Waterun

Author's note: This story is a story written for literature group to see who could use certain words (highlighted) in the most meaningful way.

 Living in his least favorite place to be wasn’t easy. Jon stood apart from almost everybody at school, couldn’t play any sports, and was constantly picked on by his fellow classmates. After every day at school he come home to his Manhattan apartment to his step dad abusing his mom. Jon hated his step-dad, the one who forced him to move to New York. The exact place he promised himself he would never travel to, but, there he is living now. His cousins used to live here and he would celebrate Hanukkah with them here. Jon previously lived in a cottage in northern Vermont and he loved it. His best friend and him would always play in the forest and chase animals around. Sometimes he would go swimming and find platypuses, and bring them home as a pet. All of that fun came crashing down on top of him when the fires hit. Everything he knew and loved, including his father, was destroyed. He and his mother were forced to move in with a slop of a human.

“Rosalie!” He would call from his room. She would come over to see him wearing one of her tank tops and mocking her. Jon always asked his mom if they could move out but his mother would shake her head and say that this was a good place to stay. Jon particularly hated it because Mike, his step-dad, would only have two chairs at the kitchen table at night. The only other Mike claimed to be his lucky poker chair. Jon just cried the first night, but he quickly became accustomed to sitting on the floor. Mostly

 because of  Mike’s beating. But this night was different, Jon decided he had enough.

            Jon regretted leaving his mom, but he had to get out of there. His legs were getting tired as they carried him down the stairs and out into the streets. He ran and ran until he hitched onto a pickup truck where he rode out of the city. Jon got out of the pick-up truck at a rest stop and stole an orange that was sitting in the cup holder.

            He strode into the rest stop and looked for food that he could take. He saw a little box of cookie crisp, and realized that he should  try it. He snatched it up and stuffed it down into his pocket. A scraggly man was watching him and noticed this.

            The man yelled out and Jon ran out of the store. He noticed a bike sitting on the wall and he took it. He rode it deep into the forest until he got too tired to ride the bike anymore. The month was march so spring was begining and certain flowers were sprouting out of the ground. This gave Jon more hope as to keeping food. Some animals would be coming out of hibernation and he could hunt them. This largely improved Jon’s chances of survival. All of his running caught up to him and he just lie down to rest. He woke up chilled and sweating, he realized he was having a nightmare. It was him in his old house and the ghostly version of his mom was haunting him and he ran away but he still felt bad about his mom.

            Jon stood up and realized something was wrong. He was dizzy and felt sick. A fever. He started panicking and tried to light a fire but things were to moist from the night. They would only get more moist as it started to rain. He started in a random direction and kept going. Is that a house? He thought as he approached something with light coming out of it. It was and his hopes arose. Just his bad luck, a lighting strike drove in through the sky and hit the tree next to the house. It toppled onto the house, flames quickly sprouting their way up through the roof. Jon was emotionally crushed, but still looked on the bright side and looked through a tool shed near the house. It contained a bunch of trash but it was mostly useless. He spotted something glinting  and inspected. It was a hammer. This might come in handy. He thought.

            Just then a lightning strike hit the shed and fires surrounded Jon. He knew his life was over but as soon as that thought passed his brain, he passed out.

           

            Warmth was in the air and he saw a woman in white feeding him. The whole room was white. The woman was Asian and looked like a nurse. Jon fell back asleep.

            The second time he awoke the same women was there feeling his heart. She noticed he was awake and her eyes opened wide. She ran out of the room and Jon overheard her saying something to a male and he came in the room. He started talking but Jon couldn’t understand it because he was speaking in a different language. He noticed this and tried again, this time a different language. Jon thought he said something about a Krabby patty but Jon guessed not. The man tried once more and finally got it right.

            “How are you feeling?” The man asked, but with a strange accent.

            “Good” But as Jon said it he quickly noticed the burning he felt on his chest and legs. The man must’ve noticed distress and said

            “You were burnt in the fire but we rescued you. Stay in bed for a few days, then we will let you out”

“Where am I, who are you?” Jon asked but the man just shook his head and said

“That’s for another day” Once Jon was alone he looked out of the window and saw a weird sight. Some people outside, were washing a fluffy alpaca under a waterfall.

The next morning Jon was feeling well enough to get up and explore. He found the man and asked him the questions asked earlier.

“This place is called Waterun, although I have no idea how you got here. By the way, my name is Helgen. Anyways, that house you came to, no normal human can see it, unless,” Helgen snapped his fingers “The lightning, yes. That allowed you to see the house. The house was our portal between here, and Earth.”

“Wait, so this isn’t Earth, how am I supposed to get back?”

“I don’t know, the portal is gone, but you are welcome to stay” So Jon did, he loved living in Waterun and learned their language. He had a family, and shared his stories of Earth with his fascinated family. He died at the age of ninety-three, never returning to Earth.