Respawn

Sara looked around for a prompt, a trigger, a clue – anything that would give her a hint on what to do next. The vast plain stretched before her, golden waist high grass undulating under the hot steady wind.  She whirled around the see the tunnel of ice she had just stumbled out of, but it was gone, the endless grassland reaching to the horizon under the blazing sun.

Ok. She took a breath and wiped the sweat already dripping down her face. The heat still felt good after the cold of the ice cave but she knew that soon it would not feel so good. She swung the canvas rucksack off her back and rummaged through. Yes, the water bottle was refilled and the meat jerky replaced, as it was each time at beginning of a new - scene? Chapter? Challenge? She wasn’t sure yet what to call this, but she knew by now, after the jungle and the destroyed city and ocean, and the mountain cliffs, and suburban supermarket, and the ice cave she had been stuck in since her own world had disappeared, that there was a way out. 

And, apparently, she couldn’t get hurt. She wasn’t sure about that, though, and didn’t want to test it. She didn’t know if the tiger missed his jump and the old lady in the store had her cart diverted by coincidence or if she was somehow protected, but she would continue to be as careful as she could. She could feel bumps and scratches, but they healed quickly and she hadn’t gotten any more serious injuries. 

She swung the rucksack back over her shoulder and scanned the horizon again, slowly turning, but there was no dot or bump to indicate a direction to go. So, if there wasn’t something far away, maybe there was something close. She looked down at the dirt. It looked like and endless sweep of grass, but it was really tall, wide thick clumps, with a few inches of bare dirt showing between irregular circles of thick vegetation. She leaned down, poking through the grass, and finally had to get on her hands and knees, following the natural dirt trails through the thickets. 

She was just about to give up on that and figure out something else to try when she came across the key. It was a big old-fashioned house key, brass colored and heavy. It was laying in the dirt coated in dust and she probably wouldn’t have seen it if she had been standing. She wondered if there were keys all over hidden in the dust, or if it had been put in her path. 

She stood and looked around again. Nothing was above the level of the grass. The sun was still beating down from the same place in the sky, and she was getting uncomfortably hot. She got out her water and took a big drink, and wet the blue threadbare bandana she found and wiped her face and neck. 

She put everything away, took a big breath, and stilled herself. She looked across the plain, into the line between land and sky, letting her eyes drift across the whole place before turning a fraction of an inch and doing it again. She stopped twice for water and a few bites of jerky, and once laid down between the grasses for a few minutes and closed her eyes. Based on the history of the past few days, or months, or who knew how long, there was something she needed to see. There was something out of sync with the pattern if she could find it. And if she could catch it sooner rather than later, that was better. Otherwise, she would be going on wild side quests, difficult adventures that had nothing to do with the goal and she would end up right back here. 

The ocean had been terrifying, because there had been little she could do but survive until her makeshift raft had bumped an island. The jungle ordeal lasted forever, as she seemed to make the wrong choice again and again, ending up back at the foot of the same kapok tree. The grocery store had been the most disappointing and upsetting, because at first she thought she was back in her own world. 

Scanning, scanning – wait. She drifted her eyes back a bit and paused, waiting for whatever had seemed out of place to catch her attention. There. At some point in the distance, impossible to say how far, was a gap. A space without grass, a missing clump. She squinted – yes, definitely a change in the pattern in that one spot. She started walking, keeping an eye on it. It never got dark, the sun fixed in the sky, but she realized at some point she was stumbling and walking half-asleep. She lay down where she was, the rucksack under her head, and slept. She woke to the same sun, drank some water – the bottle was fuller than she remembered, but not to the top. In addition to the jerky, a big juicy pear was now in her bag and she enjoyed every bite. 

She looked around, panicked for a second. She had certainly lost track of the gap in the grass before she slept but there it was, much clearer and closer. Either she had gone further half-asleep than she had realized, or it had been moved nearer to her. 

It was only a few minutes, or an hour, or a few hours of walking and she reached it. She slowed down and approached cautiously to find a door set in the ground, replacing the space of two or three grass clumps. It was square and wooden, with dull metal fixtures, and a big loop in the middle, presumably the handle to pull it open. There was also, of course, a key hole. She pulled out her key and it matched, the same metal and type and size. She sat down with a grunt and lay back, and let herself drift off to sleep. It was better to move on rested as best she could rather than rushing into something unknown, she had found. 

When she awoke, she finished off all the water and jerky, and found some unknown shelled nuts in her bag and ate those too. They were meaty and sweet and just a little bitter, but yummy and filling. She put the key in the lock and it turned easily. She grabbed the handle and it took some strength to break the door free from the dirt-encrusted frame and jerk it open. A rush of cool, earth-scented air greeted her, and she looked in to see a wide iron ladder dropping into darkness. She carefully put the key back in her bag – although she knew it would probably be gone the next time she looked – and maneuvered to start down the ladder. 

Eight or ten careful rungs down, she came to a wooden platform about ten feet wide and several feet deep. She stepped off the ladder, the wide planks of the landing clomping hollowly under her feet. She cautiously looked over the edge all around. There was a wide set of shallow steps with a rough wooden handrail leading down from where she stood; otherwise, nothing could be seen in the blackness. 

She still had some daylight from the hole above her. She looked in her rucksack and sure enough, her jerky and water were refilled. She had started another adventure, then. That one had been pretty easy, she thought. She imagined that if she had just started wandering around without paying attention, she would have found stampeding elephants and an oasis and a mud hut of cannibals or something to get through before ending up in the exact same spot she started. 

She searched her bag carefully again. The brass key was gone, but she found a small oil lamp with a round handle which should not have been able to fit in the small bag, and a metal cannister of wooden matches. And a map!  She would have missed it if she had not looked so closely – it was in a small side pocket she didn’t even know was there. It probably wasn’t there five minutes ago, she thought. She held it up to see as best she could in the light from the door above her head. It didn’t make sense now, but she knew it would in time. She put everything away, lit the lamp and lowered the glass cover. 

She didn’t even look up, just sighed, when the door above her slammed shut, plunging her into darkness except for the warm circle of light from the lamp. The lantern held out in one hand, she held on to railing and started down the steps.