Genesis of Jazreal

Chapter 1



Darkness covered her and the world appeared barren and without life. She slid around the wreckage feeling with her hands until she felt the grit of the sand beneath her battered fingers. Her hands continued to stumble over sand and rocks for hours until the outside world cracked through the stones and there was light in her barren void. This was her first day.

The next day was consumed with uncovering the rest of the sky. The light that had filled her void was oddly distorted and a strange hue, like the light of the plastic stars on her bedroom ceiling. The rocks continued to give way to her young arms and more eerie light broke in. She dared not look back into the void, afraid of the nothingness that would materialize in front of her, but rather kept pushing forward in hope of a sky. And then it appeared. This was her second day.

After the light flooded her sky once again, she broke out of the barren onto land, marvelous land with no sight of anything in any direction. She picked a direction to walk, figuring that any direction at this point was better than her previous dark abyss. Her search was for water and it took her far from her original void, but still she saw nothing but land. In exhaustion she fell to the crisp sand and tears began to drip from her eyes, forming drops in the parched ground. With each tear that trickled, a silvery stream appeared, until, from her few tears, a pond formed. Was the desert playing tricks with her mind? Her finger tentatively stretched toward the newly formed water and shrank back saturated. Frightened, she stepped back and fell spilling her only source of food, a small pack of trail mix that the flight attendant had given her. She squeaked in horror as she saw her raisins and seeds and precious chocolate being swallowed up by the sand. She almost cried again, but then remembered what had happened the last time she had done so. So she sighed and turned around to look at her newly formed tear drop pond. She dipped her dry, bloodied hand into the water and slowly drew it up to her cracked lips. She curiously sniffed the water before she took a small sip and then her whole head was resting in the beautiful crystal liquid. After withdrawing her soaked head, she proceeded to sit down, but was surprised when what felt like sewing pins pricked her butt. A grape vine was twirling its way around the pond choking out its life. In addition to the grape vine, her trail mix had sprouted into gnarled sunflowers and enormous peanuts pods. But, the strangest thing of all was the fifteen large nightmarish chocolate trees marinated by the ghostly light and nurtured by the cursed sand. She had exactly fifteen M&M’s left in her trail mix. Before long it looked like Willy Wonka had gotten a hold on the desert. Fifteen trees had sprouted in red, green, yellow, blue, orange and brown. Each tree had grapefruit sized candy coated chocolates growing on them with strange white scribbles.

“An M&M tree,” She thought. “Yum! I wonder if money grows on trees or clothes. Maybe if I plant my clothes…” And that was her third day: land, water, and plants.

The next day most of her time was consumed with gathering chocolates off the foreboding trees. By the end of the day the monstrous chocolates had her stomach in knots like the grapevines had the pond. So she was just content to look up at the sky and the strange light emanating from it. It was the strangest light she had ever seen; at night the light did not go down or set like the sun had before, but just got dimmer as the night progressed until there were just small crystal dots in the night sky. She thought this was most odd. This was her fourth day.

One day of musing about the strange lights in the sky was good enough for her; she wanted something a little more for company than strange eerie stars and gnarled M&M trees. After a hearty breakfast of grapes and sunflower seeds, she was startled to see a large hippo moving towards her. She had never seen a hippo quite so close before and the size of the animal almost scared her. It was very average looking: gray, wrinkled and ugly. It looked at her, and then looked at her again, and blew its wrinkled nose.

“A Hippo!” She said out loud.

“Were you expecting a frog?” The hippo said. “I am sorry to disappoint you.”

“A talking Hippo!”

“Yes,” he said. “Are there any other kind?”

“Yes,” She replied puzzled. “The non-talking kind.”

“Oh dear, I have heard that some of our kind had taken a vow of silence. I had hoped that that was just a human oddity,” He said.

“Talking hippos, M&M trees, and tears turning into water wells! Am I dead?” She asked.

“Oh, silly girl everyone knows that you never cry in the middle of the Rub Al Khali. It never turns out well,” He said. “You are lucky that you only shed a few tears. Maidens have been lost entirely in oceans of their own tears here.”

“But tears don’t do that!”

“Oh goodness child, don’t you see that body of water out there? They most certainly do!”

“And hippos don’t talk!”

“Oh well, I usually hear from humans that we talk too much,” He said

“I’ve never heard a hippo talk before,” She said.

“Have you ever met a hippo before face to face?”

“No,” She said.

“Well then, there you have it,” he said. “If you’ve never seen a hippo before how do you know we can’t talk?”

