by D. C. Gomez
Table of Contents
Title Page
Other Books by D. C. Gomez
Freebie
Copyright © D. C. Gomez (2019)
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Freebie
Connect with D.C.
Acknowledgments
About D. C. Gomez
Another World
By D. C. Gomez
Urban Fantasy/ Young Adult:
Death’s Intern- Book 1 in the Intern Diaries Series
Plague Unleashed- Book 2 in the Intern Diaries Series
Forbidden War- Book 3 in the Intern Diaries Series
The Origins of Constantine- an Intern Diary Novella
Women’s Literature:
The Cat Lady Special
And a children’s series - Charlie’s Fable
Charlie, what’s your talent? - Book 1
Charlie, dare to dream! – Book 2
Click here to get started: https://bit.ly/2CfJpm7
Copyright © D. C. Gomez (2019)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-7333160-0-2
Published by Gomez Expeditions
Request to publish work from this book should be sent to:
[email protected]
This book is for all the dreamers in this world.
May you always reach for the stars.
Six flights of stairs in less than five minutes was a new record for me. I never expected to do more running in New York City than I did in Kansas working on the farm. I also didn’t expect to be bullied and beat up every week. Pick on Madison Wednesday had become the norm in my life. Last time I decided to stand up for myself, they threw me down a flight of stairs and I ended up with a fractured wrist.
I hated this life, hated that my grandmother left me with my crazy aunt, and I hated this city even more. It sucked that I was only five four, one-hundred pounds, and had dirty blonde hair. I was bullied because I looked like Barbie. At least that’s what the juniors claimed. I didn’t believe them. My theory revolved around the fact that I was a freshman from the Midwest.
I wanted to go home and leave this awful place.
It was three forty-seven and I had been hiding in the stairwell of my apartment building for the last fifteen minutes. Alyssa and her crew of deadly cheerleaders were too lazy to climb stairs. Instead, they took the elevator and walked the hallways, waiting for me.
How could people handle living in these towers when they were all so close to each other? I could hear everything that went on in the apartments on either side of me.
Alyssa was an enigma to me. She bullied me for looking like Barbie, but the girl was five eight, one hundred and twenty pounds with strawberry blonde hair and gorgeous. Wasn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?
The sound of voices came from down the hall, but I had no idea who was talking. My aunt and her fancy husband wouldn’t be home until at least seven. She was so different from my grandmother and the rest of the family. When my grandfather died, my aunt didn’t even bother going to the funeral. She was too busy with her law practice. How was it possible that she was my only surviving relative and I was stuck here? She never claimed to be from Kansas and hated when people mentioned how tan I was compared to her. Of course I was tan; we worked in the fields. I doubted my aunt had even seen the sun since she moved here.
Come on Madison, you can do this. I needed to pump myself up. The apartment was not that far from the stairwell. If I was lucky, I could sprint and make it before the group saw me. I just needed to get to the apartment and I would be safe. At least for tonight. If they found me at school tomorrow, I would pay double for depriving them of their Wednesday victory. How was picking on freshmen a good way to get over Hump-day?
My life was a mess.
I pulled the door open and peeked into the hallway. The maintenance crew in this building was on top of things because the door didn’t even make a sound. The coast was clear. All I needed to do was run down the hall, take a quick right, and slide inside the apartment which was six doors down. I checked the hallway one more time, grabbed my backpack, and walked out. My heart felt like it wanted to pop out of my chest. I could feel it beating faster than a marching band.
Thank you, God, I am going to make it in one piece today, I said in my head, a silent prayer to the Lord.
“Well, well, well. Look who finally decided to come home,” Alyssa told me.
I had spoken too soon. Alyssa and three of her closest psychos were all standing in front of my door, blocking it, with their hands crossed over their chest like bouncers at a busy club. I peered to the left and her other two murdering cheerleaders were guarding that side of the hallway like a pack of hungry hyenas.
“Why do you hate me so much?” I asked.
“How dare you speak?” one of her girls yelled and stalked in my direction.
“You had the nerve to stare at my boyfriend today,” Alyssa replied, picking imaginary lint from her overpriced shirt. “You seriously think we don’t see right through you? Playing that innocent and exotic game because you are from Kansas? Well Dorothy, we are giving you a one-way ticket home today.”
Alyssa snapped her fingers and her entourage charged.
This was demented and I wasn’t planning to die today. I ran back the same way I came. Thanks to this psycho group, I was great at sprinting. I was down the hall when someone grabbed my backpack. Hell, they could keep the damn thing. I wiggled my way out of it. It seemed the murdering cheerleaders were also training because they were right on my heels. I hit the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time, fast, faster, taking breaths in quick gasps. When they started throwing my own books at me, I almost lost my footing. If I didn’t find shelter now, I wouldn’t make it.
