Nicholson Creek

• Olivia Atkin, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2021

I could hear the gravel crunching under the hooves of the snow-white horses towing the carriage. This disrupted the once peaceful winter morning. My mother and father, the duke and duchess of Nicholson, stepped out of the carriage. My mother was wearing a diamond encrusted necklace, and a long, flowing dress with imprints of little light blue butterflies. My father had a golden rimmed monocle on his left eye, and a handsome cedar coloured suit with a dark red tie. He had a curled, dark brown moustache, in which he had to take great care of to keep it in supreme fashion. "How have you been, Stephen?" my mother asks. I smile warmly. Mother doesn’t usually tend to greet me when she arrives. "Very well, Mother," I answer in reply. She doesn’t answer back. She calls upon a maid to take in their luggage. My father grunts at me. I decide to go off on a walk.
Ralph, the family dog, has decided to come down to Nicholson Creek with me. The sun has just about set when I arrive. It’s peaceful. I can hear the cicadas chirping in the reeds. I hear Ralph running in the grass nearby. He is making an excessive amount of noise and is standing in one spot, looking down. I begin to walk towards him, thinking it’s just a rabbit or a young fox he has managed to get his paws on. I reach him, and he is staring down at a small, grey capsule. I pick it up, not thinking much of it. It was the same size as one of father’s bullets, so I assumed that it must be one of them. "But Ralph wouldn’t bark at a bullet”. Ralph makes a high pitch scream when the capsule starts leaking some sort of green gas. I squeal. A large, olive coloured hole forms in the ground, and I begin to feel like I may not get home tonight...
Ralph and I are sucked into the hole! I grab Ralph tight to stop him from falling away from me. I feel the wind whipping against my skin, my light brown hair swirling around my face. I try and hold back a scream. The wind abruptly stops. I’m floating. I feel like a child’s balloon. Like I’ve just been let go and left to float at the ceiling. My feet start lowering, and I can feel a soft breeze on my face. But I’m not at the creek. It looks like some kind of inverted world, unlike the one I know and love. I sit on the ground, scared. I feel something on me... I look around and see...W-where am I? Hello? Is anyone there? Mother, father? Somebody! Help! My ears begin ringing and my eyes blur. I’m fading...