saw how much ground the creatures had covered in such a short time.
“Oh no… but how…?” she said worriedly, causing Lena to look back too.
“Oh… my… word…” she stammered, as the biggest of the creatures loomed above her, licking it’s lips menacingly as the others crowded round behind it sneering at her. The big one let out an almighty roar and Lena could see right to the back of its huge, cavernous mouth, feel its hot foul breath enveloping her and smell the stench of rotting meat emanating from within.
“This can’t be the end” Lena said, clutching Mia tightly, her fingers wound around her tufty fur, “I still haven’t found out who ‘A’ is in Pretty Little Liars”.
“Unbelievable” Mia shook her head in amazement, the monster’s roar was still going strong, any minute now it was going to clamp down its massive jaws around them and finish them off in one big gulp. Lena swallowed hard and cuddled Mia closer, bracing herself.
“Quick, down here!” shouted a small, squeaky voice from somewhere behind them.

[Suzi]

I'm loving it!

Oh and please don't tell me who A is, we're still working our way through it!

[CaterpillarGirl]

Glad you're enjoying, I'm sharing it with my mum too which is quite daunting because she writes too and is very good (she's been shortlisted a couple of times and has stories in a couple of books, nothing major but still pretty impressive) she likes it too though which helps my confidence massively!

I love pretty little liars but don't worry you'll get no spoilers from me, Lena would kill me if I wrote it into the book anyway!

[OldMike]

I've just been updating my thread so I shall read your latest chapters after dinner

[OldMike]

Chapter 5 is a real cliffhanger, you've got a nice way with words and conjure up some really good mental images (well in my mind they do).

[CaterpillarGirl]

I'm really glad you guys are enjoying it, I love writing I'm just not great with the letting other people read it part! Chapter 6 is still a work in progress at the moment, too tired to write today and I have edits to do on an assignment so that's my priority, as soon as I've got that done and sent back in though I will do some more work on my story

[Paula]

That’s fab! I’m loving it so far

[Suzi]

As and when lovely! Keep going as and when you can lovely....

[CaterpillarGirl]

I wrote this next chapter yesterday and then completely forgot to post it. I'm not sure if I'm happy with it, I feel like it might be lacking something, so any thoughts would be much appreciate. Thanks for taking the time to read it

They could hear heavy footsteps approaching, echoing ominously along the corridor.
“Thwonk, Thwonk, Thwonk” the noise continued, getting louder and louder, the footsteps getting closer and closer. Mia edged over to Lena, padding her feet lightly across the ground. Lena picked Mia up in her arms and held her close,
“It can’t be worse than the giant cloud monsters, can it?” she whispered.
“I don’t know” Mia answered, shaking slightly as Lena gripped her tightly, “it certainly sounds worse”. A large shadow loomed towards the gap in the wall, almost filling it completely. Lena could almost feel her knees knocking together and she struggled to keep hold of Mia who was now shaking violently.
“Why… are we not… running?” Mia asked Lena quietly
“I. Don’t. Know.” Came Lena’s response, her feet felt firmly glued to the ground.
“What’s wrong?” Came a loud, dopey sounding voice from over by the gap. Lena and Mia both turned together to where the voice had come from. There, standing in the gap, was a great, bulky, ogre looking creature with a big, knobbly wooden club in his hand. “what is it?” he asked them, fear entering into his voice, “is something a’coming?” he looked all around nervously and started chewing his lip, his wooden club hung limply at his side.
“Ah, there yous is Glodrick,” said Malemming as he sauntered back into the cavern from yet another hole in the wall. “I’s been looking everywhere for ya, yous gots to meet ours guests”.
“No Malemming, there’s a monster a’coming, we’ve gots to hide!” the ogre was pacing from one foot to the other causing the walls of the cave to shake, his club banging against the floor,
“Thwonk, Thwonk, Thwonk”
He scratched his nose and stared vacantly at Malemming. Lena gently lowered Mia onto the floor. Malemming looked around warily, his whiskers twitching erratically on the end of his mottled, orangey snout.
“M…m…monsterses?” he asked quietly, his emerald green eyes growing wide with fear.
Lena sighed impatiently, “there’s no monster, it was just Glodrick” she stood with her hand on her hip, tapping her foot on the cold, damp ground causing small splashes of dirty water to splatter up her legs and onto her once pristine white socks.
“Glodrick not monster” said Glodrick sulkily, “Glodrick friend” and he held out his hand towards Lena, almost sending her flying across the room with his club. Mia growled viciously and stood between them, her eyes fixed pointedly on Glodrick, glowering menacingly. Towering above her Glodrick made Mia look like an ant standing in front of a human, but he eyes Mia suspiciously,
“friend” Glodrick repeated emphatically, and help out his other hand, deciding that the small dog was not a threat and that it was always nice to make new friends. Lena took his large, warty hand in hers and shook it gently, his rough skin feeling like sandpaper again her unblemished child’s skin,
“Nice to meet you Glodrick”, she said, “but we really need to get out of here now”
“Yes we do” added Mia “it smells like feet down here”, she wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“Let me fix yous a drinks” said Malemming, ignoring them both and walking over to the corner kitchen and pulling a pale brown jug down from the cupboard, “Yous’a probably thirsty yees?” he poured them each a drink of the same sparkly blue liquid from the day before.
“We’re fine” Mia replied, poking Lena in the leg with her paw, “we need to find our way home, mum will be worried”.
“Oh” Malemming said, looking from Lena to Mia, a confused expression on his face, “but yous is home now” and he handed them each a cup, staring at them expectantly.