Finally reaching the fourth floor, I yanked opened the door.
Typical New York City apartment building, they were all identical from one floor to the next. Unfortunately, I had never met a single person in this building. I was sure there were hundreds of people living here yet I didn’t know a single soul. That was unheard of back home.
I made it down the hallway of the sixth floor, finding a lady opening her door.
“Ma’am, please help me,” I screamed.
She saw me but turned back to her apartment and locked the door.
What was wrong with these people?
“You have no place to go, little Dorothy,” one of the girls said in a soft purr.
The Dorothy line was so overused that it wasn’t even funny anymore.
Trapped and hyperventilating, I ran down the hall and looked out the window. If I jumped, most likely I’d land on the concrete, break my skull, and then I’d die, which might not be a bad way to go considering my other options. At least it would be quick, as opposed to what the cheerleaders probably had planned for me. It seemed today was the day I would pick the way I went out of this world.
The murdering cheerleaders took their time walking down the hallway. I had no idea where they found
chains, but they were dragging several like a scene from Saw. Banging on the doors would be of no use. I glanced out the window, considered the fall, and then my gaze fell back on the cheerleaders.
As I stared death in the face, a garbage chute less than four feet away caught my eye. I was small enough to fit through it. I knew I was.
Really, that was my only option? I thought to myself.
It didn’t matter and I didn’t care. I would rather face rats and garbage than give these psychos the pleasure of hurting me again. Not this time. Steeling myself, I ran to the chute as fast as I could.
“Go to hell, bitches,” I yelled right before I threw myself down the chute head first.
“Gross. That is disgusting,” said Alyssa.
That was all I heard as I dropped down the chute. I held my breath to avoid gagging from the rotten, decaying air. It amazed me how fast I moved in such a tight space. I also imagined I’d be in and out, but the chute was much longer than I had thought. After a while, I smacked into something hard that caused my vision to go blurry, and then everything started spinning around me.
Oh God, everything hurts.
Did I say that out loud? I couldn’t tell. I was face down on something that felt like grass, but that was impossible. There was no grass near my building, only concrete jungles. Even our semi-playground area at school had been coated in concrete. I had to be dreaming, maybe even dead. Jumping down that garbage chute had to have been one of my worst ideas to date.
“What is it?” a boy asked.
I hurt so bad I couldn’t even turn over to see the speaker.
“I’m not sure but it smells dead,” a second boy said.
“Should we turn it?” the first boy asked, the voice closer than the last.
Were they talking about me?
“Ouch.” The sound escaped my lips as the two idiots flipped me to my back. If I could have, I would’ve opened my eyes just to glare at them, but it was out of the question at the moment.
One of the boys screamed near my face, making my ears ring.
“Monster! Run!” the other boy yelled and dropped me like a sack of potatoes on the ground. My face smacked into the earth, and yes, it was definitely grass.
Thank God my eyes had been closed, or else the grass would have poked them out. My head spun, but I had a feeling it came from when I’d smacked it against the chute. I took a deep breath, focused. It still took me another minute before I could force my eyelids open.
“I’m dead!” I couldn’t help that those were the first words out of my mouth.
I had to be dead and in the fields of Elysian. The land in front of me was gorgeous, like a Greek mythology painting or a scene from a Rick Riordan’s book. I was used to open fields in Kansas, but not the lush green surface that covered this land. The trees were enormous, and although I couldn’t see clearly, it appeared like they all had purple and blue flowers sprouting from them. Excitement and confusion swirled inside me, making me try to get back up, but it was no use. Too weak, I crashed right back down.
Clouds reflected on the surface of a shiny, clear lake. Just then, I noticed how dry my throat had become. The water looked refreshing. Fear of falling back down had me crawling across the grass towards the lake. My whole body trembled with each movement, but at least my eyes were focusing. The lake’s beauty took my breath away. I just hoped the water was as sweet as the lake was beautiful.
“Ahhhh! What happened to my face?” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
The moment my reflection appeared in the lake, I noticed my deformed face. Maybe it was an illusion from the water. I reached up and touched my cheeks. Nope, definitely real. Bruises and oozing pimples covered every piece of skin on my face.
The world spun around me again, but this time, I was glad when everything went dark.
“La la, laaa laaa la, la la, rest little one, rest,” a girl hummed near me. Her melodious voice sounded young, and somehow enchanting, soothing the nervous energy exuberating from me.
I laid on something hard this time. This was definitely a good sign. Hopefully it meant I was back near my house, but the flowery fragrance surrounding me told me I was anywhere but home. I tried to move my head, but it was wrapped in a soft cloth that smelled like cinnamon, making it difficult.