“Because they just don’t,” she said. “Animals just don’t talk.”

At that moment a screeching monkey seemed to fly out of nowhere and land on the hippo. It made some odd gestures and howls to the hippo and started pointing at her.

“Maimun, it’s very rude to point,” he said.

“So the monkey doesn’t talk?” She asked.

“He just doesn’t speak human,” said the hippo. “His voice box isn’t correct for it. It hurts for him to do it.”

“Oh,” she said becoming more confused by the moment.

“I have never heard your kind of human speech before,” He said. “It sounds very creepy.”

“If you’ve never heard it before,” She said. “How come you can speak?”

“Oh silly girl you don’t know very much do you?” He said and the monkey starting screeching again and seemed to be laughing at her. “Hippos are very smart. Oh my, where are my manners? My name is Ulema Al Hippo and this is my friend and business associate Maimun Al Monkey. What is your name?”

“Danielle,” She said.

“Oh my, what a horrible sounding name,” Ulema said and Maimun screeched in agreement.

“No it’s not,” She protested.

“Of course it is,” he said. “It sounds like a Sand Wraith name. If I were you I wouldn’t tell anyone that’s your name because they might think you’re a Sand Wraith, especially since you came from the desert.”

“Sand Wraith?” she asked.

“Oh dear, where are you from child?” He asked.

“America,” She responded.

“And you have no Sand Wraith there?” he said. “Interesting. . . I have never heard of that place and I thought I knew of all the places.”

“Well I thought hippos didn’t talk,” she said.

The next day Ulema and Maimun said that they would take Danielle to a city not far from there. Maimun insisted that they harvest all of the food they could because while anything could sprout in the Rub Al Khali, nothing lasted long. Things that sprouted and were left became tainted and nourishment for the Sand Wraith. The Sand Wraith were zombie like creatures with mouths that were sewn shut and nourished themselves by liquefying their victims who looked into the dark abysses that occupied their skeletal eyes sockets. According to the animals, even their severed limbs could continue to track and pursue their victims. They were conjured and controlled by an eccentric immortal sorcerer named Nox Absyrtus. The animals and the girl all agreed that Nox Absyrtus was definitely a creepy name, and even creepier than Danielle. The inner circle of the Rub Al Khali, where Danielle’s chocolate factory had sprouted, was the Sand Wraiths’ domain.

“You are very lucky that no Sand Wraith ate you," said Ulema. “You must have a powerful spell of protection over you.

“I don’t use spells,” said Danielle. “Only witches with warts use spells and Harry Potter.”

“Hawway Awta?” Maimun squealed out a question.

“Harry potter,” said Danielle. “Is a children’s character like Frodo, and Peter, Edward, and Lucy. They are make believe and actually more children believe Santa Claus is real than Harry Potter.”

“I am afraid that your logic is again faulty my dear,” said Ulema and Maimun starting grunting again and put his hand on his forehead in dismay. “Spells are not make believe and if you want to survive in a world like this, you’ll need to accept them.

In the horizon a multitude of towering black pillars were slowly rising out of the sand. They sparkled in the sun and mesmerized Danielle as they approached.

“Ah, The beautiful city of Irem,” said the Hippo. “City of one thousand towers and one thousand pillars.”

The dark towers of obsidian and marble become increasingly monstrous and awe inspiring the closer the trio came to the city. One thousand towers with mushroomed domes and topped with crystal spheres lined the outer wall and the spires of the Palace could be seen from between the towers and the one thousand pillars that lined the main streets leading up to its towering massive etched gates. (Need to include something about the strange light on the towers.)

And then she saw people. The first people she had seen in at least six days. At first they looked like mere specs against vast black city, but soon they became full grown men survey the vast ocean of sand. A small camel caravan was coming from the north and heading towards the gates of the city as well. Before long a group of warriors, fierce, but a little on the short side, came running out of the gates towards Danielle and her new friends.

“Don’t worry dear,” said Ulema. “They just don’t see many Humans returning from the center of the Rub Al Khali. They are bound to be a little suspicious of you. Just don’t speak…pretend you’re a mute.”

“And a lot of hippos return,” she asked.

“Well more than humans,” said the hippo. “The Sand Wraith fear the hippo because Nox worships the Hippo God, Itek.”

“A hippo god?” she said. “Of course, would that be Ra or Osiris?”

“Your smart comments will anger the gods,” said Ulema and Maimun howled and turned around sticking his butt in her direction. “Hush woman, here they come.”

