Mission FireFly » Stories » Animorph

The Story Book

A short story by Animorph

I was dizzy with overflowing excitement. The clamor of the city went completely unnoticed by me. All I heard was the rhythmic thumping of my beating heart and the stomping of my flying feet on the cold, hard pavement. A wad of discarded chewing gum stuck to the bottom of my worn out sneaker. Every time I stepped it grabbed hold of the ground in a futile attempt to anchor me to the spot. I didn’t let it deter me.
 
I stepped onto a large vent just as a blast of smog shot up from the dark depths underneath and swirled around. It stung my eyes and tried to blind me. Its swirling essence wrapped around me in the attempt to smother my body. Its long tendrils reached out and clung to my skin and clothes. It tried to hold me back, but I broke free of its icy grip and continued forward through the opposing haze.
 
Smog climbed up my nose and slid though the small crack between my tightly pressed lips. It slithered down my throat and made itself at home in my lungs as it filled them. It tried to choke the life out of me, and I wasn’t so sure it wouldn’t. But then, like a breath of fresh air, I was out of the cloud and back on the sidewalk.

I ran as fast as my legs would carry me. But soon I began to tire. Beads of sweat formed on my brow and ran down my face. The warm, stinging liquid oozed into my eyes and caused them to water. I gazed up at the burning sun high above my head. It seemed to dare me to go on. “Come on,” it said. “take another step. I will burn with such force your blood will boil.”
 
For a moment my concentration wavered. Then I decided that I would not let anything get between me and my goal. I was determined to get there. So I leveled my chin and continued onward as fast as I could. I rounded a corner and almost slammed into a pedestrian in the process. Then, I caught my breath as I came to a sudden halt. My heart skipped a few beats and adrenaline surged through my veins.
 
There it was, sitting there in all its majesty and grandeur. It stuck out like a sore among its lesser and insignificant surroundings. I slowly took a step forward. Then another, and another. My steps got faster as the public library loomed larger and larger in front of me. Soon, I was running again.
 
When I got to the glass double-door I hesitated, but only for a moment. My hand went out and clutched the metal handle. I pushed it forward and stepped into the large, air conditioned room. It offered relief from the hot sun hanging in the cloudless sky, but I hardly noticed.
 
My eyes were set on the books. Row after row, shelf after shelf. There were books of all different types, colors, sizes and even shapes. Book upon book, hundreds, no thousands of them, all lined up neatly and in alphabetical order in the ceiling-high bookshelves.
 
Tall windows let rays of golden light stream through, illuminating the room and resting on the floor. A few strange plants sat in their vases in the corners of the room. A lush and springy deep purple carpet was spread out across the room.

I didn’t have to go to some private tropical island, live in a mansion and eat exotic foods to be in paradise. I was in paradise right then and there, in the library. I slowly walked down an isle, letting my fingers drag along the spines of books as I read their titles. Terror in Icy Marsh, Rise of the Dead, The Slave Ship, Peter’s Pen.
 
Then one caught my eye. I took it out and scanned over it. It wasn’t an extraordinary looking book. There was no picture on the cover, no intricate designs or fancy patterns. Just a plain, light blue hardback. The only interruption of the solid color was the title, printed in gold letters on the spine: The Story Book. There was no author listed, no publisher, nothing. Nothing but those three words. Intrigued by the strangeness of the book, I opened it.

I was falling, tumbling through the air at an incredible speed. Impossibly high buildings reached up through the blood-red sky. I whizzed past them, somehow avoiding the rooftops in my free fall. Wait, no. I wasn’t falling at all. I was just floating in midair as the buildings surrounding me shot upward. I tried gazing into the windows of the nearest building but if there was anything inside I could not see it due to the speed at which it passed.
 
As time wore on, I realized that nothing was going to happen unless I did something, so I stretched out my arms and began to swim through the murky water. I swam on until I could hold my breath no longer. My lungs burned as the fire inside them ate away what little oxygen was left. A great serpent wound itself around my lungs and squeezed them until they were flat and limp. The icy claws of death gripped my heart with steel fingers. If I didn’t get air soon, death would yank out my heart and take my life with it. I closed my eyes, opened my mouth, and took a deep breath of thick, sickly air with the foul stench of death hanging heavily in it.
 
Upon opening my eyes I discovered the source of the sickening smell. I was in a some sort of cell littered with lifeless piles of bones. All heads were turned to me. They stared at me with empty eye sockets in a pleading way. Although they made no sound, when I looked at an individual skeleton I could sense what they were saying to me.
 
I closed my eyes, hoping that it would shut out the thoughts of the lost souls, but for some reason it made their voices stronger. I reopened my eyes and to my horror saw that I was surrounded by many groups of swirling mists that had no permanent shape. The only thing that stayed the same were the eyes, although they were not really there. And even stranger was that I could not look directly at the things as they twirled around my body. They seemed to disappear as soon as I made eye contact with them, so the only way to see them was to gaze out the side of my eye. Although I knew I did so in vain, I went on trying to look directly at the strange beings for a time.

Next