Episode 1: Into the Vortex
A phone chimed mechanically, easily shattering the familiar silence in one particular college dormitory. The ringing echoed incessantly into the dark, vacant room, prompting the serene voice of a young, presumably contented adolescent to speak from the answering machine.
"Hey, it's Dan. I'm probably out, right now. Probably. Well, whatever it is, you know what to do...leave me a message, I'll call you back!"
Daniel Villaneuva was far from the comfort of his homely student residence, that afternoon. He wasn't around to hear the strange message that would await him upon his return.
At first, the only audible sound seemed to be that of a soft, steady breeze. It was quickly followed by a shrill screech that would have pierced the ears of any listener. The lamp sitting next to the phone inexplicably flickered until it shone constantly, and the nearby television turned itself on, the blue screen glaring into the darkness. And then, a seemingly feminine voice whispered into the recording machine, muddled by the grating static of a weak, trembling connection. It murmured Dan's name a single time before being cut off abruptly.
The television turned off, the lamplight promptly faded out, and the room was silent once again. The strange events that had transpired in that room would easily have frightened or at least confused any observer, but the unsuspecting Dan was fortunately even further from there by now.
In fact, he had arrived at his girlfriend's apartment door at that very moment. He rang the doorbell and immediately attempted to groom his untidy, brown hair with his stubby fingers. He could hear the shuffling of feet from behind the door.
"It's me, Dan."
"What's the password?" a young boy replied.
"Please?"
"Nope."
"Pretty please?"
"Open the door, Liam!" a woman's voice boomed from somewhere inside. The latches clicked open and the door swung wide. Liam, the boy, held it open, pouting in disappointment.
"It was Paladinmon." he insisted, as Dan shuffled inside and removed his shoes.
"What?"
"The password!" Liam cried, incredulously.
"Oh!" Dan laughed, and affectionately jumbled up Liam's neat, dirty blonde, bowl-cut hair. He looked up to see a woman standing in the kitchen doorway. "Hey, Mrs. Taylor."
"How are you?" the woman inquired, as Liam managed to pull away, frolicking off down the hall to the right, and into his room.
"Excited for Bandfest." Dan smiled and plopped down onto a nearby couch. "Tickets sold out!"
"That's great!" Mrs. Taylor beamed, "Sounds like the pressure is on."
"Nah, we can handle it." Dan smirked, fixing his jeans and the collar of his gray blazer, "I love the challenge."
"I love the attitude."
"Where's Carey?"
"Give her another four hours." Mrs. Taylor joked, and disappeared into the kitchen again, giving Liam the opportunity to pounce onto the couch, next to a surprised Dan.
"See!" he said, holding one of his collectible trading cards up to Dan's face. "Paladinmon."
"He looks pretty awesome, I'm not gonna lie." Dan said, examining the white-armor clad, sword wielding figure depicted on the card.
"Wanna see my other awesome cards?"
"Uhh..." Dan quickly glanced at the clock behind him, then down the hall at Carey's locked room. She was definitely not coming out any time soon. "Sure, why not."
"Take your time, sis!" Liam shouted as he led Dan into his room.
Carey opened her door slightly and poked her head out, her blonde curls dancing about her bright blue eyes. "Give me like ten minutes, Dan, hang in there!"
"You've got eight."
"Shut up." she smiled, and retreated into her room.
Liam's room was a mess. Dan almost tripped over the game console sprawled across the floor, before deciding to sit down on the chair at Liam's computer desk.
"Mind if I check my e-mail?" he asked.
"Go ahead..." Liam mumbled as he jumped onto his bed and began rifling through the binder of carefully organized trading cards that was lying in it.
If only he took care of his room like his cards. Dan thought, kicking a misplaced soccer ball from under the desk, as he booted up Liam's desktop computer.
Dan pivoted his chair, tediously, as he waited. He spun the chair and found himself facing the bedroom window. He peered out, looking down nineteen floors, mesmerized by how high above the ground they were. A brief smile broke across his face as he randomly decided that he and Carey needed to go bungee jumping sometime in the future.
Then he looked up into the sky and became aware of the swirling grey storm clouds in the distance. Ridiculous summer weather, he thought.
"I have almost every Digimon card!" Liam said, proudly presenting Dan his binder.
"Great job, Li." Dan said, and proceeded to log onto his e-mail account. Liam disappointedly slipped his binder into the black sling bag that was sitting on the carpet next to the desk, and then threw the bag over his shoulder.
"Facebook...facebook...spam...chain-letter...facebook..." Dan said, perusing the contents of his inbox. "...You have been invited to Digimingle by a friend."
He turned to Liam, "Did you send me this one?"
"No."
"Digimingle is a fun way to meet new people..." Dan continued, reading the e-mail halfheartedly, almost deciding to delete it. "Blah blah...Digimingle pairs you into...anonymous conversations with random strangers from all around the world..."
"Cool." Liam responded.
"Yeah..." Dan said slowly, suddenly intrigued, and let the mouse hover over the link. "Should I do it?"