The guards had appeared in front of them menacing because of their thick swords and mean looks, but slightly comical because of the over sized turbans and undersized bodies. She was taller than the tallest guard. Danielle thought maybe Ulema should have mentioned that she was so tall, but then again, maybe hippos were a bad judge of size. Besides, at five foot five inches she was only a little taller, like maybe two or three inches.

The stout one in the group spoke to her in an odd language that she had never heard before. But, being only thirteen, she had really only heard three besides her own: Chinese for the trip she was taking, Latin for Mass, and Spanish for her third period class. It did sound oddly familiar, but she just couldn’t put her finger on it.

The man persisted and Ulema spoke to him. He totally ignored the Hippo. Ulema tried again and the guard turned around and spoke curtly to him.

“Susa,” he said. “Varda vestio?”

“Pilla min naro,” Ulema said. “Ist Narana.”

“Ist Narana? Vidao Maxia!” He laughed and the group snickered with him.

That last word, Maxia, was a word she had heard before. Or something very similar to it Maximus or Maxima were two Latin words that she had learned in Sunday school. It meant very large. She suddenly felt very self conscious as the men continued to laugh.

“Est minime Maxia!” She yelled at them. “I am not a Giant.”

“Min ist Narana, varda vestio,” he said to the Hippo. “She’s not a mute, stupid animal.” He turned back around to have a discussion with his comrades about what to do with this Maxia and her pet hippo. Danielle was getting a little worried. She had survived a plane crash, a desert, and Sand Wraith, but maybe it was really the people that she should really be afraid of. They motioned her towards them and spoke again, but this time she had no idea what they said. She followed anyway hoping that the city of one thousand black pillars would be a better choice than the crazy Sand Wraith Sorcerer. As they neared the city, she noticed a taller man standing on top of the gate. His face was almost fully covered and a long blue cape with gold embellishments rustled behind him in the wind. Once inside the city gates the city grew more splendid. And every time she would turn around she would see the shrouded fellow in the blue cape.

And this was her sixth day in her new land, which now, she thought, at least had humans.





Chapter Two

The city stood towering over her as she was escorted into the city. The pillars shone iridescent black and many were elaborately decorated with jewels and white writing in a foreign yet beautiful script.

Despite her new found hippo friend she was alone. She knew no other humans, and it was not good for her to be alone. Being alone in familiar surroundings is bad enough, but Danielle was in a new place all alone. The Spirit, smiling down on her, saw it fit that she should not be alone and had been moving the heart of another to watch over her.

Of course, she still had to deal with the petite guards and her new Maxia label. She had never thought that 5’5” was very tall before, but as she was lead down the main throughway, she felt very self conscious. She was almost a foot taller than the average person. She could feel the pygmy eyes staring at her long pale legs. She was sure by now that her face had turned radish red from embarrassment. And her hippo friend was nowhere to be seen.

“Great,” she thought. “What I am supposed to do now?”

After walking for about fifteen minutes through beautiful stone plazas and elaborate estates of the main road, a large crowd had accumulated behind her. They reached what looked like a central marketplace filled with the scent of fresh fish, heavy spices, and strong perfume. The group began to crowd around her. Some poked, some tugged, and others yet just starred at her.

The portly guard began speaking to the crowd. From where she was standing it almost looked like she was watching a Spanish soap opera. She could tell what he was saying just by the expressions on people faces and the guard’s overly pronounced gestures.

“Look what I found… blah, blah, blah… isn’t she huge…blah blah blah … Rub Al Khali.” She understood Rub Al Khali, but she didn’t really need to because the crowd’s collective gasp said it all. Suddenly she found herself on the floor, wondering what had happened. She looked up through her hair which was now sticky and matted to see the tall man from the gate standing in front of her holding out his hand. She reached out her hand and his hand gently grabbed hers and pulled her up. She was a little jarred and dizzy. A crunch and squish caused her to look down at shattered pieces of watermelon on the ground.

Her savior angrily faced the people and his eyes chastised the guards before practically dragging her down a dark ally way. She felt like a shadow zipping through the alleyways, barely able to hang on to her bag of forbidden fruit. These alleys were much different than the ones she grew up playing in. The smell itself was atrocious: human sweat and feces, and animals. The width of them would hardly lend a Tonka traveling down it let alone even a Mini Cooper. The beautiful terraces and ornate plazas gave way to crumbling mud brick holes, haunting wind, and garbage and divot laced sand.

