|
"By the way, my name's Schimmel. What's yours?"
Schimmel asked, trying to start some sort of conversation
"Nemo." Was all he would say. So much for starting
conversation.
They were walking through the woods for quite a while with
nothing going on, not even a single appearance by a monster. Schimmel felt
awkward being around this bookworm so he was wishing for even a monster to
appear just to get his mind off it.
After yet another hour of solid boredom, quiet, and Nemo
staring at his book and flipping the page once in a while, something finally
happened that made Schimmel look up in excitement at last. He saw through the
trees: a house. Which meant there must be more houses around... which meant they
were at the town at last! Schimmel ran past Nemo toward the town. As he got
closer he saw another house, then another house, then a bigger house, then a
not-quite-as-big-as-the-last-one-but-still-big-house. They were there at last!
Nemo caught up to Schimmel who had stopped to look around and
said, "Come on over to my house, I want to check something."
Schimmel agreed as he followed Nemo into a hut on the
outskirts of the other side of the town. They went inside to see a bookworm's
paradise. Tons of books everywhere. Scattered across the floor or neatly placed
in bookcases, there was probably everything you ever wanted to know hidden in
one of those books. But Nemo wasn't interested in the books. He walked over to a
map hung on a wall. He waved Schimmel over and said, "Come and look at
this, I'm curious... do you actually know what this map is of?"
Schimmel looked at it and drew a blank, "No... no clue.
Where is it?"
Nemo looked surprisingly serious, "Do you have
amnesia?"
This threw Schimmel off and he answered, "No... I
remember everything... I can't have amnesia."
"Hm... well, this is our world: Sedda. If you don't
recognize it, then you either have amnesia, you're not from this world... or
you're the most daft person I've ever met."
Schimmel was surprised at this information. He wasn't in his
own world anymore? How could that be? He looked down at his amulet wondering
where in the world it took him. Nemo noticed Schimmel looking at the amulet and
just noticed it for the first time himself.
"This amulet..." Schimmel started talking without
being prompted to, "This is what brought me here... it shone brightly for a
few seconds and I appeared here." He realized it might accidentaly go off
again and take him somewhere else, so he took it off his neck and shoved it into
his pocket as quick as he could.
"Hm, I'm no expert on that stuff... you'll probably want
to go see Professor Brown if you want to find things of the extraordinary sort,
he's strange like that..." Nemo said as Schimmel was walking out the door,
Nemo following after him, "You don't even know where he lives!" he
yelled after Schimmel, who stopped, turned around with a goofy look on his face,
scratching the back of his head saying, "Oh... right... hehe..."
Schimmel followed Nemo back across the entire town to a
strange sort of laboratory. They went inside to see a mess of balled up papers,
and jars and boxes that probably contained experiments... failed or not. Sitting
at a desk, writing up some formulas that Schimmel had no clue what they meant,
was Professor Brown. He had horribly kept brown hair in an extremely fuzzy/curly
type of ball. He shook his head in thought and white flakes shed over the floor.
Schimmel walked over to him slowly trying to get him to notice
him. He walked over in front of the desk and put his hands on the edge of it.
Brown looked up slightly at Schimmel's hands but ignored him and went back to
his work.
Nemo interrupted just as Schimmel was about to say something
to him, "Professor, we have brought you something I think you should check
on right away. It's an amulet of some sort. It seems to have brought this boy to
our world of Sedda from his world he calls Sydney."
Brown looked up at Schimmel and Schimmel looked back. He
smiled a faint smile at the professor and he decided to get up from his work.
Brown stood up and seemed taller standing up then he looked like he would be
when he was sitting.
"Hrmph, fine, if you say so. Show me it." he said
grumpily. Schimmel took it out of his pocket and gave it to Brown, happy to be
rid of it. Brown sat back down in his chair with it and looked it over. He
opened a drawer in the desk and got a small magnifying glass out. He looked into
the center of the red gem and gasped. "Who found this?" he asked.
"Err... me, I did." Schimmel answered.
"Well this is quite a find... and you're pretty damn
unlucky to have accidentaly used it to come here." Brown said grimly.
"By using it to travel through any world... even by accident... is called
"Meddling". Anyone who meddles in the affairs of other worlds is
haunted forever by a shadow of some sort... though I have to research this more.
Come back later, like tomorrow later, and I might have some more news."
Schimmel was just standing there... dumbfound. He's just an
adventurer... why would this happen to him? Now he did feel extremely unlucky.
There was only one hope that kept him awake... maybe Brown's wrong. He doubted
he would be wrong, but it was a possibility. He would check back tomorrow anyway
to see what Brown would find.
He realized about 3 seconds later he was staring into a wall.
He shook his head awake and noticed Nemo was already gone. He walked out,
leaving Brown alone, who was already busy looking through books.
Schimmel walked out of the lab and went to find some place to
stay for the night. He decided he could sleep outside somewhere, so he decided
to sleep in the grass near the outskirts of the village instead of being
attacked by monsters in the field back where he appeared.
He laid down in the long grass and thought about many
different things... his family and friends back home... would he ever see them
again? He was only a simple adventurer... why would this happen to him? He was
also wondering that if Brown was right, what was the haunting that would follow
him forever? And if it was going to follow him forever anyway... then he may as
well explore the different worlds available to him through the amulet. He was an
adventurer after all. His head began to hurt at the thoughts when he drifted to
sleep.
The next morning he woke up to see some sort of person
standing above him, but he was tired and couldn't see right. He realized he had
the amulet still in his hands from looking at it last night before he fell
asleep just as it was taken from him by the figure above him. The person ran off
in the direction of the field that Schimmel had first appeared in and Schimmel
got up and quickly ran after, not wanting to lose the amulet in case it was
important.
"Stop damnit! You don't know what that'll do if you put
it on... and I won't pity you!!" Schimmel called after him, trying to
convince him to bring it back. The theif looked like it was wearing all the same
type of clothes as Schimmel, only dark colored. It's hair was completely black
too. Schimmel chased it for a long time, all the way back to the field where he
appeared, when it finally stopped, still with it's back turned.
Suddenly, it began to speak... it sounded exactly like
Schimmel, "I am your curse, your dark side... I will haunt you forever,
whatever world you may visit... thanks to this." it said as it took out of
it's pocket... another amulet exactly like Schimmel's, except it had a dark
jewel in the middle. It turned around to reveal that it looked exactly like
Schimmel too... just with dark clothes and hair, and the dark amulet. It put the
dark amulet around it's neck and dropped the red one on the ground. It grinned
evilly at Schimmel, then disappeared.
|
