Book One
“Welcome to the HEAVENSPHERE”
Chapter One
“Wake up call”
It was Monday afternoon. Maybe Tuesday. Possibly Wednesday. Anyhoo- it was a perfectly ordinary afternoon TV sesh, preceded by a morning TV sesh, and would normally be concluded with an evening TV sesh. Meet Redston ‘Red’ Smith. A not-so-intrepid young lad of 14, whose favourite pastimes were watching television and eating food. If you were to glance through the living room window of the Smith’s suburban home, past the apricot curtains and porcelain dancer figurines, you will undoubtedly see Red sprawled across the couch; perhaps with a chocolate goatee and a crumb halo.
On this particular occasion, everything was as per normal. Mother Smith was practising her preferred form of meditation, that is, vacuuming. Like a zen addict, she mops, vacuums, dusts, tidies, and just generally cleans on a near constant basis, all to fulfill some innate and inexplicable need for cleanliness. Red accepts this bizarre and perplexing need of his mother’s, and loves her none the less for it. While she grr’d in the background of the living room, Red, concentrating hard on the dialogue of his cop show, only vaguely noticed as the furniture around him began to float.
First it was the TV, as it rose, Red found his neck cramping to keep it in sight. Soon he was aware of screaming as his mother had found herself no longer attached to the ground by gravity. Turning his head to face her as she ascended sideways to the ceiling, an unusual fact occurred to Red (this is unusual because a) it’s more strange than a mysterious bout of floating and b) Red actually noticed something not on a screen). The couch Red was lying on was floating up towards the ceiling. But Red was not. This resulted in the peculiar sensation of seeing your body submerged in a solid object, but feeling absolutely nothing. Red freaked out. With a sudden yell of panic, all semblance of normality left Red Smith’s body and mind forever.
Like a floodgate opening, something like sanity and calmness rushed out of Red through his fingertips leaving nothing but an unpleasant tingly feeling. With this panic, in this rather terrifying position of having a living room of floaty things, including a floating mum and an inconsiderate floating couch; an understandably terrified Red went from this to a much, much worse situation.
He fell. He fell through the floor. Like the gravity that left all the other objects in the world decided to get together and work only on him, pushing him far, far down into the Earth. As you can imagine, oxygen became an issue for concern very quickly. The blackness of his surroundings combined with the lack of sensation of falling through solid earth, and not being able to breathe was all too much for young Red. He gripped himself tight and yearned for it all to stop and be okay. He wanted the world to be right again.
But instead, he kept on falling. But out of the blackness, and into a new world. Unfamiliar to his own by two very striking differences, which I will illuminate further at a later time. The position Red entered this world, to his ill luck, was actually quite high up in the air; about 10 feet or so. Even more unluckily, Red fell directly into the branches of a tree. Why is this unlucky I hear you ask? Because, dear readers, the said tree promptly began whopping its inhabitant, shaking Red free from its angry branches in the process. Once free of his leafy, violent prison, Red wasted no time in escape: off he ran as fast as his pudgy, untrained legs could take him (not very fast considering…). And the tree made chase. Being a tree, with a root system and all, it was not very fast either.
Let’s now take a moment to explore this new and exciting world. The first thing you’ll probably be noticing is the rather mobile trees. Trees, as we know them, tend to stay stationary – boring isn’t it? In this rather lovely and green environment, the natural flora felt no such constraints and wander freely. If it weren’t for the fact this tree, and several of its compadres who have seen Red and joined the chase, were so evidently wishing harm upon him, he would really have liked this place. All around was beautiful lush green grass and rolling hills with meadows of flowers swaying in the breeze and flashing exotic colours to the warm sun that shone on all this botanical paradise. It is really a sight to be admired, when there aren’t homicidal trees running after you.
There was one other thing that stood out in this glen, quite an eyesore actually. Just beyond a particular clump of posies and an algae filled pond is a surprisingly large stone castle, with a painfully small front door. Our fitness challenged hero, already puffed out from his terrifying trials and exertions, spotted this strange aberration on the scenery and made a sweaty beeline for it.
There is nothing like this stone eyesore on the entire planet (this planet). What strange governing force happened to drop Red within running distance of this particular castle? Perhaps the answer lies within.
Through the tiny doorway Red crawled on hands and knees. The entire structure appeared to be made of stone, but once inside Red found the floor smooth and cold to his touch, a grey shine glinted off the walls. It reminded him of metal, but not any he’d ever seen before. This place astounded him, amazed him with its elegance and mystery. This is a boy not easily impressed by his real world surroundings, but today has already broken that habit. Red gazed around, mouth agape, at the walls which gleamed as if of their own light. If there were rooms or corridors in this building, they were not readily obvious. Red must have stood at that spot dumbfounded for at least an hour (or like two minutes, which feels the same) before something even more astonishing happened. A duck walked in.
He entered from one of the walls that magically hid rooms. Upon spying Red, the duck himself stopped dead in his tracks. The surprise was more than he could say – indeed he was silent for a long moment. Finally he exclaimed:
“Who on Marsh are you? And what, may I ask, are you doing inside my dwelling uninvited?”
To which Red replied: “Arrrgh – talking duck!”
