If you have a critique or suggestion, let me know. I'm always looking to improve my writing.
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The Savanna
Jake stood on a plain, stretching into the hazy unseen distance and covered in waving, golden grass for as far as the eye could see in all directions. There had been no flash, no fading to black, no dizziness, no sensation of rising or falling, no memory of change at all. There was no transition. He was just... here.Jake looked down at himself, and found that he was still wearing his red polo and khaki pants (stained at the knee now by his fall in the gravel), but his shoes were gone. He stood barefoot on the sandy soil between clumps of grass. It felt warm and pleasant against his toes, as the sun felt warm and pleasant against his hair and arms. He saw a flurry of movement out of the corner of his eye, and noticed a small herd of gazelle springing out of a low, scrubby bush to one side. Gazelle? Was he in
Africa?
Did it matter?
With a shake of his head, he looked up at the sky. Cloudless and blue. It looked like it should have been scorching, but he felt little other than a pleasant warmth all through his body.
"You know, I expected something a little more wordy, when you said 'riddle'." Jake listened for a reply, but heard nothing. As he lowered his gaze to the infinite savanna again, he was startled by a second group of gazelle, jumping lightly out of the bushes as though they hadn't seen or heard him.
"Okay. I got a savanna and some gazelle, a sunny day... and no shoes. Alright. Minimalist, I guess." He'd been studying minimalist riddles recently, with the hopes of catching Carol unawares, but that was still a ways off, and there was no way he could pull off anything like this.
In the interest of gathering more information, he started to walk. He saw the gazelle shy away from him, but paid little attention to them, giving the animals a wide berth and checking the grass to either side as he moved forward. There was nothing out here. No tracks, no trash, no trails, no artifacts. He'd been hoping for an Indiana Jones-style artifact hunt, when he realized this was all "magic," but there was nothing out here to discover. He walked for what felt like absolutely forever, but nothing changed. It was just savanna. Forever. In the far, far distance, hazy in the heat of the sun, there was a small clump of trees, but honestly it would take him all day to reach them, if he ever did at all.
At length, Jake stopped and covered his eyes, giving them a chance to rest from the bright sunlight as he rubbed his temples with his fingers. The constant, unvarying light was threatening to give him a headache. When he lowered his hands to look around him again, he saw the savanna stretching in all directions, the same as before. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flurry of movement, and turned in time to see a small herd of gazelle jumping out of some low, scrubby bushes to his left. He counted them. One, two, three, two more, and a group of three. There were eight in all, and they paused as they crossed his path. the one in the lead turned to look at him suspiciously, large ears angled toward him.
"De ja vu," Jake murmured, remembering the herd of gazelle he'd seen when he first arrived. He felt a distinct ZING in the warm air around him, like he'd just released electricity into the atmosphere. At first, he wondered what it was. Then he had a thought that made sense only in context of a magic riddle.
I just found one of the pieces to the puzzle.
Experimentally, he covered his eyes again, then looked to his left. After a moment, the gazelle jumped out of the bushes again. They trotted across his path, and the one in the front with the biggest horns stopped to look at him, just like they did a minute ago. There was no sign of the first group.
Because they were the same group.
"Okay." The sound of his voice startled the animals, and they sprang away again. Jake was briefly tempted to follow them, but there was no way he would be able to keep up, not even if he ran flat out - which would probably just scare them more. "Alright. I've found the thing about this place that's weird. It's the same moment over and over, each time I close my eyes." He wondered if Carol had experienced this same thing, and if she'd called him from inside the riddle. (Because things weren't complicated enough already.) He reached into his pocket to withdraw the device, but found his pocket empty.
No cheating, then. That made... really good sense, actually.
So maybe the riddle experience was different for each person, designed to challenge their strengths, rather than trying to thwart them. That made sense, too. It was a test, not an insurmountable challenge.
"Alright. Sunlight. Gazelle. Time loop." Since the gazelle were the only other living things he could find, he closed his eyes, counted to three, and opened them again. There were the gazelle again, jumping out of the bushes. He crouched, concealing himself in the tall grass and following them as stealthily as he could. It seemed that as long as he kept his head down, the gazelle were alright with him following. They meandered away through the grass, moving at a leisurely pace and stopping now and again to nibble at the shorter, greener grass growing under the the taller stuff that waved around waist-height. The taller grass rolled and bent in the wind, giving off a gentle susurration that was extremely calming.
Then he heard the first scream. It was a short, pained, shrieking bark of noise, and was quickly followed by a second. Jake sprang to his feet, feeling the vibration of approaching hooves before he saw them. The gazelle were fleeing back toward him in panic. The two in the lead both barked a warning to the others and sheered off to one side. The rest followed them.
That was when Jake saw the lion pelting after them, springing through the grass like a lethal gold torpedo, coming right at him. With a yell of surprise and fear, he fell backwards, throwing up his arm to protect his face.
When he opened his eyes again, he was standing, and the gazelle jumped gracefully out of the scrubby bushes again. His heart was still pounding from his near encounter with the lion, and Jake rubbed his chest, imagining finger-length claws digging into his flesh and tearing him to pieces.
"Okay. Okay. Calm down. I'm still alive." Jake scared the gazelle away again as he talked to himself, but he sat down in the grass and concentrated, trying to figure out what he had learned and how it would help him solve this puzzle (which seemed to be missing more than a few pieces yet). "I've got an African savanna. A group of gazelle. A herd. Right. So, a herd of gazelle. A hungry lion. And a time loop. Oh, and no shoes."
And it all added up to... nothing. Really and truly... nothing.
Following the gazelle hadn't helped. So maybe he wanted to go to where they had come from. Closing his eyes deliberately, he breathed deep, counted to three, and opened them again. He was standing in the same spot as before. He watched the gazelle jumped out of bushes and wandered away. Jake cautiously made his way toward the bushes and nearly walked into a deep hole in the ground. It looked dark and cool beneath the level of the ground, the shade nearly black in contrast to the bright sunlight. He couldn't see how deep the hole was, but what did he have to lose at this point?
"Nothing risked, nothing gained." Jake shrugged, crouched, and began to slowly lower himself into the hole, clinging to the sturdy, scrubby bushes growing at the edge of it. He was nearly stretched to his full length before he could feel ground beneath his toes again, damp and cool against his skin. Hesitantly, the man released the bushes overhead, easing his weight down onto the lower level, testing it for stability before moving away from the wall.
That was when he fell.