“Sanitation anyone,” she thought out loud as he pulled her into one of the mud holes and pushed a wood slat over it.

“Sa,” said a skinny teenage girl with poufy matted hair and wearing a half skirt half pant combo before she realized exactly who had invaded her hole. She almost fell over when she saw who it was, but before she could fall or even udder a word the man in blue thrust Danielle at her and disappeared back through the hole into the putrid alley.

The girl’s right bushy eyebrow went up as she crossed her scraggly arms.

“Ist maxia,” she said and grunted before she began to giggle.

“Oh great,” she thought as she buried her head in her hand and slumped on to the ground. “not that word again.”

The girl moved closer to her and handed her half of a watermelon. After the last melon incident she would have been happy to never see one again. Besides it looked like the girl was just scooping the melon out with her hands. Her suspicions were confirmed when she waived the melon away and the girl plunged her hand into it.

“yuck,” she said in disgust.

The girl wiped her mouth with her hand and then gave her a half snickered smile.

“Sadina,” she said holding her hand out.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” she said as she shied away from the sticky hand.

The sticky hand recoiled again into a cross. She sat on the dirt thinking before a devilish smile graced her face. She stuck her hand in her shirt, a most unladylike thing to do, though Danielle. But, then again she had just eaten a watermelon like a chimpanzee. Her hand emerged from the tatters with an amulet encased in jagged strips of gold suspended from a slender leather rope.

She put amulet in the sand and the black stone began to ember, drawing into itself sand from all around it. The amulet burned brighter with every grain it consumed, illuminating every inch of the dank room with its amber glow. Danielle reached her hand until it rested a half foot over the stone. It was as warm as a fire, but did not burn her skin. Suddenly the amulet began dissipate her hand and suck it in along with the sand. She jerked her entire body back against the wall, cradling her hand. Suddenly, the amulet split in half and in true BFF necklaces fashion the girl handed Danielle one side and put the other on herself.

Danielle just stared at the necklace laying not a toes length from her jeans. The girl motioned her to put it on. Danielle shook her head no. Definitely no. It had just sucked in part of her hand. She looked down at her hand. It looked fine. Sighing deeply, she took the trinket in her hand. It was a gift; it would be rude to not accept it. She took her locket off her neck and slipped the skeletal pendant on the cord.

“Gees,” said the girl. “You certainly are difficult.”

“Huh,” replied Danielle. “You speak English?”

“No,” she said.

Um, okay,” Danielle said rolling her eyes and twitching her eyebrows. She was difficult. How about miss chimpanzee here?

“That was what my sand amulet was for,” she said. “My name is Sadina.”

“Oh, I see. My name is Danielle.”

“Ug. Well, what are you doing here,” Sadina asked.

“Trying to get home,” she said.

“Well, I guess that should be obvious from your off outfit,” she said. Danielle just raised an eyebrow at Sadina’s barely wearable concoction.

‘Where are you from,” she continued with her line of questioning.

“Earth,” Danielle said.

“Right, and I bet you come in peace,”

“Now that you mention it,” Danielle said while keeping a straight face.

“Great, I’ve been given a smart alec weirdo to look after,” she said. “Alright, for starters, Danielle will just not do. The name is creepy sounding.”

“Ok,” she said but was still not convinced.

“I shall call you Jasreal,” she said. “Because, well, because I like it.”

“Um,” Danielle, pardon, Jasreal said.

“How are you planning on getting home?”

“Don’t know. I don’t even know where I am.”

“Irem.”

“Well duh,” said Jazreal. “But where is Irem? And don’t say west of the Rub Al Khali.”

“On Earth,” Sadina smiled. “West of the Rub Al Khali, East of Eternity, North of the River of Denial…”

“Denial?” Danielle laughed. She had heard her Dad say that joke from the pulpit before: and Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

“Yes, north of the River of Denial and south of the North Pole.”

“Does Santa Claus live there?” Jazreal asked seriously, hoping there actually was a Santa Claus here.

“What? Are you three years old?”

“Well, I just thought…”

“Anyways, does that help you any?”

“I’ve never heard of any of those places except the North Pole, but everybody is south of the North Pole.”

“Never heard of Denial or Eternity before?”

“Well I have heard of denial, like denying something, and eternity, like forever.”

“Hmmm, what about the Land of Mirage?”

“Nope.”

“Viridian Jungles?”

“No, sorry. I’ve heard of the Nile River. Where are you from the Nile?”

“I’ve never heard of the Nile.”

“The Nile river? IT flows through Egypt,” Jazreal said.

