CALAMITY CARMEN

CHAPTER ONE

Carmen Wilder always knew herself to be somewhat of an oblivious hothead.

If her long history of petty hair pulling in nursery school and all out brawls in the years to come didn’t say anything about her temper she didn’t know what could.

In fact, when she was at the tender age of eight years old: a rather overzealous social services official once informed her third and last foster parents about Carmen’s moderately volatile nature and it’s possible links to her growing frustrations pertaining to her apparent ‘troubled childhood’ . Which of course was absolutely ridiculous considering that: a) troubled children represent 90% of children raised under the foster care system, b) Carmen, unequivocally had no recollection of most of her pre-foster care life, which to some could have been attributed to some sort of post-trauma induced amnesia, which by the way would have made sense if it were really true in her case.

Looking at the pretty brown skinned girl with the most fascinating pair of eye’s they had ever come across, the Whitefield’s were noticeably skeptical about this bit of information, considering that the angel faced child with a so called tendency of irritability: came off as a well-mannered and very intelligent child that seemed a little too mature for her age.

It was quite regrettable however, that the social services official left the Whitefield household sporting a circular black eye later that day. The culprit: a wooden miniature replica of the realm that ‘mysteriously’ zoomed across the room before lodging itself into the woman’s right eye, no one so it coming…literally.

As the years passed however, the use of the phrase ‘business as usual’ to describe life under the Whitefield household would soon become a gross understatement. It only took a couple of months for the rest of her fellow foster kids and her mostly absentee foster parents (after much persuasion) to realize that a number of peculiar incidences seemed to be occurring as a consequence of her existence among them.

It all started off as a rather ridiculous rumor, before it became all too real: hovering household items, strange voices at night and often time’s day, a visit from the strange shadow creature with lava like eye’s that usually resulted with a broken pinkie or toe in its wake, after some chump managed to provoke a certain ‘someone’ that day.

Carmen strangely enough, lived a relatively normal life…..well as normal as it could appear to a sixteen year old girl like her, which mainly consisted of: passing all her school lessons with flying colors without much of an effort and dealing with her occasional dose of self-preservation tactics against her small crowd of self-conscious bullies, she considered her life to be as bland as tofu that was worth no one’s speculation, until she witnessed the last thing that any sixteen year old within the vicinity of the school courtyard expected to that day:

The incarnation of Death.

Towering at an imposing height of ten feet tall or so: the visibly decomposing hunchbacked skeletal creature, draped in black filthy and tattered robe like material cast a soul wrenching shadow over the school courtyard that fateful afternoon, instantly eclipsing the yellow sun in its wispy darkness.

The blood curdling screams that followed were the stuff that nightmares, as the once peaceful atmosphere broke into utter chaos.

Carmen had heard stories about them, the DARK ONES.

According to most History books, in the year 2058, the realm had fallen into a state of hunger and strife. Rapidly depleting natural resources, changing climate, a rise in mortality rates, you name it, it all happened then.  It was just a matter of time before the realms five super powers in a desperate bid for survival proceeded with simultaneous unilateral declarations of war all over the globe resulting mass g******e, through unethical bio-chemical warfare. And in the ashes of the ensuing chaos came what was to be later called as the Great tear: a thin rip in the earth’s atmosphere that merged two realities into one, bringing with it the creatures of dark folklore that one could not imagine. Though the heroes and heroines of that time somehow managed to close the tear, the damage had been done. In a world that already had half its population swiped out by their own desperation and greed, a common enemy rose against them.

And it was at that moment, for the very first time in her life, Carmen understood what the ancient 50 foot tall warded walls that surrounded many cities like the city of Greystone were erected against for all these centuries. 

Too terrified to move from her hidden leisure spot, Carmen watched as one, two, three skinny arms with flaccid peeling grey skin rose from each side of the creature with such deceptive slowness, moved with such lightning speed that the untrained eye would miss.

Eyes shut, and curled up in a fatal position within the dark hollow of the large tree that stood at the far left of the court yard, Carmen continued to listen as the terror fueled screams of her captured school mate's accompanied by the unmistakable thud of broken bodies against the concrete floor pulled every cord of her quickening heart, when she heard it. A vile, malicious chorus of voices that echoed into the depths of her mind:

“Carmen….”

It called as the sixteen year old girl shook her head in denial as she felt a sudden coldness wash over her.

No its not me it's talking to, I can't hear a thing!  she tried to convince herself, firmly closing her eyes shut as the voice grew louder.

“Come play with us…”

The trembling girl whimpered as she felt something cold and slimy brush against her leg.

“Carme-

The girl let out a silent scream as it grabbed onto her with a vice like grip.

“CAR-

A desperate cry filled the hollow as the girl threw her hands to grab onto the crevices of the bark inside the tree with no avail.

“CA-

"Noooooo!" she screeched, refusing to die this way, she fiercely clawed the earth as the creature dragged her out.

“CARMEN WAKE UP!!!!”

Like a corpse brought back to life, Carmen woke up instantly, body sore and panting for dear life.

 Eye’s wild and darting from one corner of her small stuffy room to another, Carmen Wilder was feeling all sorts at that moment: anxious, scared, paranoid, sad and hungry as she came to terms with her surroundings.

Where am I?

