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Post by silentshadow on Sept 29, 2013 16:53:20 GMT -5
Near the edge of the city was a house. The roof was almost completely covered in moss. The middle was sunken down in a little ways; Termites and the damp had done their toll and gravity was doing the rest. The eaves were thronged with ivy, which grew up the sides of the walls covered in peeling white paint that had long since stopped its protection from the sun. Some boards were a little warped and one or two were missing completely. Let the eye travel further down and you can see a glimpse of the wrap-around porch. There are chains hanging from the ceiling that shows where a porch swing once hung. The tops of windows are glimpsed. All of these are just minor details when one's eye finally travels down to the Rhododendrons.
They are massive. They cover the whole of the front and side yards of the house, growing tall and thick. There is a path that one can follow down between the woody plants. As one passes around the first bend in the path, a person disappears completely. The Rhododendrons look as though they have been there for many, many years. To the people who live in the few houses on that street, it has only been a week.
Sam "Livingstone" Darling, age 12, was a self-styled explorer. He was medium height, had dark brown hair, and was very quiet. Studious to a fault, he spent most of his time reading adventure books and dreaming of a time when he could explore a "new world" like the Famous Dr. Livingstone. His room was covered in printed copies of newspaper clippings depicting stories of exploration. His bookshelves were loaded with books on exploration. On his desk is a container for catching bugs, butterfly nets, and notebooks that are filled with his peculiarly neat handwriting. Currently, Sam was staring through a pair of binoculars at the "house." His parents hadn't said a word about it other than something about using too much Miracle Grow. They said the house should be torn down and is an eye-sore to the neighborhood, yet they never did anything about it.
"Okay." He said aloud. "Today I'm going over there to see what is going on." He looked at his walky-talky hand held radio and switched it on. Time to see if the rest of his Explorer Team was willing to go.
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Post by silentshadow on Oct 5, 2013 6:34:51 GMT -5
Sam stepped out the back door of his house and looked around. Mom and Dad were nowhere to be found, which was a real blessing. However, none of his friends had answered his call, which was a drag. His only hope was that someone would see him enter the Rhododendrons and follow him. He had lowered his backpack out of the bathroom window on a rope, leaning out as far as he could to make sure that the pack didn't bump against the side of the house. He crept into the flower bed and grabbed his pack, gave a look both ways and sprinted to the woods behind his house. Well, he started to sprint.
Maybe I packed a bit too much, He thought. Maybe I should have left out a few of the non-essential things.
Not stopping at the edge of the woods, he traveled a few yards in to make sure he was mostly out of sight of the house. No one had seen him as far as he could tell. He walked around to the neighbors hedge and traveled along side of the neatly trimmed greenery until he came to the street; he looked both ways, dashed across, and into the Rhododendrons.
He didn't stop until he was past the first bend and was out of sight of, when he turned to look, everything. He glanced around. There was nothing but nothing to see but Rhododendrons. He took out his notebook and a small stub of a pencil, jotted down a few ideas, and put the notebook away in a small pocket on the side of his pack. From the exact opposite, he removed a compass, opened it, took a bearing on North, and wandered down the path.
Birds flitted in and out of the leaves, chirping their warning calls that something had come into their territory and they were not happy. Sam again produced the notebook and made notes of the different birds that he had seen.
Cardinal. Wren. Sparrow. Chickadee. He penciled down. They swooped across the path, stopping to examine him from time to time. Then, as he rounded another bend (Just how long is this walkway? He thought), the birds vanished. They didn't fly away, they just ceased to exist. The sounds, the songs, nothing remained of them. Sam paused, and dutifully wrote this down.
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Post by mister on Oct 7, 2013 17:14:14 GMT -5
Sarah had been curious about the house with the Rhododendrons from the minute she had moved out to the street with her older sister. It was one of the first things she had noticed as she walked up and down the block, getting familiar with the area. This kid down the street had told her the house wasn't like that a week ago, but she didn't believe the little dork. He'd stuck out his tongue at her but she didn't care. She wasn't happy about living here.
She puttered around her room that her sister was making, MAKING her clean. Her own room. How absurd. Just because her sister was her guardian didn't giver her the right to order her around like that. Probably. Stupid older sister.
She just couldn't believe her parents had died. Died. Just off and died. She threw laundry across the room in a rage and managed against all reason to get it into the laundry basket. She turned from the semi-cleaned mess and stared out the window.
There's the dork. She thought to herself. What the hell is he doing? She watched in mild fascination as he crossed the street with a large backpack on his back. She watched him head into the tall bushes.
"Forget this," She said aloud, "I'm going to follow that little brat. Its gotta be better'n doing this crap!"
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Clicker
Joyeuse Insurgency
Trunk Monkey Thief Retriever
They're more fun airborne.
Posts: 236
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Post by Clicker on Oct 8, 2013 16:06:01 GMT -5
Birds twittered outside. Habi yawned and stretched out fully on his bed. Pillows, sheets and comforters were all jumbled together, and he was in the midst of them. He slowly turned over to look at his clock. It was just after nine, he started to roll back over. "Nine ten!" he exclaimed leaping from the bed. Habi grabbed a pair of cargo pants from the floor and shimmied into them, while trying to get out of his night shirt. He tripped over a box of old nintendo cartridges scattering them and sending him face first into the bed. Standing once again he buttoned his pants and frantically searched through the mounds of laundry on his floor for a passable shirt. Under a dirty red one he discovered that his walkie talkie had fallen and was missing the back cover and a battery. He stuffed it in one of his pockets just in case he found the missing battery. Dismissing a light yellow shirt with a giant barbeque stain down the front he opted for an olive green T shirt that smelled only a little musty. "Mom!" He cried down the stairs. "Yes dear?" "I told you to wake me up early this morning remember!" "What happened to that alarm clock you got for you birthday?" "Mom" He whined as he stumbled into the kitchen, "I told you I don't wake up as good with that." Habi grabbed a package two packages of poptarts pocketing one, and starting to eat the other. He began to head out when his mother stopped him. "Excuse me young man, where do you think your going?" His mom was in was somewhere in her thirties, she had straight blond hair, dark tanned skin, and big thick glasses. She was mulling over a newspaper and drinking her second cup of coffee. "Over to Sams. Don't you remember yesterday you said today that I could go? That's why you were going to wake me up early so I could be over there by nine. Now I'm late and Sam said he had a great adventure planned for us today and..." "Adventurers know how to set their alarm clocks young man." His mother cut in. "Do you think Captain Cook dragged his mother with him all over so she could wake him up every day? Or Christopher Columbus needed his mom to wake him up in time to discover America?" "He didn't even discover America, Lief Erickson a viking did, and..." "Well he used an alarm clock not his mother didn't he?" She raised her eye brows at him. "Okay, okay, I'm already late." Habi had almost finished his poptarts and was walking out the door. "Habbakuk Danius Floid don't you leave this house without brushing your teeth and combing your hair." "Mom! I don't have time." "I will not have people thinking that I'm raising a savage beast now you go up and brush or."
Habi raced up the stairs to the bathroom, He swished some mouthwash and tore through his curly red hair with a brush, freckles covered his round face. He tripped on the steps and slid down a couple on his way down. "By mom!" He yelled running out the front door. "Wait! Is your room clean?" She yelled after him. He heard her but kept running pretending that he hadn't heard her. After all Habi decided, he get to it later.
He was just in time to see Sam sneaking off into the Rhodandilions or whatever Sam called that flower. He quickly followed, huffing and puffing as he went. "Sam!" He yelled trying to find his friend.
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