✧ ━━━━ falling through wonderland // anna's stories ━

[monochrome.]

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✧ Harper's Story

- one: falling from great heights
- two: a stranger's breath
- three: topsy-turvy
- four: the world is not as it should be
- five: the end of the beginning

✧ Kai's Story

- one: just a day in the life
- two: the daily grind
- three: records on repeat
- four: seven fridays = no mondays
- five: should you dare hope

✧ Wendell's Story

- one: the sails shall fall
- two: the ship shall sway
- three: the mutinies overboard
- four: the ship is sinking
- five: falling in once more

✧ Miles's Story

- one: the stars, they shine
- two: the waves, they crash
- three: the birds, they sing
- four: us, we cry
- five: you... you live

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season: one || currently: in progress || updates: every sunday

Enter the land of dreams, of hopes, of all things topsy-turvy.
You've fallen upon the thread where I will host my weekly meetings
with my jellybean dragons. These four characters have story upon
story to tell you, but here I'll weave some of my favorites.
The majority of stories regarding my beans have been kept off-site,
but upon several requests I will begin posting some of them here.

All writings, characters, scenes and content belongs to me,
unless otherwise denoted. Usage of this content without my
permission constitutes as theft, and will be reported to moderators immediately.

Please do not post on this thread. For questions, concerns and
comments, my inbox is always open. I would love some critique on
the below writings, but in the efforts of tidiness I request that this
thread is left vacant of posts not created by myself.

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Ink coated fingers push frames up against a clothesline, holding the images in place. The view pans to the side, images flashing before your eyes as though a blur, forming cohesive thoughts in any viewer's mind. The frames are sticky with freshly printed images, detailing moments and events in a stranger's life - a stranger whose real world revolved around these moments. Events that seem so insignificant to one could mean the make or break factor for another.

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This world is a crazy place, with snapshots of it running before out eyes like a slideshow of the lives of others. A violinist alone in a concert hall, the bow drawing across the strings; A child cooing quietly upwards at loving parents; Blossoms fighting their way through concrete that once destroyed the Earth long ago, yet the petals still fighting inconsequentially for survival; Two silhouetted figures in a doorway, tears falling to the floor; A puppy leading its owner to safety; Music igniting a spark of a revolution in the mind of a rebel. My point is this: If you think of the world in a "big picture" view, there really isn't anything you can pinpoint. A small marble in your eyes can be the focus of one's life. The person you love and rely on above all else is just another nameless blurred face in a crowd to thousands of strangers each day.

In my life, my mind revolves around the worlds I have fabricated, the creatures my brain has woven together, the universes that only exist in the depths of my intellect. About a year ago, I had a craving, a desire to write an anthology of short stories that would reflect something of significance - anything of significance, really. And then the idea of life reflecting life wormed its way into my consciousness, and this appeared.
After all, what characters are better to reflect life than those who have never lived it, spare through the mind of one?

This is, in all actuality, more of an author's comment than a prologue, but I felt the need to get my readers thinking. If you stumbled upon this page by accident and would like to continue, feel free. If you'd like to leave, the exit's that-a-way. I'm easy - do whatever pleases you. But, above all, I hope your life becomes something more exceptional than a fleeting thought in my mind, right here and right now. I wish you the best of luck, reader, throughout these stories and in the massive ball of chaos that we know as consciousness in its entirety. ♥

Project theme song.

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[monochrome.]

Harper || season one || episode one point one || "falling from great heights"
+ Amiable + Intelligent + Confident + Well Mannered + Outspoken + Fearless +
- Selfish - Mischievous - Oblivious - Clumsy - Irritable - Snappy -

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The girl's breath escaped in fast bursts as she desperately tried to mute the noise, her black coat glistening under the newly erupted moonlight. Loud exhales rushed into the open air, frosted white puffs floating through the night's nothingness. The door clicked shut, and with one noise she was free. The cloak around her shoulders billowed in the fresh wind, kicking up dust and dirt by the girl's paws, but she paid the cloth no mind. The lock shifted into place, and a small smile spread quickly until it covered any remaining aspects of her expression entirely. She was free. Left alone and in peace, able to conquer the night and twist it to her perfect desires.
Exceptional.

