The task was to create two environments that should be described in a way that presents them as unfamiliar. Out of the options available, I chose a rainforest and a room filled with old furniture.
“This was never supposed to happen,” wailed Thomas quietly. His dream vacation in Indonesia took a sharp turn to the south when the guided field trip was dispersed by a rampant elephant. He panicked and ran and blacked out at some point. Now the sun was setting and he didn’t know where he was, other than in a bloody wild rainforest.
The canopy high above his head obstructed the light, and though he could see bright patches of the sky between the branches, it was dark on the ground. He stood up clumsily, grasping the rough trunk of the tree next to him. He jerked his hand back with a yelp when he thought he felt some insect try to crawl onto his fingers. His eyes were wide open as he tried to see as much of his surroundings as he could. He looked around, praying under his breath that all the tigers, gorillas, bats and snakes would hunt somewhere else.
The night was alive with a myriad of sounds, and the cacophony assaulted Tom’s ears relentlessly, reminding him with each second that he did not belong there. As he walked warily in the direction he thought he’d come from, every shadow grew to be a leopard, a lion, a wolf, the Chupacabra and an Indian shaman, and it never occurred to him that he started to conjure his childhood fears that would never appear in this part of the world. He tripped many times, too scared to cry out for help in fear that he would bring doom on himself instead. Even the cold sweat rolling down his back became a scorpion or a small but deadly snake, so he didn’t dare wipe it away.
A sudden rustling of leaves to his right made him jump and gasp. A large creature moved a leaf away from its path. Thomas didn’t bother waiting to see what it was - he bolted, running for his life with a shriek. He didn’t hear the guide shout at him to come back.
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Old Jack’s office was off limits for children, which was precisely why it was Matilda and Toby’s favourite spot in the whole old mansion. When Matilda found a spare key in the kitchens, she was beside herself with excitement to tell her brother. That evening, when Old Jack rode out on his horse to meet his friends in a pub, the children snuck into his room.
It was a labyrinth of tall furniture made of dark wood. The siblings immediately started to explore, gleefully finding secret passages under desks and decorative vanities, climbing the mountain ranges of dressers and wardrobes, and searching treasure chests of drawers and lockers. They found a wealth of mysterious objects, some as simple as a thin metal tube with beautiful mother-of-pearl inlay, hidden in a box smelling of tobacco, and some as elaborate as a clock-like mechanism the size of a dinner plate, with many moving parts, detailed scales, and pictures of stars and constellations engraved on its face. The children took upon themselves the dangerous quest of freeing those treasures from the dragon’s grasp, and dove into wardrobes in search of a suitable means to transport their loot. The spacious caverns of the three large closets distracted the young explorers, though. They found collections of clothes worthy of queens and emperors. For the next hour, they paraded the newly mapped territory in royal garb, naming each cave and mountain as they saw fit. However, before they knew it, their game of dressing up was interrupted by the dragon himself - Old Jack returned, and the new king and queen had to flee the domain they’d just claimed,evading the fire of his reprimand and shouts about touching his collection of astronomical devices.
“This was never supposed to happen,” wailed Thomas quietly. His dream vacation in Indonesia took a sharp turn to the south when the guided field trip was dispersed by a rampant elephant. He panicked and ran and blacked out at some point. Now the sun was setting and he didn’t know where he was, other than in a bloody wild rainforest.
The canopy high above his head obstructed the light, and though he could see bright patches of the sky between the branches, it was dark on the ground. He stood up clumsily, grasping the rough trunk of the tree next to him. He jerked his hand back with a yelp when he thought he felt some insect try to crawl onto his fingers. His eyes were wide open as he tried to see as much of his surroundings as he could. He looked around, praying under his breath that all the tigers, gorillas, bats and snakes would hunt somewhere else.
The night was alive with a myriad of sounds, and the cacophony assaulted Tom’s ears relentlessly, reminding him with each second that he did not belong there. As he walked warily in the direction he thought he’d come from, every shadow grew to be a leopard, a lion, a wolf, the Chupacabra and an Indian shaman, and it never occurred to him that he started to conjure his childhood fears that would never appear in this part of the world. He tripped many times, too scared to cry out for help in fear that he would bring doom on himself instead. Even the cold sweat rolling down his back became a scorpion or a small but deadly snake, so he didn’t dare wipe it away.
A sudden rustling of leaves to his right made him jump and gasp. A large creature moved a leaf away from its path. Thomas didn’t bother waiting to see what it was - he bolted, running for his life with a shriek. He didn’t hear the guide shout at him to come back.
______________________________
Old Jack’s office was off limits for children, which was precisely why it was Matilda and Toby’s favourite spot in the whole old mansion. When Matilda found a spare key in the kitchens, she was beside herself with excitement to tell her brother. That evening, when Old Jack rode out on his horse to meet his friends in a pub, the children snuck into his room.
It was a labyrinth of tall furniture made of dark wood. The siblings immediately started to explore, gleefully finding secret passages under desks and decorative vanities, climbing the mountain ranges of dressers and wardrobes, and searching treasure chests of drawers and lockers. They found a wealth of mysterious objects, some as simple as a thin metal tube with beautiful mother-of-pearl inlay, hidden in a box smelling of tobacco, and some as elaborate as a clock-like mechanism the size of a dinner plate, with many moving parts, detailed scales, and pictures of stars and constellations engraved on its face. The children took upon themselves the dangerous quest of freeing those treasures from the dragon’s grasp, and dove into wardrobes in search of a suitable means to transport their loot. The spacious caverns of the three large closets distracted the young explorers, though. They found collections of clothes worthy of queens and emperors. For the next hour, they paraded the newly mapped territory in royal garb, naming each cave and mountain as they saw fit. However, before they knew it, their game of dressing up was interrupted by the dragon himself - Old Jack returned, and the new king and queen had to flee the domain they’d just claimed,evading the fire of his reprimand and shouts about touching his collection of astronomical devices.
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