Note: This is a story series that comprises of seven parts. This is the first one and it starts off with a bit of a slow burn but will pick up once the main character gets to a "certain point." My focus in this piece has been more on the narrative side but rest assured that it will be worth it.
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Emma had a hard life growing up. Throughout most of her childhood, her parents suffered from a variety of financial distress -- which meant she had to make do with non-existent dinners, ragged clothes and cold winter nights. While her parents tried their best to ensure that she had the best possible life, at some point one has to realize that love only is barely enough to put a half decent meal on the table. There were many times when she would go out to mow the neighborhood lawns in the burning heat or shovel the ice from the roads in the freezing cold not to make some pocket change for herself like kids at her age, but so her family could afford to pay the next week's groceries.
Not to say that Emma's life was entirely terrible: she did well at school, had a close group of friends and was well liked by students and teachers alike. She was nowhere close to being the homecoming queen, but she had enough going for herself to not make her adolescent school years an absolute nightmare. On top of all that, she was pretty. Despite her worn out clothes, her sparkling blue eyes and long dirty blonde hair shone out and would turn the boys' heads as she passed by. She had a cold resting gaze on her face, etched into her by the long years of continuous perseverance she had to undergo. Her pink lips were always clasped tight and she had a habit of sharply turning her head whenever someone spoke to her, as if retorting "What do you want?" silently in her head. All of this scared the boys away and with barely any initiative from her own side, she went through school with minimal romantic involvement.
In all fairness, that really isn't an excuse for why someone wouldn't be interested in relationships. Emma didn't truly know why she wasn't that into boys (or even girls for that matter). Maybe it was just that she had too much on her mind or that she was just like that but every time her friends would invite her to events where she suspected that it was going to go in that direction at the end of the night, she would either not go or leave early. It wasn't like she was religious or anything -- it was just that she disliked the idea of a scrawny little boy going back to his friends telling them about how he fucked the shit out of this cute little blonde and took her virginity. She really couldn't care less about her virginity -- she wouldn't have minded if she never even had it in the first place. But to think that a guy could take something that was hers and act like he owned her, that she could not accept.
Now eighteen years old, she was walking back home from school one day when she noticed there was a fair bit of cloud cover, and it was much chillier than it was in the morning.
"Shoot," she thought. "Should've worn something else."
The cold wind breezed through her legs and up her fake pink Lulu shorts as she began to up her pace. But with every step, she felt that the sky was getting darker and darker.
"It's going to rain now, isn't it?" she spoke to herself, knowing that she was still a good two miles away from home. Her slightly oversized white sweatshirt was the last thing she wanted to be wearing out in the rain, but it is what it is, she thought, and almost went into a jogging speed.
The path back to her home was surrounded with dense trees on both sides. There was no one around and all she could only hear the whistling of the wind and the patter of her dirty once-white Converses on some odd puddles in her way as she hurried her way back home. Suddenly, she saw a bright flash of white light to her right. In the dark thick of trees and the clouds hovering overhead, there was no mistaking it for anything else. She retraced a few steps and indeed, there was a small spot of bright light, floating almost like an orb. Her heart skipped a beat.
"What the hell was that?" she said to herself. She wanted to keep going further but her curiosity was overcoming her fear bit by bit and she thought to at least take a few steps into the trees to see what it could possibly be. As she got closer and closer, though, the orb grew in size, and it slowly looked more to be a circular portal into whiteness. She took the last few steps and found herself standing right in front of it. She looked behind her -- there was no one, not even a bird or animal around. She gulped and stuck her hand in the portal. There was blinding white light everywhere and she felt though as if she was being pulled apart. Getting dizzy with the force, her mind gave in and the next thing Emma knew, she woke up lying down in a vast green plain.
She stood up with a jump and could see nothing as far as her eye could go. It was just a grassy green plain under a pale blue sky that had no sun. "Where was all this light coming from then?" but her mind rebuked herself for this stupidity. "Where am I and what just happened? That is the more important question, Emma!" she told herself. She took a few steps forward and turned around and fell back down in shock.
There was a massive brown beast, almost 10 feet tall, with the head and legs of a bull but the torso of a man. The head held two massive horns, and he had just two legs. There was a large loincloth draped over his groins and a staff in his right hand. "How the hell is he holding his weight up on those tiny hoofs," she thought but there was no time for this. She looked around panicking, trying to figure out anything that she could do.
"Do not worry," the beast bellowed, "you were invited here."
Shock set over Emma's face, and she could not say a word.
"Do not worry", he repeated, "we called you here to grant you your wish."
Mustering whatever strength Emma could, she blurted out:
"Who are you and where am I?"