Chapter 1: The Chasm
“How deep does this go?” Josh asked himself as he propelled towards the bottom of the Chasm. He wished he had never found the Chasm earlier today and he remembered the morning this started. Something was wrong. It was a bright and sunny day. The sun was out and the birds were chirping. Though everything was well Josh knew something was wrong. He somehow sensed it as if something inside his body was out of place. As he got was waking up he heard a groaning noise that sounded as if the sky and the earth were splitting apart coming from the forest behind his house. He quickly jumped out of bed, got dressed and ate breakfast. He then following his instincts went into the woods behind his house. Running on the hunting path he eventually found what was causing the noise. He saw a giant Chasm forming in a clearing near the edge of the forest. On the other side of the forest was the barren desert that belonged to the Goblins. They were dwarf like creatures with green, warty skin and red eyes. They considered themselves superior and usually had ill intensions towards humans. He looked at either side of the Chasm. It was more like a giant hole in the ground more than anything. He looked down into the hole; it seemed to go on forever. Quickly he ran into the town telling all of what happened. The town wasn’t far away from Josh’s house. He lived on the border of the forest north of the town which was about a half a mile away. It took him 5 minutes to run there after tripping on some rocks and skinning his knee. As he told the villagers what he had discovered, he found that most people didn’t believe him and thought that he was lying. How could a Chasm form over night? The only people who did believe Josh were his best friend Zack and a girl who wanted to see for herself, she called herself Kayla. Josh quickly went and showed them the Chasm. They were amazed at how deep it seemed to go. “So how did you find this?” asked Zack obviously questioning whether or not his friend somehow made this.
“I don’t know,” said Josh with a smile and a shrug. “I just kind of found it.”
“Well I’ll believe that for now,” said Kayla quickly turning around headed towards town.
The boys just looked at each other both thinking the exact same thing. She’s weird. They took one last look at the giant hole and reluctantly followed her back to town. She quickly got to work gathering things as they sat down on the village well in the middle of town. As she worked the boys quietly watched her zoom from store to store as if she were a speed demon. She quickly gathered up materials as if she had done this before. Finally Zack gained the courage to ask Kayla “Hey what are you doing?”
“I’m gathering materials so we can explore the Chasm, don’t you want to see what’s at the bottom?” she replied with her eyes shining in anticipation. The boys sensing that there was no way they could talk her out of this decided to go along. She hurriedly explained her plan.
“We’re going to go explore the Chasm at 11:40 tonight,” she said in a whisper as if someone was listening, “we need to go quietly or else someone will come and take the credit for the find.”
“What find?” said Josh immediately shushed by Kayla.
“Whatever we’re going to find in the Chasm.” she said in a soft whisper. The boys just looked at each other and shrugged both deciding to go along with Kayla and her crazy plan. After Kayla quickly bought the rest of the materials from the surrounding shops she gave the boys each the equipment they would need for the trip. This consisted of a backpack, rope, a harness, torches, a flashlight and batteries, and a canteen. The boys quickly ran home before Kayla roped them into anything else. They gathered food and water for the trip and waited patiently for the day to end and the adventure to begin.
