Part 1: The Awakening

The world is in for a surprise. Ancient creatures, only remembered in the songs of forgotten worlds, are awakening and ready for destruction. And the only one who knows about it? Mayleen, but she is not ready. The fate of the world lies on her shoulders...

Art by Riccardo Vigorelli

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In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Mayleen counted her breaths one by one, her legs moving in a hard, continuous rhythm. Her feet slammed the path underneath her, pebbles rolling out from under her shoes. Her straight black ponytail moved in the wind, tickling her face. Mayleen's dark brown eyes shining with joy, adrenaline coursing through her veins. She kept her view focused on her goal.

The top of the mountain.

She was almost there. A few more meters maybe.

Easy.

Mayleen urged her body on, forcing her legs to pump faster. Her feet skimmed the ground lightly, like a bird. Sweat dripped down her brow, but Mayleen took no notice.

By now she was sprinting up the last part. Her exhaustion faded. This was what she was built to do. She spread out her arms wide, her fingers reaching out into the air around her, playing with the breezes and winds, becoming part of the sky. Mayleen opened her mouth and gave out a loud whoop, her arms soaring in the wind.

She felt like she was flying.

Her body gliding above the ground, her arms flapping in the wind, her hair soaring in the air with the big blue sky all around her, never ending. Mayleen barely noticed that she had reached the top of the mountain.

She barely noticed that she was running, running towards the end of the mountain.

She barely noticed that her feet were nearing the edge.

The edge of the cliff, where the ground disappeared suddenly, a sheer wall of rock.

The end.

---

All of a sudden, Mayleen noticed that her right shoe was hovering in thin air.

She gasped, her arms falling to her sides.

She quickly took a step back onto the safety of the firm ground, letting the wind and adrenaline leave her body, her heartbeat slowing down as her breathing evened out.

She should be more careful. This was the third time Mayleen had nearly run off a mountain.

Really May, she thought, you need to watch out.

For the first time she noticed the view and a grin spread across her face.

Mayleen was standing on the edge of the summit, where the Earth met the sky. In front of her, rolling hills and mountains could be seen, their peaks higher and lower than her. Trees loomed everywhere, some of them a dot in the distance and others only marked by the very tops of branches. As Mayleen took in the view, two eagles swooped by, dancing in the wind, their wings illuminated by the gold sun. They soared and dipped, their wings a flurry of motion that could scarcely be seen. Mayleen felt her heart wrench away from her, the desire to just fly, fly like a bird, fly in the cloudless sky and be free.

She breathed in the fresh breeze and calmed her heart, her hands tight fists on her sides. With a sigh, Mayleen turned away from the mountains and the birds. She walked over to a rock and began stretching out her still warm muscles. The familiarity of the routine calmed her down and the sky did not seem to call her as much.

Once done, Mayleen sat down on the rock, a great grey mineral spotted with moss and flowers surrounded by the long, thin grass of mountains where crickets and grasshoppers sang their hearts out.

She slipped her backpack off her shoulders, and zipped it open. Mayleen took out a plastic water bottle with a cactus design, clicking it open with agile fingers. She took a deep sip, the cool, fresh water rushing down her throat, reviving her tired body. She relaxed, leaning back into the stone, which had a gap shaped slightly like a porch chair. Her eyes took in the view once more, as she munched on a granola bar, sweetness and saltiness blending in her mouth.

Mayleen closed her eyes, letting her body loosen. Her ears took in the cries of the birds high above, of the gentle cricket song, of the wind that made the tall grass sway. She felt the sun's rays shine on her face softly, the afternoon light dimmed by time.

All was calm and right.

Mayleen felt her eyelids weigh down.

Everything slowly faded away, replaced by the calming darkness.

---

Suddenly, Mayleen woke up.

The ground was shaking and the world was screaming.

A great tearing sound could be heard, like the very Earth was being split into two. Mayleen screamed in fear as the rock she was standing on trembled and shook, threatening to throw her off. Stones around her tumbled off the cliff, grass was trampled by falling trees and animals could be heard everywhere running, fleeing. Mayleen held tightly to the rock she was sitting on, her knuckles white as she yelled.

"Help! Help! Someone please help!" she shouted, panic obscuring the world.

Mayleen moved her left hand, trying to find a better grip, when suddenly, the rock shifted underneath her. The section her hand was clutching disappeared, sucked into the rock like a strange window rolling open.

Like an eyelid blinking open.

Mayleen screamed.

Her hand was hovering over a giant eye.

It was more of a vertical slit, a crevice in the rock, that revealed a golden eye with a dark green pupil, blinking open slowly, as if unused to doing so. Little pebbles and rocks rolled down its surface. Mayleen quickly snatched her hand away from it, and held it close to her body, as if scared it had been contaminated by the eyeball below.

The eyeball she was sitting on.

Crap.

Mayleen tried to scramble away, her hands roughly scrapping against the rock in an attempt to escape. But it was too late. All around her the mountain continued to break apart, and if Mayleen had been paying attention she would have noticed that the mountain was being split in two.

A giant fissure was forming, one that spread across multiple mountains. It cracked and grew, spreading from mountain to mountain, until at least five of them had been split evenly into two, like pointed rock eggs. What followed after was much, much worse.

A giant roar emitted from deep in the ground, a sound like no other, the very thunder of Earth. It sounded like a lion that had chainsaws for teeth and vocal chords the size of hills with roots that dug deep, deep into the very belly of the world, extracting from it a roar so loud and so powerful that the entire world stopped to hear it.

Mayleen froze, the hair on her neck and arms standing up with fright.

Goosebumps.

Whatever was making that sound was not a beast she ever wanted to meet. She was about to jump down from her rock when, to her surprise, the great stone moved upwards. With an earsplitting tear, the ground below her broke apart as the stone continued to move up, revealing more marble grey stone covered in dirt. Mayleen quickly clambered back to the top of the rock, her arms embracing the base of a thick rock construction that looked like a tower of stone, its peak sharp and pointy. She had always wondered about that strange rock and planned to climb it, before, before the world had begun to end, but now was not the time.

Around her the scent of wet, ancient soil could be smelled as the fissure that had split the mountains revealed earth that had never seen the light of the sun or of the moon.

With a final push, the rock surged upwards.

Another roar sounded through the air, and for the first time Mayleen noticed that it was coming from directly underneath her.

With wide eyes she finally understood.

Mayleen screamed, louder and more primitive than before, her fear so strong her very bones seemed to tremble and shake.

She was on the monster.

And it was awake.