The cream paw pads were beginning to crack with the cold, the asphalt hardening them. The ache went unnoticed by the girl, but the shiver that went down her spine did not. The chill bite of winter had already settled over the land, frosting everything in its path with a soft tinge of blue. The asphalt of the broken down city was lined with shards of glass and broken wood, items that the girl kicked fearlessly from her path as her long strides carried her forwards. Buildings had long since been boarded up, the entire city demolished, ravished, obliterated. The landscape first destroyed by life itself, beings covering it in smog and metal, and then destroyed by nature - this time in the form of a plague.
Check mate, humanity.

The quirk in the girl's expression hinted at her amusement with the situation. The city had long been kept boarded off by electric fences, buzzing with life during the day but dead at nightfall. Fear of experiencing the plague anew kept many out.
But Harper was not one who experienced fear.

By the time Harper had ascended to her favorite perch, the morning hours had reached their single digits, yet shafts of sunlight had not yet begun fighting their way up over the horizon. The stars shone brightly above her head, and the bean allowed her eyes to slip shut, just for a moment. She was perched precariously on the roof of a skyscraper, the temperature even colder than it had been below. Long abandoned projects littered the city, and Harper had found a way to exploit this particular one. Scaffolding that had once been intended for usage in renovations of the building ringed its outer stonework, but had been left behind through the apocalyptic plague. It was one of the tallest buildings in the city. "If only I could muster the courage," Harper murmured to her own mind, her voice quiet and catching on the wind, "I could stand and touch the stars."

It was then a shadow behind her shifted, a voice dried and ragged through weathering by the sands of time echoing across the rooftop. "Ah, my child, you misunderstand." Harper stood and turned, her eyes narrowed and cloak billowing behind her, but the voice continued, unshaken. "The stars are deceptively far away. They are like hope - so deceitfully near, yet impossible to reach." The shadows shifted once more, and before Harper could compel her freezing muscles into motion, a creature emerged, cloaked in black, his eyes simultaneously seeing everything and nothing.

The city was not known for its excitement, nor for its inhabitants. In fact, such inhabitants were believed to be nonexistent. Yet Harper was one who was inclined to the unlikely. Someone who favored the improbable. And someone who welcomed the unimaginable. So when the shadows shifted and spat out a living creature, a bean nonetheless, she could barely suppress a smile - albeit a terrified one.

"You're wrong, you know. Coming out here, thinking that the world is a safe place." By now the bean was sitting, his eyes turned down as he kicked a stone sharply. Harper turned to watch as it skittered over the edge of the skyscraper's rooftop, flying into the air before falling freely onto the ground below. Her haunches lowered, and her gradient eyes found their way back to the stranger's own - icy and unseeing. "It's not. Nothing is safe." Harper was quickly finding herself irked by this man's lecture on the world as he saw it. What right did he have to tell her about the world? His age was evident, but that did not make one wise.

The man stood, shaking out his ratty coat, worn thin in the case of scars pulled taut over his chest in a large marking shaped like two cross rails conflicting with one another. His watery, nightingale blue eyes were hollow within his small skull, his ears missing pieces from battles lost long ago. His tail was a sight to be seen - a lengthened tuft with entire strands missing.

It was then Harper stood as well, glancing down at her nails as though uninterested. "I appreciate the help, sir, but it looks as though you could use some yourself." She turned, facing out once more over the cityscape, the light from the moon beginning to fade. Sunrise would come soon, and she needed to begin her return home. The man was blocking her exit, so far now she was content to enjoy the view. That was what she had made the trip for, correct?

