Chapter 1 - Arrival

The following is the beginning of a story I'm writing that is, insofar as the setting and some plot items are concerned, based on a rather strange dream I had last night. Yeah, I know, it's pretty cliche, but so what? At least it's something more than the random drivel I've posted previously: it's random drivel with a plot!

Anyways, this little project as yet has no title, but hopefully one shall be forthcoming fairly soon. And yes, I know, it's pretty darn short.

Chapter 1 – Arrival

        Rhys slowly opened his eyes, and then closed them again, for what he saw did not sit well with the rational part of his brain. Above him were desolate branches of barren trees, and he lay upon a bed of dust and dried mud studded with pebbles and small rocks. Though his eyes were closed Rhys nevertheless saw an unyielding sun high above, banishing any hint of darkness with its brilliant rays. Again Rhys opened his eyes, and sat up. He definitely wasn’t where he had been ten minutes ago. The trouble was, he couldn’t remember where he had been ten minutes ago; he just knew that it wasn’t here.
        Climbing to his feet, Rhys could see a hastily-beaten dirt road stretching out past the edge of the forest clearing in which he stood, and in the distance brown blocks of colour (houses, he reasoned) lay in stark contrast to the lighter grey of the trees. Barely discernable grey smoke rose from one of the houses, and it struck Rhys as odd that he should see such a thing; it was, if anything, positively hot outside, and not a breeze blew between the grey trunks of the withered trees, nor stirred the sparse clumps of brown grass that littered the broken ground.
        Rhys slowly ran a hand through his auburn hair, and began walking toward the houses. He figured them to be not a kilometre distant, and within ten minutes was upon them. The trees thinned as he neared the four structures, only two of which now appeared to be houses, and at the first house the forest stopped altogether. There was more grass here, Rhys noted, but it was of the same brown, wilted stuff he had seen before. The sun was directly overhead now, and its rays beamed down with an intensity unlike any Rhys had ever before felt.
        As he stepped finally out of the grip of the forest, Rhys felt a slight apprehension. What was he trying to accomplish here, anyway? He knew he had to get back home, somehow, but he didn’t have the slightest clue what or where that home was, much less how to get there. He felt a definite unease at being in this place, as though something was lurking just out of sight, just waiting to be seen but altogether impossible to apprehend. Rhys contemplated the situation for a moment, and then decided that it would be best to first figure out where he was, and to hope that something here might jog his memory. He turned left to face the nearest house, and started toward the door.

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