Armchair BEA Day 4 - Giveaway (Win $20 to The Book Depository)

Add a line to Story Time in the comments, then I’ll randomly pick a winner out of all the entries and they’ll win $20 to The Book Depository 

* Contest open to US and International, if you enter the contest make sure that The Book Depository ships to where you live.  You can check that here.(which means the giveaway is open Internationally as long as they ship to wherever you live.

* Giveaway will run today through June 7th, winner will be posted June 8th.)

Rules

1.) Only write 1 to 2 sentences
2.) Keep it clean
3.) Have fun and spread the word so the story grows

Here's the story that has formed so far:

Awesome people who have authored the story by adding lines so far: Sullivan McPig, Julie@My5monkeys, Susan Jane Bigelow, barmybex, Tiny Reverse Vampire, Man of la Book

Once upon a time in a time not that long ago there was a disturbance.

The cause of the disturbance was something that was well...truly disturbing.  In fact it was so disturbing that at first it was quite unclear what this disturbance was, because anyone who saw it was too disturbed to talk about it.

There came a noisy unruly girl who demanded that all must obey her. She was the girl of the mayor and weird things did happen around her. Pigeons tap danced when she blinked her eyes and cockroaches would mimic her words when she spoke.  Lights would go off and babies would cry when she passed.

This girl stood in the center of town, pigeons dancing, roaches waiting, lights flickering and babies crying all around.  She struck her umbrella on the cobblestones.  A hush fell over the town as purple sparks shot out of the tip of the umbrella and even the pigeons stopped their dancing and seemed to hold their breath.

As the astounded masses watched a massive hole slowly appeared in the middle of the street. As the dust settled it was revealed...a giant staircase leading down to complete darkness and then a faint music started to radiate from its depths.

There was such a ruckus in the town and trying to make sure that all the citizens were fine. The music coming out of the hole had a mesmerizing sound that attracted all the citizens.  It was almost like children's music.

The girl grinned mischievously and whistled along with the music while she slowly descended down the hole.

The further down she went the louder the music echoed. A strange shift filled the air and a cold wind howled past causing her hair to flutter round her face, but it didn't distract her. As she confidently walked on some of the pigeons and cockroaches followed her, cautiously and trembling with fear and a sense of foreboding.

"Wait," a high, piping voice said, "there are dangers below!" One of the pigeons had spoken. This was not a terrific surprise to the girl, who did not pause in her descent." Stay above ground if you don't have the courage to follow me," she stated calmly." But I must go on. The faith of the town depends on this."

As she kept traveling downward the tone of the music seemed to change and become more insistent.  Then in the distance a faint shimmering light appeared.

It glowed a dull purple at first, but then changed to a harsh, angry blue that pulsated like a frantic heartbeat that got more aggressive the closer the girl got to it.

The light was actually calling to her, and only her. She was different from everyone else in the town. It was her duty.

She edged closer with her arm out in front of her. The blue light grew in intensity until she had to close her eyes against the glare, a warmth surrounded her arm from the light and she pulled in a satisfied breath and grinned.

As more of the light enveloped her, she felt the heat spread and her body began to hum with a sense of power.

Then in her mind she began to hear a whispering chant almost as if the power knew who she was and what she had to do.

The words and the music started to sync together and then she began to speak the chant, as she spoke the discordant words the light solidified into a wooden door which slowly began to open.

The light around the door frame was still so bright it cast shadows into the room, making it impossible to see what was in there.

She slowly peeked into the room and felt so cold that there must be something not of this world in there. She slowly found the bed and sat down on it.

Then out of nowhere a dapper looking man appeared.  He looked like a perfect gentleman; he even had a strange purple top hat on.  Though when you looked in his eyes there was no warmth to be found and his presence seemed to suck the warmth from the room.

The man seemed to be staring straight at her but there was no recognition in his eyes, just blackness. Then he opened his mouth to speak and she felt shivers shoot up and down her spine.

His voice seemed to freeze the very air and stop all sound when he said, "I know what you're here for."

Thinking this was her job and her job alone, she wondered if he was friend or foe.

She steadied herself because she knew that if she showed any fear that he might pounce and his true form would be revealed.  Her bag of tricks was pretty full though and she had the spark of an idea.

She remembered his particular fondness for word puzzles and taking a deep breath began reciting an odd sounding riddle.

In the middle of the chant he began chanting along with her, their voices rose and the atmosphere in the room grew even more tense.

The girl could have sworn she felt the very walls vibrating and the floor shaking, but she knew she couldn't stop now. If this was some sort of test she was determined to succeed.

When she finished the chant he stopped at the same time, then with a deep rumbling the floor fell away beneath them.

The pair tumbled down into the darkness, but for some reason neither one of them was scared.

They seem to fall forever, almost floating in the air. The girl held the man's hand, or was he holding hers?

The man was still chanting, while the pigeons were flying in circles around them. That is when the girl notices something that sent cold chills to her spine: the cockroaches mimicked him!

She thought everything was under control but those darn cockroaches really fouled things up.

The farther they fell the more weightless she felt and the air seemed to thicken and become colder.

The chanting continued, she glanced down and saw that they were falling quickly toward a rather large clearing that was surrounded by snow and something shadowy she couldn't quite make out.

Bracing herself for a rough landing the girl blew out a deep breath and got ready for impact. At least the snow would offer some sort of comfort, or so she thought.

The closer they got the more the view changed.  The snowflakes now seemed to be separating, darkening, and slowly but surely rising to meet them.

The girl closed her eyes in the hope she was imagining it, but when she opened them again the shadowy snow was still coming towards them and now it looked like a dark outstretched hand just waiting to snatch them both out of the air.

As the hand wrapped around them, they could feel the very breath being squeezed from their lungs. It wasn't really a hand, they had fallen into a canyon with ridges that looked like fingers. It got narrower the further down they were drawn, then they could feel something on their toes.

"what is that?" the girl asked, trying to wriggle herself away from whatever it was, scrunching her nose in disgust. Her breath caught as she slipped again and fell further into the thing below.

"Why me?" she cried.

Then his voice boomed from right behind her, "You know why, it always had to be you."

She stared shocked while he continued, “I never forgot about you and I wasn’t just going to let you go.”

"You thought that you could just walk out and I wouldn't notice?"

the girl took a deep breath, realising she knew just who was behind her and knowing things were about to get a lot worse. "oh boy!" she sighed to herself.

Before she could turn around the temperature plummeted and then he was there, the man she thought she could get away from.  Well he wasn't exactly all human as she had found out before fleeing.

Taking two steps back she yelled at him, "I've learned a lot since our last meeting."

"She fumbled for the umbrella which lay a few feet away, broken and wet.”

“A life line, the umbrella, if only she could reach it.”