El Dorado

• Rheanne Abuobeid, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2015

She runs.

Waves claw the sand as she forced one foot pounding after the other. She knew a random portal wouldn’t show up out of the blue and transport her to a safe haven. So why was she feeling a small ounce of hope that it would?

Nothing ever resulted in a happy ending for Cath. The last time she remembered laughing, or even smiling was when she was just thirteen years of age. It all went downhill from there.

**************

All she could do was run as he chased her along the shoreline of the astronomically immense, sandy beach wanting to put an end to this endless game of revenge, torture and crime. It wasn’t until then that Cath realised how lifeless the beach truly was during the dead of the night. Seeing as she’d lived in Brighton her whole life, she could never really comprehend a reason as to why the small town became as applauded as it is today, and why such a frequent amount of tourists kept visiting the area.

He’d gotten closer.

The feeling that her lungs might burst open and her heart might explode was beyond frustrating. In out; in out, she told herself, her eyes fixed straight ahead. Don’t look back, she thought. Mustn’t look back. Still she ran.

She thought about how a normal girl would have been spending her eighteenth birthday, certainly not like this. But then again, you are not a normal eighteen-year-old girl. Unable to take it anymore, she stumbled. She heard him getting closer by the sound of his ragged breath and the force of his feet hitting the ground, causing the gap between the two to become more diminutive by the second.

She blacks out.

She awoke to discover she was in a completely new environment. It was mostly indescribable. There were trees of luscious green leaves; some even appeared to contain a variety of delicious looking, shiny red and green apples. There were bushes and there were ferns. She stared in awe at the beautifully grown flowers of all different colours popping out from every direction in which she looked.

Then out of the corner of her eye what seemed to be a note pinned to a tree caught her attention.

It read;
Dear Miss Fairchild,

I am pleased to inform you I have made the decision to allow you refuge in El Dorado. You must be wondering why you are here; I mean it is only normal. You must understand that I am an extremely busy man therefore I do not accept visitors. El Dorado is a place where downworlders; faeries, werewolves, vampires etc. and the exceptional mundane are given access to stay. But this is no hotel or holiday; you are here because, you lived a sad life and were completely innocent. Therefore, here you will await to hear whether you will be either moving on to the afterlife or have another chance at life.

Yours truly,
Tribal Chief of El Dorado