An abrupt shift in her weight pattern forced the bean to redistribute her pressure - she soon found herself leaning over the edge, and quickly losing ground. The world seemed to spin, and freezing panic ran through her veins. The stranger was pushing on her back, threatening to spill her over the edge, free falling down fifteen-some stories. . The bean's eyes squeezed shut, and she seemed almost unconscious of her words. "Let go, old man, or I rip you to pieces." It was then the pressure lifted, and the bean tumbled backwards, falling hard onto the cement rooftop. The old man chuckled, a warm, hearty laugh. "You are weak, child. It is only in your most vulnerable hour when you choose make threats. How intriguing." Harper caught her breath, her wide eyes restoring to their normal shape once the panic subdued. The man's voice lowered to a soft growl, his eyes narrowed cruelly. "You need improvement." It was then that Harper lunged forwards.

[monochrome.]

Kailani || season one || episode one point two || "Just a Day in the Life"
+ Kind + Empathetic + Courageous + Forgiving + Observant + Considerate +
- Timid - Shy - Self Conscious - Gullible - Indecisive - Disorganized -

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New York wasn't a town known for its quiet, subtle winter nights, with utter silence as blankets of dusk, the witching hour and dawn coated the world in their brilliant colors. Regardless, that was how the girl felt, as she snuggled up under a blanket in her small apartment. From the translucent window above her kitchen sink, all she could see were the magnificent twinkling lights of skyscraper after skyscraper, thousands of people's lives playing out before her orange hued eyes, like some giant map of the world for her to watch as her own rolled before her. The night rolled on, slow but determined, its heart filled with the quiet pulsing of nightclubs, the forever shining lights of New York city apartments, the forever alive city filled with hope, dreams, and most importantly, life.

The bean stood in the window of her balcony, her breath deep and calm. She loved everything about this, adored anything involved with the city she called home. The chipped cup of tea nestled itself between her thin fingers, the warmth draining from the liquid and into her bones, jarring every part of her awake. Soft rays of light tugged their way over the horizon, the stars burning out, only to return again and shed light on a world forever changed. People bustled below, Kai's face just a piece of noise in their forever moving minds, their lives so impacted by everything but the stranger standing on the balcony.

How perfect it was that Kai should share her life with so few in a city so absorbed in itself.

The apartment's soft carpet bent under Kai's feet, leaving small imprints as she took just a few steps to the kitchen, her cup falling behind in the metallic sink, a coat tugged over supple shoulders. Her life wasn't much, but it was something. And something was enough for Kai. With a small smile at the sugar gliders chirping within their home, the bean closed the heavy wooden door behind her, perfectly at home in the poorly lit hallways of the complex.

Bustling streets practically bowed underneath Kai's feet, the last few strands of life straggling through the cracks in the sidewalks in the form of weeds. Pedestrians bustled past, jostling Kai's bag, but she paid them no mind. In just days, every moment, every inhale, would be nothing but a faint memory, pushed to the back of her head until it meant some significance.
Kai held a strong belief that everything meant some significance.

The doors to the restaurant opened wide, the cool wooden planks contorting to make way for the chocolaty bean. Keys fell with a clatter back into the messy bag on Kai's wrist, empty booths sighing their welcome to the restaurant's manager in dusty air.

Hours and nose deep in stacks of papers, bills and shreds of hope, Kai sighed, her head falling onto the sheets of nightmares. The restaurant was running itself deeper and deeper into a hole, money and loans running slim, barely scraping by. The restaurant was not her possession, but it was her responsibility.
And she was failing.

The soft click of a lock told Kai that someone was entering the office, and with a sigh the girl couldn't help but grumble, "Didn't anyone ever teach you to knock?" The papers surrounding her fluttered to the floor, a scattered mess in the drafty afternoon lighting, and the orange eyes blinked closed, holding frustration at bay. An employee quickly provided an update and skittered out of the office, apologizing for the mess but not bothering to assist in the repair.