"Do it."
The website was fairly easy to navigate, and the main interface was plain and simple: there was a box to type in, a couple of buttons, and an area to view the conversation.
"Stranger says 'hi,' now what?" Dan read aloud as his anonymous partner from who-knows-where initiated the conversation.
"Say something back, obviously!" Liam cried.
Hi um, whats ur name? Dan typed in response.
Layla. Im 17, u? The stranger replied.
"Hmm, sounds like a girl." Dan said. "I like her name."
"Tell her you're a girl, too!" Liam snickered.
"You're a genius." Dan laughed, patting Liam on the shoulder. He typed, Im Daniela, im 18.
"Daniela!" Liam read, and burst into laughter.
There are alot of weirdos on this site, dont u think? Layla replied. It only made Liam laugh more.
I know what u mean, Dan typed back. Some ppl r twisted.
At that point, the lights in the room went dark. Liam's laughter died down, and he looked at Dan in confusion. Dan stood up from his seat to check the light switch. It wasn't working.
"Be right back..." Dan said to Liam, opening the bedroom door. "Just going to check..."
Liam decided to convey the message to Layla.
"Gimme a sec." he said out loud as he typed, but his fingers slipped and he ended up typing a slightly different message: Gimme sex.
Excuse me? Layla replied.
"Uh oh." Liam stammered as Dan entered the room, again.
"The other rooms are fine..." he explained, closing the door behind him and walking back over to Liam and the computer.
"Um...my finger slipped...and –" Liam tried to say, but the computer screen beeped, and suddenly went black, abruptly stopping Dan in his tracks. Even more strangely, the lights in the entire room flickered on for a brief second, but went dark again. Only the pale rays of ominous light provided by the dull gray sky illuminated the room through the window.
"What happened...?" Dan wondered.
"Maybe the – " Liam began, but before he could say anything more, his television flickered on. He and Dan were instantly lost for words. The television was picking up no signal, and only displayed meaningless static.
"That's...odd..." was all Dan could say, before an ear-piercing frequency began to emanate from the television speakers. He and Liam threw their hands to their ears for protection, as the computer screen began to display shape-shifting patterns that seemed to float out of the screen itself; some sort of bizarre, three-dimensional screen-saver.
As the screeching noise slowly faded, Liam carefully lowered his hands to his neck. A look of desperate confusion stretched across his face, as Dan tried to make sense of what was going on. But really, no logical explanation could explain what was happening.
Nor could any simple justification be suggested for what happened next.
A voice, stifled by the static of the television, seemed to reverberate from within the speakers. It began as an inaudible whisper, but soon developed into a ghostly echo that distinctly called out Liam's name. It even repeated itself a second time, as if to confirm the unbelievable incident.
The frightened Liam reached out blindly and squeezed Dan's arm, who only stood motionlessly in his place, more confused than he was afraid.
As Liam backed away from the echoing television, Dan slowly turned his attention to the computer screen, on which the bizarre patterns had begun spinning and transforming faster and faster. The shapes changed colours, convulsing erratically, and reached out at Dan and Liam from the screen. They formed some sort of three dimensional vortex, and the two felt themselves being drawn into it.
They became dizzy in their panic and bewilderment, as the world around them began to fade. In moments, both of them had blacked out.
.....
Dan could feel an icy sensation engulf his body. Slowly regaining consciousness, he tried desperately to shake the feeling away from him. He pried open his heavy eyelids, vainly waving about. It was difficult to move around, as if he had been draped in a cold, heavy blanket of some sort. He looked around, searching for Liam, trying to figure out where he was, but he seemed to be trapped in an endless space of cobalt blue, where there were no walls and apparently nowhere to go.
Dan forced his body to spin around, against the strange pressure that was pushing at him, only to be blinded by a brilliant white light. He tried to look away as his hands flew defensively to his face, but the radiant figure had begun to weaken. Peeking through the cracks between his fingers, Dan could see that a massive spherical body had glided in front of the light source, allowing him to see again.
He was looking at the sun, and it had been obscured by what seemed to be the earth. A ring of eerie crimson coronal light began to shine dimly around the planet as it eclipsed into a tenebrous ball of infinite darkness.
Dan floated in his place, perplexed by the portentous events unfolding before him. A faint whisper began to resonate around him, and he squinted into the darkness of the solar eclipse, as if to find the cure to his confusion within it.
"Hey!" the voice of a young female overwhelmed the eerie, ricocheting whisper. Dan had heard it from somewhere behind him, and he looked around confusedly.
Almost accordingly, two menacing, scarlet eyes emerged from the black sphere. Alarmed, Dan flapped his arms to maneuver himself in the opposite direction, trying to escape from the demonic entity, trying to find the source of that voice.
The darkness suddenly burst forth, eating away at the cobalt space, threatening to swallow everything completely. Dan frantically swam away from the monster, towards a glimmering light that seemed to have randomly appeared out of nowhere.