She thought as she frowned in confusion, eye's scanning the room that had probably seen better days: it was bare, small, with enough space to fit an old rickety single bed and a matching, with the exception of a simple leather satchel flung to the left corner of the poorly lit room next to a heavily boarded window. Nothing too fancy for a safe house apparently.

Carmen blinked for a second and just when she convinced herself that nothing was out of the ordinary. She heard it: a strange strafing sound entwined with a serious of low intimidating hisses coming from somewhere in her room.

Eyes narrowed and alert, Carmen slowly slipped out of her sheets, one long limb after another before crawling over her to the foot of her three quarter bed with predatory percussion.

She paused, tensed and-

Meow?

“FATTY?” she yelped, eyes wide with shock as they peered at the fat furry white feline staring up at her with pleading blue eyes from down below.

“What the heck are you doing under my bed? What the hell happened to you? What’s that around your neck?” Carmen interrogated the poor creature, Carmen sighed in resignation as she plopped the large furry mass onto her bed. Though Carmen never took a liking to animals and vice versa she never had the heart to see them miserable, even if it’s their own making.

A peaceful silence filled the room as Carmen helped untangle Fatty from the long string of worn tan leather (which looked oddly familiar) that somehow managed to wrap itself around Fatty’s left ear, neck and left paw. Feeling a little sympathy for the cat, Carmen proceeded to help it out of its situation before pausing to frown at what the mass of fur had been playing with.

“You have got to kidding me….” She muttered dryly.

Meowwwwww???

"CARMEN GET UP!!" bellowed a familiar voice from down stairs, knocking a sense of urgency that woke her up in the first place

Rolling her eyes, Carmen dragged herself out of bed and quickly threw on her knee high boots that she left haphazardly on the dusty wooden floor. She didn’t need to thin twice as to why she was being called.

“Took you long enough” muttered Maleficent Bridgeford as she continued to participate in her signature worried pace before her large bespectacled green eye’s landed on the unfortunate creature stuffed in the crook of Carmen’s arm.

“You found him!! I was so wawwied abou chou!!” she cooed as she instinctively approached the feline, only to find herself barred by a unrelenting finger to the forehead.

“huh?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself Missy, Fatty here is a suspect to an alleged felony.”

Mel rolled her eyes as she attempted to swat the righteous finger of justice.

“Carmen, we’ve talked about this, his name is not Fatty, it’s Napoleon, Napoleon the noble.” she stated a matter of fact tone as she slyly calculated on the best possible way to pry Napoleon out of her dramatic roommate's grasp.

“Noble my ass, your cat came into my room with ill intent, behold!”

Carmen produced the tan leather string before Mel with the determination of a justice seeker. “Look familiar to you Mel?”

“Ah," smiled Mel as her eyes expertly swept over the old green stone that suspiciously gleamed with an unnatural light. "That’s one of my antique Florian dream stones, I wondered where this disappeared off to?”

Carmen sighed as she closed her eyes in an attempt to keep her growing agitation to a minimum, least she alarm the neighbors again with her rather vocal outbursts.

“Mel, take a look at it again, this is no mere dream stone,” Carmen grounded out through her clutched teeth as she unceremoniously let Fatty down to further demonstrate her just cause. Waving her hand over the stone, the two ladies watched as an alternating series of illuminated sigils materialized out of thin air before them.

“See the algorithm here,” Carmen exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger to a particular pattern of sigils hovering near the stone. “That’s a recipe for sleep induced nightmares, which if not for this very calculation here, “Carmen’s finger moved to another pattern below the former, "- would have been the death of me....literally!”

“Oh,” Mel chuckled nervously as her newly assigned partner throw her an outraged glare and for good reason might she add.

“Well in as much as I would love to continue and banter with you, we have a problem.… ” Mel trailed off as she produced a palm sized dark leather card with a blue circular stone etched into its depths, before waving a gloved hand over it, prompting a blue simmering image of a middle aged man to appear out of thin air.

“Bonviere?” Carmen asked warily as she looked at the familiar man’s face. Let’s just say they didn’t get along very well.

"Yes” Mel retorted, “I received an encrypted message five minutes ago.”

“And???”

“There has been another appearance.”

Carmen groaned as she gently tapped on the stone, “Please tell me this isn’t another false alarm.” Bonviere always called them over for the darnest of things, once he called them to handle an infestation of small fry abominations just ‘because’, Carmen was a mystical specialist, not a vermin exterminator!!!

“No, he didn’t say much but he did say it was urgent.”

“Isn’t it always?” Carmen droned ready to drag herself back to bed. 

“Carmen, it’s serious.” Mel insisted with a knowing glint in her eyes that instantly got her attention.

Carmen rolled eyes before letting out a sign of resignation, “What’s the category?” she asked reluctantly. 

Mel looked her straight in the eye, “Unknown, he wasn't willing to explain any further, but he did say its a code 983.”

That instantly got her attention. 

SHIT!!!

Carmen thought as she grabbed onto Mel’s arm.

“HEY!!” Mel exclaimed in alarm.

“We don’t have much time, try not to puke when we land okay.”

Mel’s eyes grow to the size of saucers as she opened her mouth to protest but was cut short when they suddenly faded out of existence with a loud swoosh.