I like book and song and film and coffee.

‘Alone’ - 06/11/2008 (At Ellie’s request.)

He was alone in the house. It was an old house and the chill crept through the walls and enveloped him in an aura of frost. He turned off the old black and white television set and slinked up the stairs, feeling the painful prick of a thousand needles on the soles of his feet as they pressed against the cold hard wood, one step after the other. His pale, veiny hand slid up the ancient ceramic banister, slowly ascending higher up the once- white wall. He heard the moan of the stairs beneath his brittle frame. He heard the fast pounding of his troubled heart. His skeletal legs trembled with each step. He trudged slowly into the freezing cloakroom, ignoring the deadly splinters which harshly bit into his fragile, emaciated feet. He looked at his reflection in his aged mirror with the gilded frame. He saw his gaunt, sallow face. He saw his sunken hazel eyes staring back at him wearily. He looked down at his wasted, frail figure.

His delicate form shuddered violently as a bitter shock of cold shot down his spine, like a bullet of pure ice. He collapsed to the floor. His swollen knees smashed hard on the solid wooden boards of the cloakroom floor. He slowly used the ice cold cast iron surface of the radiator to drag himself to his feet. He stumbled to his bedroom. He fell onto the bed, feeling the hard, cold springs scratch his thin, skeletal ribs. With great effort, he pulled the duvet over himself, like a shield of feathers which cold could not even penetrate.

He felt his blood growing hotter at every coming second. He could feel his heart pounding against his ribcage with the force of a jackhammer. His blood throbbed in his head. He brought his palms up to his forehead. His temples beat like ancient drums of war. Ba-doom. Ba-doom. Ba-doom. He curled up into a ball. Ba-doom. He screamed. Ba-doom. His scream died in even his own ears. Ba-doom. He closed his eyes and drifted off.

He opened his eyes. He could see a room. He could see his own body. His own dead body. He saw a man talking to a woman. He listened to the man. He heard the man say that it was tragic that something like this could happen to a nineteen year old boy. He heard the man say that he didn’t know how a man could keep a kidnapped teenager alive like this for so many years without somebody finding out. He felt an overwhelming sense of cold. He awoke with a jolt. His head felt hazy and his vision was blurry. His vision cleared and he looked around the room. He saw the old black and white television set. He saw the wooden staircase with the ceramic banister. He was in an old house. He was alone in the house.

‘Eximus’ - chapter 5

“I can’t k-keep this u-up much l-l-longer,” panted Terry, after 20 minutes of running like mad. He decided to look behind to see what it was they were running from. It was hard as he was tired and every few seconds the ground shook heavily. It was a hypocrithe! “We can’t come this far to end up being crushed or eaten or whatever a hypocrithe does to people” he thought to himself. Now he knew what is was chasing them he felt a new surge of power; as if he was a toy and someone had put new batteries in him.
“There’s the h-hall!” exclaimed Eva. “Get the keys r-ready!”
John fumbled about in his pockets, struggling to stay the same speed. They were now within 100 yards of the hall. He fished out the first. 70 yards. Grabbed the second. 40 yards. “The third isn’t here!” He felt something cold against his chest. The third key! He got it out just as they got inside the hall. There were three keyholes around the room, positioned in a triangular, like the platforms.
“Throw me a key!” shouted Eva. John threw her the first key. Smash! The hypocrithe had knocked the wall at the entrance down. John threw Terry the other two keys.
“What are you doing?” shouted Terry. John ran towards the hypocrithe, hands apart, arms wide.
“Just go!” roared John. Terry rushed and put the keys in, rushing to do it before the hypocrithe got John. As he was pushing the key in the keyhole he heard a loud crack.
“Nooooooo!” screamed Terry. He pushed the key in with so much force the keyhole almost broke. The black metal door rose out of the ground. Eva rushed towards it and opened it. She walked into it, followed by Terry, who didn’t look back to see what had happened to John.
“Oh no!” said Eva, “we need three people to get back.”
“Can’t we just put something on the third platform?” questioned Terry.
“No, the platforms are magic and can tell what’s on them.” explained Eve.
“Boo!”
Terry turned round.
“John! I thought you were,” he lowered his voice, “dead.”
John cleared his throat.

—THE END—

‘Eximus’ - chapter 4 (I experimented with humour here, unsuccessfully.)

“To get the keys you have to complete three tasks; kill a hypocrithe, a beast which is ten storeys tall and as strong as one thousand men, capture a toast frog, a frog whose poison is one hundred times strong than arsenic, get a fillitensis flower, which only the five-headed ogre has,” said Eva.
“Piece of cake,” said Terry sarcastically.

They set off to find where the toast frog could be located.
“Well there’s a pond,” said John, pointing towards a pond. They went over to it and saw a miniature piece of toast with arms and legs swimming around.
“How are we going to catch it though?” asked John.
“Eureka! I’ve got it. John, take off your leather jacket and lower it into the water,” said Terry. John did just that and the toast frog hopped onto it to examine the jacket. John snatched up the jacket and bunched the opening at the top in his fist so the frog couldn’t get out.
“We must take this to the King and he will give us one key. Now where could the king be?” said Eva, unaware that she was standing just infront of the gates to a palace.
“Eva… there’s a palace behind you.” They opened the gates and walked in and gave the king the toast frog. He muttered something in another language and took a key from his pocket and gave it to them. They looked at the key. It was a brilliant golden colour with a green gemstone set into it. It had a soft glow about it.
“Well, that was fairly easy,” Terry pointed out. They decided to get the fillitensis flower next as the hypocrithe would be very hard.
“Now, if you were a five-headed ogre where would you live?” asked Eva.
“A cave? I saw one earlier, when we got out of that bronze-floored place,” replied Terry. Eva looked around and there, sure enough, was a cave, about one and a half miles away.
“How are we going to trick it into giving us the flower though?” asked John.
“We’ll think that up on the way there,” replied Eva. The walk to the cave was a long, hard one. The land had lots of bumps and small hills but they did the walk in one hour. When they reached the entrance they heard a loud crack. They could see the flower that they were after sitting on the palm of a stone hand hanging on the ceiling, just above Terry’s reach. A grey head with a stout neck peered round a corner at them. The head was followed by four other heads and a chest and eventually a five-headed ogre stood before them.
“What does you want?!” boomed the ogre; it had a loud, deep voice.
“F-f-fillitensis,” stuttered John.
“You wants my flower? Me no give you my flower. Tum-tum (for that was what he was called) no stupid!” The ogre lurched forward but he was slow, and they easily moved out of the way. John started to run around and the ogre started to chase him. Terry took this opportunity to try and get the flower off the stone hand. He ran towards the hand and jumped up and hit the hand. It came off and fell to the ground. Eva rushed forward and picked up the flower. The ogre heard the stone hand shattering and turned round. “How dare you steal my flower!” the ogre shouted. The three of them turned and ran away, the ogre hot on their trail. After a while the ogre tired out. “Me will get you for this!” Eva, John and Terry walked the rest of the way back to the palace. They went in and gave the king the fillitensis flower. He sighed and gave them the second key, this one had a red gemstone set in it. John decided he couldn’t take doing another task and punched the king’s face and took the third key out of the king’s pocked. They ran out of the palace and took off. The king shouted something and the guard straightaway went and pushed a button.
“What do we do with the keys then?” asked Terry.
“There should be some keyholes in a hall somewhere,” replied Eva. She paused. The ground has started shaking. John had felt it too. He looked behind him. He cursed.
“This can’t be happening! RUN!”