A hand seemed to reach out from somewhere beyond the light, and Dan propelled himself toward it. The fiendish monster yawned around him, and he was surrounded in complete darkness, save for the glimmering light before his eyes. The light began to extend outward, as the hand finally stretched within Dan's reach.
He flung his own hand out toward it, grabbing the hand by the wrist, and the darkness of the strange realm around him dissipated almost immediately.
He had awoken from his dream-like trance, only to find himself in another curious setting. He was lying in the shade of an enormous, barren tree, sprawled uncomfortably against its trunk, and atop its thick, jagged roots.
"You can let go of me, now..." It was that female voice again. Only then did Dan notice the girl crouching beside him. She wore light blue jeans that were fastened to her waist by a plain white belt, and a brown top with lace-up grommets that reached below her ample bosom, hiding the white shirt underneath. She had her fingers stretched out towards Dan's side, and Dan had his hand wrapped firmly around her wrist. He released her at once, and she hesitantly helped heave him back onto his feet.
Dan dusted off his jeans, blazer, and white t-shirt underneath, as he and the girl took a moment to marvel at their surroundings. They seemed to have been arbitrarily situated in the midst of a field of tall, green grass. Woodland stretched off indefinitely around them, and far off in the distance, beyond the trees, they could see a mountainous range that towered above the land.
Dan examined the girl again through the corner of his eye, but he really had no idea who she was. She held herself restlessly as her flowing black hair danced about her cinnamon skin, ruffled by a gentle wind. She seemed to be as lost as he was.
"How'd we get here?" he asked her, finally.
She simply shrugged, still looking out at the scenery, trying to gather her thoughts. "I just woke up...and then...I saw you lying there..." she added.
"Did you see anyone else?" Dan replied, suddenly realizing that Liam was nowhere in sight.
"No...I think we're alone..."
"Maybe..."
Dan quietly wandered around for a minute, still feeling a bit dizzy. He dug his hands into his pockets, and pulled out his cell phone. It wouldn't even turn on. They had no idea what time it was, no sense of location, and no context into how they had ended up in this place. Dan could only imagine what Carey and her mother would think when they realized that he had mysteriously vanished. And he was sure that something had happened to Liam, as well, but no idea what. It was an overwhelming feeling.
"What's your name?" he asked the girl. She was squatting down in front of the tree, now, exhausted.
"Layla." she said, looking up at Dan, weakly. "Layla Singhe."
"Layla?" Dan repeated, excitedly. He was surprised, but grateful to finally hear something familiar. "From Digimingle?"
There was a moment of awkward silence as the two stared at each other. Layla's blurry memory suddenly became a little less fuzzy, and a look of disdain formed on her face as she jumped back upright. Dan had already figured out what she was upset about.
"Then you must be Daniela." she concluded, her arms folded, in anger.
"Yeah, well...I'm Dan, actually..." Dan said, itching the stubble on his cheek, nervously. "Dan Vill –"
"What's wrong with you?" she interrupted. Her voice had a calm, and yet threatening undertone.
"Nothing...I was just..."
"You like pretending to be a woman?"
"No...we were only..."
"So you're just a creep, then."
"It was just...a joke..."
"A joke!" Layla snapped. At that point, she had heard enough from Dan. To Dan's confusion, she began reprimanding him about how low, repulsive, and immature it was to solicit people for cyber sex, how he was undermining both the integrity of the web site and the good intentions of the developer, and how he could have jeopardized the innocence of another child who may have been unfortunate enough to be thrust into conversation with him.
She was far too preoccupied in her anger to notice that, behind her, the tree had begun to stir. Dan tried calling her name to get her to stop talking, but Layla went on about pedophilia, the perversion of the internet, and how Dan would never find himself a girlfriend.
"Layla!" Dan shouted, but she remained undeterred. The tree suddenly, and amazingly, turned itself around, revealing a face carved into the trunk. And in fact, it wasn't a tree at all, but some sort of creature whose sleep had been disturbed.
Layla spun around in shock, having heard the sound of the tree's dry roots crudely rising out of the ground, forming makeshift feet. She looked up at the creature helplessly as it raised its branch-like arms into the air and towered over her. But before it could grind her into the ground, Dan whisked her away by the forearm, and the two darted clumsily into the tall grass.
The monster refused to let them get away so easily, and ambled groggily into the grass. It roared furiously as it stalked after them, shaking the ground with every stride.
Fearing for their lives, Dan and Layla raced desperately towards the dark forest just ahead, sweeping the intrusive grass from their faces on their way.
Woodmon would soon be the least of their problems.
~~~
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Digimon franchise, although the human characters and the plot are original.
I know, this should actually be in the fanfic section...but I didn't want to give away that it was a Digimon fanfic in the beginning because I'm trying to present it in a way that would appeal to even those who never really knew what the show was about (not sure if it's working). Further, I'm trying to give the series a more serious and realistic feeling. I am also hoping to include some psychological undertones, but we'll see where this goes. Tell me what you think so far.
Gender:
Points: 3351
Reviews: 31