Then it all came back to me. My face. All those deformities. Where was I? What if I had been taken and held in some basement so they could use me as a lab rat? Taking a deep breath to calm my frazzled nerves, I reached my arms up. Since they didn’t hurt as much, I had to find out if my face was still in the shape it had been in before.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the girl told me.
“Is something going to explode?” I asked, hoping I sounded coherent under this cloth.
“I have never heard of sage exploding before, but I’m sure anything is possible,” the girl replied. I couldn’t tell if she was making fun of me or if she was actually serious.
“Okay.” I decided to play along with this madness. “Why shouldn’t I take this off?”
“Unless you normally resemble a distant cousin of a toad, I believe you had an allergic reaction to something and I’m trying to heal you,” the female said, this time much closer to me.
She pulled the material off my right side and rubbed by cheekbone. It took great effort to not scream, but I managed.
“Much better,” she told me with a hint of giddiness in her voice. “I did it.”
“You sound a little too happy for my taste.” I had a horrible feeling I was not at a doctor’s office.
“This was a new remedy I tried on you,” the girl told me. “Your reaction was severe, and I had to try several potions. Normally my mistress would have treated you, but she is gone until the middle of the sixth month. I didn’t think you wanted to wait that long.”
There was so much wrong with that sentence that I didn’t know where to start.
“Thank you.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.
“What is your name?” she asked me.
“Madison,” I replied.
“MA DI SON,” she repeated my name like she was trying it out for the first time. “That is so unique.”
What was she talking about? Madison was one of the top names for fourteen-year-old girls in the country.
“You have never heard of it?” I asked her.
“Never,” she replied.
“That’s strange. I know five other girls named Madison, and that’s just in my grade at school,” I told her.
“School? Are you rich?”
This girl had some strange questions.
“I wish.” I gave her a bitter laugh. “My aunt is pretty well off, but I go to a public school.”
“You go to school, but you are not rich. What are you?” the girl asked.
“What do you mean?” I was lost.
“Are you a male or female?” the girl asked.
“What?” I yanked the cloth off my face and sat straight up.
I sat up a little too quick and the room swayed. I closed my eyes to allow my equilibrium a little time to balance out. When everything stopped moving, my eyes landed on a tall, slender girl with silky black hair and golden eyes. She had the beauty you only found in classic Hollywood films. I hit my head on some strange leaves hanging from the ceiling when I moved for a better view. This couldn’t be New York City. I had been stretched out on top of a table inside a room, surrounded with containers on shelves. The ceilings were low, and the place lit by candlelight. As I glanced around, I couldn’t find a single light bulb anywhere in the vicinity.
“Oh God, where am I?” I asked.
“Which god are you talking to?” she asked, a little too close to me for comfort.
I moved as far away as I could without falling off the table. “I only know one God, unless you count the son and the Holy Spirit, but I think those are part of the same one,” I replied faster than a rapper.
“You are not from Somnium are you?” The girl’s eyes got reall
y big and a smile spread across her face.
“This is not New York City?” I asked the obvious question and she shook her head.
“How about the United States?” Again, she shook her head.
“Earth?” I knew the answer before she shook her head.
“I am sorry, but no. You are in Somnium, one of the five kingdoms in the Land of Pardisium.” She inched closer again, and my heartbeat jackknifed to an unhealthy rhythm.
“Ten, nine, eight, seven.” Closing my eyes, I counted down.
“What are you doing?” the girl asked.
“I’m dreaming and I’m preparing myself to wake up,” I said, keeping my eyes shut. “Any minute I am going to open my eyes to find myself face down in a large garbage pile.”
“Do you normally sleep in garbage?” she asked, and her question sounded so serious it forced me to face her.
“No, but I jumped down a chute to avoid getting beat up so I should wake up there any minute now.” I closed my eyes and started counting again. “Six, five, four, three, two, one.”
Peeking through my fingers, the girl came into view, staring at me with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Was something supposed to happen?” she asked, leaning closer to me.
“Yes, I’m not supposed to be here anymore, but obviously that isn’t happening.” I jumped off the table, but somehow got twisted up and landed face down on the floor.
“Oh, that looked painful,” the girl told me, reaching her arms out to help me up.
I took her offered help but didn’t bother getting all the way up. Instead, I stopped in a sitting position and slumped against the table.
“This is not a dream and I’m not in Kansas anymore.” As soon as the words left my mouth, tears threatened to escape, but I held them back as good as I could.
“I thought you were from New something?” the girl asked.
“Yes, I live in New York City, but not in Kansas is what people say when they are not home, even though I’m technically from Kansas, so I can actually use that line, but it’s from a movie and—"