The radio on the stained wooden desk crackled to life, pouring out a sweet melody familiar to Kai. She had been bent over the papers, heart pounding in frustration, but the music soothed the anger, replacing it instead with joy. Pulling herself to a stand, nimble fingers couldn't help but weave their way around a knob, until the maximum volume was achieved.
"This is gospel..."
The papers were left behind, laying on their back, screaming their invoices and unpaid debts only to the tiled floor.
"For the fallen ones, locked away in permanent slumber."
The swiveling chair tipped back just slightly, the girl's head leaning back against the soft cotton panel.
The voice rang out across the restaurant, and Kai could almost swear she heard her employees chattering together outside, but she continued belting out the song, her voice traveling swiftly over the melody.
"These words are knives that often leave scars."
A sweet voice, calm and collected, rang out, the owner's orange eyes lidded with happiness. It was, in a simple phrase, effortlessly beautiful.
"The fear, the fear of falling apart."

[monochrome.]

Wendell || season one || episode one point three || "The Sails Shall Fall"
+ Intelligent + Precise + Adventurous + Determined + Sharp + Brave +
- Wary - Hesitant - Obsessive - Sarcastic - Socially Awkward - Introverted -

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The pounding of the rain against the asphalt battered against the world, the droplets large and warm. The summer night passed with finesse, steam leaving the ground as the evening light evaporated the freshly fallen precipitation. Yellow eyes shone behind glass shining with thick streams of water, the wind outside assaulting the worn home's walls. With a small smile, the boy backed away from the pane, his movements slow and calculated. The world seemed almost sad, as though the entire universe was mourning a loss, and this storm was its anger and tears combined.

Without even glancing outside, the child knew the clouds were whipping about angrily across the sky. By the sound of it, the storm was picking up, and everyone logical would be inside their homes. Flood and tornado warnings had been issued, and the local news channels had all featured scenes of aggressive waves slamming against the course beach sand before ripping back into the drink and beginning again. Everybody sane was in home or at a shelter, as they'd been advised to do by local law enforcement.
But Wendell, while sane, wasn't exactly someone who listened to authority without reason.

Rubber rain boots settled on thick, strong legs, the soft squeaking of their material falling on only a single pair of ears. Nobody would mind if the child went out for a simple walk in the rain, nor would anybody notice. The rain coat's material bothered the child as it settled against his neck, and lean fingers ran through his hair, but the world seemed at war and nothing else mattered. Wendell felt the peace of the world at the moment. Everyone was safe, everyone was cared for. The storm raged on outside, but even mother nature herself couldn't hurt anyone tonight.

The wooden door opened with a creak, as though protesting the child's exit.
One usually so in tune with the world and its protests, Wendell threw caution to the wind.

The child was silent as the wind dragged him one way and the other, and he felt himself staggering against the world's weight. It pushed against him, shoved him from behind. The rain slammed against the child's side, despite the efforts of the umbrella. Yanking his hood over his head, Wendell allowed himself to grin - just for a moment - before throwing the useless umbrella to the ground, where the rain water collected on the inside, swirling around until its final aggression was expended.

Yellow eyes followed the swirling of the rain, watching it collect in every available crevice. And when those were filled, the liquids overfilled - spilling over sidewalks, soaking through blades of grass, ripping down dirt walls with no effort. Nature's perfect destruction was something that Wendell couldn't help but admire, and his digits twitched anxiously. He was not the most creative bean, but it was at times like this that he craved so desperately a camera - not one that would capture an image, but one that would capture a moment. The emotions, the sound, the feelings, the warmth, the cold... Everything.

Wendell's rubber boots came to a jarring, abrupt stop. A compiled puddle lay innocently at his feet, the water rippling before him. The puddle was deep, and water pooled up around its edges. For a moment, Wendell felt the familiar opinion of disgust creeping up on him - puddles were a breeding ground for bacteria, and the concept made him uncomfortable. But the yellow eyes closed, and he willed his muscles to move forwards, the rain battering his small body, so minuscule in comparison to.... everything. The world turned beneath his feet, moments that made or broke someone's life happening across the world, people falling in love and loss, the world turning and the sun shining and day breaking and night beginning... And Wendell stepped into the puddle.

