World In A Bottle Squared

The rumbling could be felt through her feet. Looking at her friends, they were all as startled as she was. The dog started barking and ran along the lane.

Abandoning her friends, she gave chase, heading in the general direction of the sound, the echoes from nearby hills confusing the situation. Still, her dog knew where it was going, so she followed, unsure whether to call it back or to investigate the cause.

She was already out of breath, the dog far ahead, and her mouth was dry. Maybe she could ask someone for a glass of water, but this far away from the village, there were no houses visible, not even farm workers.

She felt totally alone.

After topping a slight rise, she saw what she assumed to be the cause of the disturbance. A part of a steep hill had collapsed, sliding down in a heap of mud and broken trees.

Her dog was already sniffing around the base of the landslide. But there appeared to be no immediate danger. The landslide had finished doing whatever it was that landslides did; the only movement was a few branches on the broken trees still waving in the humid air.

As she approached the muddy mess, the smell of disturbed soil filling her nostrils, she called her dog back to her. The last thing she needed was a muddy dog to take home; her mother would be so angry.

Closer up, it appeared that a whole hillside had collapsed. But it didn’t look like animals or people were hurt. So now she was free to explore this very unusual event. Her whole day was now fully booked up!

Keeping herself and the ever-curious dog clear of the mud was a challenge. Eventually, she reached a rock wall. There was nowhere else to go but along its smooth surface. It was dirty and stained, but the excitement of this new adventure overcame her concerns, and she didn’t even notice that both she and the dog were getting muddy.

The rock was surprisingly smooth, but her fingers jabbed up against something hard, and she cried out in pain. She stood for a few moments, waving her stubbed fingers in the air in an effort to ease the pain. She had cracked a nail, and it was bleeding slightly.

What had she hit? What was under the mud? With her uninjured hand, she removed more of the dirt and debris until she could see something that looked like a door, not like the one on the front of her house, but much larger, heavier; this was made of metal. It rang hollowly when she tapped it with a small rock. The sound reverberated around her.

If it were a door, it must have a handle. Turning to her dog, she asked, “Doors have handles, right?” The dog’s response was enigmatic at best

This one was different, however; it had a wheel. Cleaning away more of the dirt, she tried her weight against it; nothing. With only one good hand, she was limited; she thumped it with a rock in temper and hurt her fingers again. She felt like crying, but refused to allow such childishness to ruin her adventure.

Looking around, she found a sturdy branch, still green, but thick enough not to bend. Though not thick enough not to have been snapped off in the landslide.

She wedged it into the wheel and put as much weight on it as she could. The branch bent; there was a crunching, snapping sound from the stick and then a scream like an animal from the wheel, and it turned. It released the branch, and she fell painfully to the ground.

After standing back up and vainly attempting to brush away the still-wet mud, she turned and looked at the door. The wheel had turned. It had moved, as she could see small amounts of flaky metal lying on the surface of the mud, and they’d taken pieces of what appeared to be paint with them.

Tentatively, she reached out for the wheel and tried to turn it further; now it moved more freely, with only a faint scratching and squealing like an angry kitten. She spun the wheel as far as it would go and then pulled. The door swung back, revealing a dark opening; the only thing visible in the light coming from behind her was metal stairs leading downward into complete darkness.

She picked up the branch and held it like a club. Who or what lived in here? With a command to her dog, she started down the stairs. Very quickly, the entrance was only a vague point of light far above, but the stairs appeared to go forever downwards. As long as she could still see the light at the top, she felt safe enough. Taking a firmer grip on the branch, she continued downwards.

She tried not to look up as it made her feel dizzy. Her improvised club hit something hard, and a quick feel of the surface revealed another door with a wheel. This one was much easier to move, and she stepped through into a magical world of sparkling lights.

To her dark-adapted eyes, the room was ablaze with lights; it was mostly glass, and beyond just tiny points of light like distant fires, but with no smoke. She somehow knew these were the stars she’d heard of in the bedtime stories her mother had told. She’d never seen them inside her sealed little world, of course, but they matched the description.

Looking around her, she could see a vast curved structure. Somehow, she knew her family, her village, her whole world, was contained within it, like a whole world in a bottle. She thought about her father using his boat to go out into the deep water of the lake to fish; their entire world was travelling on a lake of stars.

They were on a voyage through an infinite night.

As she stared out of the window, she became aware of her inability to move; slowly, then faster, the stars blurred and winked out. The control room she stood in also began to fade, blurring and dissolving.

Her vision darkened; she felt incredible fear. What had she done? Had she broken the universe? She tried to scream; she’d never see her mother again. She tried to reach out for her dog, but he’d faded already. She tried to scream again, but even her throat didn’t work; she couldn’t even breathe.

As her world finally faded to black, she saw two lines of text; they were all that remained of her universe.

 GAME OVER!

Score 87%