“Hey I’ve heard of Egypt. Some of storytellers tell of place where our ancestors came from. I thought it was a myth cause nobody ever seen it before.”

“Egypt is not a myth. It has pyramids and the spinkes or finx or something like that. I can never remember.”

“Well we have pyramids and sphinxes here,” Sadina said.

“This is definitely not Egypt.”

“You’re gonna have trouble getting home if you don’t know where you are,” Sadina said.

“Someone has to have heard of America before,” Jazreal said exasperated.

“Well I would recommend lying low for a little while. The Guardian didn’t give you to me for nothing.”

“Huh?”

“The man in blue that probably saved you from a brutal fruiting,” she said as she picked another bit of melon out of Jazreal’s hair. “It looks like he may have been a tad late.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said slumping back onto the floor. “You people certainly know how to make someone feel welcome.”

“People get bored,” Sadina said shrugging her shoulders. “I almost got a fruiting once too.”

“Why?”

“Stole some fruit,” she said laughing. “The shop keeping kept throwing his rotten fruit at me. I usually don’t get caught, but I picked up an over ripe melon and it squished in my hands. His face was all red and he couldn’t throw to save his life.”

“I got mine because I came out of the Rub Al Khali,” she said hanging her head.

“What?! You came out of the Rub Al Khali? How?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know very much do you?”

“Not anymore,” Jazreal pulled another shard of rind off her t-shirt.

“You’re lucky he was around,” Sadina said.

“Yeah, you’re tellin me. He doesn’t talk much does he?”

“He doesn’t talk period. The Guardian is never aloud to talk.”

“You lost me again.”

“I guess you would call the Guardian a superhero. Uh, like Batman? Boy your culture is weird,” she said shaking her head. “He has certain quirks that are passed down with each new Guardian.”

“Oh,” she said trying to make sense of the new world around her. Unfortunately, her brain was still on an overload from the talking hippo yesterday and the desert chocolate factory the day before that.

The strange light was beginning to fade and an orange glow creeping through the cracks in the wooden slat was covering Sadina’s face. She looked kinder than she had before, but her face, though young, was hardened by life. It seemed like the desert just sucked the life out of the unfortunate. But she was safe here. After all, she was sent to the poufy haired Joker by the blue Batman for safekeeping.

“How Ironic,” she thought to herself as Sadina turned around and moved to the corner where a small basket sat.

“Here,” she said returning with a lump of cloth. “This should help you fit in a little better. They were left somewhere, so I took ‘em. They might be a little small.”

The clothes were indeed a little small. Luckily, Jazreal was a skinny girl. She had always had problems finding clothes small enough for her in Old Navy. She thought all of the size zeros were too revealing. She prided herself on being modest. Irem didn’t seem to have many thin women, so the robe was just a little short on her. The hem of her jeans could be seen peeking out from the outfit. Her chucks didn’t quite fit with the ensemble either.

“I feel like a kid in a Christmas play,” she said turning around trying to get a look at the back.

“Roll your pants up,” Sadina said. “I guess you’ll just have to go bare foot because those are the largest feet I have ever seen and I don’t think I have shoes that big.”

Jasreal pouted. She was very sensitive about her feet. Her feet were unproportionately large for the size of her body. She always mused about the foot binding practices of the Chinese. If she had started binding her feet at an early age maybe her feet would have been as small as Sadina’s. Maybe. Or maybe not.

“Hey,” Jasreal casually said while bending down to roll up her pant legs. “What language do you speak?”

“Idalic.”

“And how exactly do you speak English?”

“My sand amulet took part of you and part of this world. I guess it kinda acts like a language and culture translator. But just for us. I will have to teach some Idalic if you are going to survive.”

“It sounds a lot like Latin.”

“Hmmmm…. Well I’m not sure why,” Sadina said moving out of mud hole into the street.

“Hey, where are you going?” Jazreal asked startled at her hostess sudden exit.”

“Don’t worry,” she said with the edge of her outfit skirting along the doorjamb. “I’ll be back.” And with that she was gone.

Jazreal needed time to think anyways. She sat down on an old dirty carpet. She thought it flickered underneath her, but there was no wind. She was just overtired. Every muscle ached from the sand’s brutal beating. She was in a land where hippos talked, but Santa Claus was still a ridiculous childish fantasy; where Batman wore a blue cape, and thieves were noble; and where magic was a part of everyday, but hope was not.

Maybe she was dreaming. But then again, wouldn’t at least Santa be real?