The perfect surface shattered, forever disturbed, ripples fleeting across the water. Rain slammed against the child's body, matting his hair against his face, the wind pushing him forwards. For a moment, Wendell felt the connection. His familiarity with the world around him fell away, and he felt as though he was a puppeteer, able to pluck one string and leave the world forever changed. Threads ran through the world, uniting everything and everyone - at least, that's what it felt like. Standing in the puddle, the hurricane raging on above him, Wendell wasn't even in sight of his comfort zone.
And he loved it.
He loved every second of it.

[monochrome.]

Miles || season one || episode one point four || "The Stars, They Shine"
+ Friendly + Dreamer + Intelligent + Innovative + Witty + Kind +
- Introverted - Clingy - Lonely - Fidgety - Finicky - Timid -

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The blackness of the night steadily consumed every inch of the child's world, fading hues of pink and purple falling from the canvas of the sky as masses of deep blue and dark black replaced them. The only sources of color were the specks of light burning in the deep vastness of the dark, their light all but swallowed by the gargantuan night. The heavy pressure of silence pressed on the boy like crushing pressure, but he didn't mind it one bit. Quiet whistles escaped him, their hollow noises filling the night with melancholy sound. The night was plain, quiet. Peaceful.

Today was an uneventful date, just another day in the boy's life. At least, that was what it had felt like for the first few hours. But as the day began to fall into the darkness of its demise, Miles could feel something stirring. The weekend had been spent tinkering with the familiar metals under his digits, yet another contraption forming under his strong and sturdy creationary pressure, focused and determined. Now he was out for a walk - a tool he utilized to clear his mind. The anxiety of the night's ending was beginning to get to Miles, as it often did towards the dawn of the new week, but the soft singing kept it all at bay.

Tired muscles fought forwards against the perfect chill of the night, and the boy was barely conscious of his motions. The quiet squeaking of an animal underfoot, however, brought Miles back to attention. Red eyes cast downwards, the child caught sight of a small being, its frame hunched, shaking, against the evening's biting winds. The boy crouched, his eyes tearing away from the creature for just a moment - in search of an adult, someone responsible, someone capable - before returning to its shivering fragility. The animal was one that Miles had never seen, but his brow furrowed in a combination of intrigue and concern. Soft red fur surrounded its outer coat, their concentration thick yet soft. The creature sparked vague recollections of animals he'd heard of before, their title coming to him slowly. Miles had a respect for these creatures and their dangerous teeth, sharp and pointy. He was hesitant to reach out and touch it, as he knew his scent would be left on it, but it seemed abandoned.
The animal was terrified and alone, shocked into silence and a resigned frame.
With one final conscious thought of warning, Miles reached out and made the connection.

The animal leaned into his touch, seemingly too exhausted from fighting for survival to be afraid anymore. Sympathy shot against the child's heart, firing up his adrenaline. If he stayed outside for too long, the kit wouldn't survive. Hunching his shoulders against the biting cold, Miles tore the hat from his head and swaddled the animal in the soft material. It would provide both warmth and a sense of familiarity, since it wouldn't leave foreign animal scent all over the creature like Miles' hands would. The animal curled up against the fabric, its chest moving slowly with each breath. It snuggled against Miles' touch, pushing itself as close to him as it could reach.

The hours ticked by like molasses dripping from a jar. Miles felt as though he could grab each second physically, manhandle it into something shorter. But nothing worked, and time passed just as slowly as before. The creature had been swaddled in a blanket, against a heater, for what seemed like days, yet it still hadn't stirred. The boy had fed it droplets of water from a bottle cap, wishing with every fiber of his being that the kit would move just a bit, a hint that it would be alright.
Miles tended to the animal through the night, his heavy eyelids fluttering closed only to jolt open again, red orbs peering at the animal with curiosity deepened with concern.

The sun rose over the horizon, its rays casting both males in a warm glow. It was then that Miles reached out to touch the animal for the first time since their journey home. He hoped it would provide the creature some comfort, convince him to wake up.
It was then that the animals eyes opened lazily, their amber glow peering directly into Miles' own, as though they'd been waiting for something all along.
And it was then that Miles knew. Everything would be alright.