“Who does that jerk think he is?” Brenda Wallace muttered as she trudged through the mushy forest.  It had just rained and that had made the ground soggy.  She slipped and fell on her bum a few times and now she was soaking wet with mud clinging from her designer jeans.  The heels to her stilettos stuck into the mud and she yanked her leg upward.  That only caused her to loose her balance and go slamming into the ground face first.   A grunt left her body and she tried to pull her face up so she could breathe.

           That didn’t work, for the wet mud began sucking her face downward. Struggling, she braced her hands against the wetness pushing down as she pulled her face upward.  A loud plop could be heard as fresh air began entering her nostrils and she inhaled greedily and rolled over onto her back.  Water dripped from the trees above her against her face and she shivered in disgust.

           Her chest heaved as she tried to control her breathing while thinking how she had gotten herself into such a bizarre mess. 

           Brenda and Colin had been out for a nice romantic walk along the beach and something happened.  Suddenly it had gotten dark and people began running and screaming. Colin had simply let her hand got and took off without her.  Not being able to see where she was going, she had simply wandered around until it got light again and found herself in this forest. 

Where was she?

           She had to find a phone for she had lost her purse with her cell phone in it a long time ago.  With her breathing somewhat under control, she got up, slipped off her heels and kept on making her way through the woods.  Mud squeezed itself in between her toes. It was cold and she felt as though she could throw up.  Brenda wasn’t used to that kind of thing.

           Walking outside barefooted would have her mother cringe and send poor Brenda to therapy.  The Wallace’s were the richest African American family in Brair County and having the media seeing their daughter with her face covered in mud, soaking wet and barefoot would not go well.

           Finally she immerged from the woods and almost swallowed her tongue.  What had she done, walked into the twilight zone? There was no way. She had lived in Brair all her life and she never heard of or seen a castle anywhere in the small town.  She took a shy step backwards and looked up before pressing her eyes shut, rubbed them and looked again as though she believed that when she re-opened her eyes the large monstrosity would be gone.