A considerable distance had already been made from home when Micafor 5371 discovered the unnatural hill. The convex slope began suddenly, without a dividing region between the green vegetation and the hill's alien-looking fibrous wall. Of course, 5371's first reaction was to avoid this strange place - the breeze wafted a smell of alcohols and other chemicals toward her from the hill - but there would be problems at home if she came back from the expedition this early. Lying was out of the question; the Lady always knew all. A detour did not look like a possible alternative, either - 5371 could not see the end of the hill, which disappeared far away into the green foliage. Seems she had to go over it, after all.
She touched the bulging wall to probe the strength of the strands composing it, discovering that the whole thing vibrated ever so slightly. Despite this, the fibers turned out to be plenty strong to support her small frame's ascent to the top. The scents of the chemical cocktail turned from mildly annoying to near-dazing, and still growing in potency as she approached the summit - though she found something oddly fascinating about the smell. At last, throwing her hand over the edge, she pulled herself up to the top.
If a picture is indeed worth a thousand words, then this scene found a thousand pictures lacking expression. An endless plain spread before 5371, and upon it, a great multi-coloured monstrosity crawled back and forth. Its size defied all description, dwarfing the grandest Blackball trees two-fold in height and hundred-fold in girth. Its three limbs stood stationary when not crawling, with the exception of the fourth one - this one ran back and forth on the plain. The rogue limb ended in a curious appendage, its bottom teeming with the same fibers as the hillock's wall. Its movements matched the vibrations permeating the hill and the plain. The smothering vapour did something to her senses, wrapping the whole scene in a veil of dizzied mystery.
The spectacle made 5371 deaf to her senses, and only the desperate cries of pain from her feet rescued her from her trance. She looked down in a jarred motion, finding herself stooping in sand-coloured tubes - like the hill fibers, but many times thicker. Between those, little pools of acidic chemicals winked at her in the sun. She violently shook her legs to get the burning liquid off her, noticing only at the last moment a great engulfing shadow darken the world around her. Fearing the worst, she looked up.
The monstrosity, so distant seconds ago, now hung right over her. Its front limb rested some distance away, and the strangely fibered one came crashing down right next to her. A cascade of the corrosive fluid erupted from the semi-transparent labyrinth of fibers from the appendage. She tried to run then; a moot effort, for a wind stronger than any other blasted her right off the plain.
Opening her eyes, she found herself in a familiar area, a walking distance from home. Her leg was broken, but with effort, she could still move. Now there was no shame in coming back - for having lived through this ordeal, she had the chance to warn the Lady about the dangers of that area, hopefully making her reconsider sending any more scouts there. Unfortunately, 5371 would later discover that even that effort was moot: the scouts returning from the area next day reported nothing unusual but bent grass around the place where the plain used to be. The monstrosity and the mysterious hill-plain were never to be seen again.
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I don't understand, why do I always get stuck doing the crappy chores? First it's the dishes, then it's the dinner, and now I have to clean the damn carpet as well? I have a job, just like my parents, so why should I be doing this while they're watching King of Queens over in the living room?
Now, to make matters worse, a stupid ant crawled on the carpet. If that thing gets lost in the fabric and dies, I'm sure its ant buddies will come back to eat its corpse or whatever, I don't know. I've had enough ants in the house. Slamming the brush next to it in exasperation, I blew the insect off into the grass. Feh... better take the carpet somewhere else before even more ants come to get drunk off the smell of the cleaning agent.
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Wrote this on Sunday, after brushing my kitchen carpet (which still stinks, by the way). I saw an ant crawl over the areas which I already covered with the cleaning stuff, and the idea of stooping in acid kind of came to me. As a disclaimer, the second part wasn't really written from my point of view: I don't take a hostile attitude to performing household chores. I wanted the guy to sound like a stereotypical bitchy teenager. =)
