Never Did I Imagine

It was a typical monsoon day, and I could hear the rain splattering on the windowsills. I was curled up in the corner of my bed reading a book and sipping on a cup of hot coffee. 

Soon, I fell asleep lulled by the pattering of rain and woke up to a pair of bright blue eyes staring at me. “Marcus”, he said, with a devious grin that made me think twice before accepting the hand he was holding out. “Leela”, I responded, and took a tentative step forward, while comprehending my surroundings which seemed unnervingly familiar. “Where am I?” I asked. “Oh right, did I forget to mention? You’re inside the book.” “Inside the book, as in?” I asked with a pause. “Inside the book you were reading - ‘Never did I Imagine’.” he said, pointing towards the book underneath my arm. That was the moment I started hyperventilating. “I can’t be inside a book!” “Look around” he said, and he was right. I knew why I found this place familiar, this was the location described on page 95, the exact page I was reading, before I fell asleep. “Don’t worry, it’s just a glitch that made you enter the book.” As if that made the situation any better. “Is this a prank of some sort? How can I possibly be inside a book? That’s not humanly possible!” I argued. “Are you sure you’re not just trying to convince yourself that?” He was right, again, and the more I realised that, the more I wanted to take that stupid grin off of his face. “How will I get back?” I asked. “Don’t worry about that, I’ll make sure you go back. Instead, why don’t you focus on having fun?” After that reassurance, I couldn’t help but feel a tingle of excitement, because after all, I’ve always wanted to be inside a book.

It felt surreal at first, to be inside a book, roaming around with a fictional character, but soon I started enjoying it. Marcus introduced me to a world where dogs could talk and food vending machines which served you food based on your personality. It was all joy and pleasure until we came across ‘The Lufrics’. ‘The Lufrics’ as Marcus described them, were freakishly huge and monstrous creatures with immeasurable strength and huge medieval weapons. However, they had a weakness. They were extremely dense and could be defeated by wit, that is, if it worked - because my brain, atleast, stopped working after one glance at the creatures. 

In spite of that, Marcus proved to be extremely astute. “Leela, listen to me carefully. Can you see that grey building at the end of the lane?” “Yes, but why?” I asked, curious. “Go and hide behind it, and whatever you do, do NOT, under any circumstances, unconceal yourself” he said, motioning towards the Lufrics. “What about you?” I asked, and although I tried to deny it, I was a bit concerned. “Are you worried about me?” he asked with a smirk, making me wonder if he could read minds. “You wish” I said, and was it just me, or did his smile drop a little? But there was no time to ponder about that because right at that moment there was a deafening ROAR, indicating that the Lufrics were near. Without any further ado, Marcus pushed me and ran towards them. I quickly followed his instructions and ran behind the building, peering out just a bit to see what ensued. I noticed that Marcus swiftly picked up a small pebble, ran behind the largest Lufric and threw it at him. Now, at first I was a bit doubtful wondering what a tiny pebble could do but I didn’t have to wait long to see. On being hit by the pebble, the largest Lufric, whom I presumed to be the leader, turned towards its peer and shouted “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” “Noth..th..thing S..s..ir” stammered the peer. “THEN WHO DARE THROW A PEBBLE AT ME? I’LL MAKE SURE TO KILL ALL OF YOU BY THE END OF THE DAY IF YOU DON’T CONFESS RIGHT NOW!” Roared the leader again, and while the Lufrics were busy explaining to the leader that they hadn’t done anything, Marcus cunningly tied a thick rope around all their legs smiling mischievously the entire time. Then with all his might, he shouted, “HEY DUMBOS! CATCH ME IF YOU CAN!” and ran towards me.

The already outraged leader now got even more infuriated and took one big step towards Marcus. “BAM” fell all the Lufrics and the sound that was created was ear-splitting. Taking advantage of the situation, Marcus grabbed ahold of the leader’s hammerstone and banged all of their heads with it. Then he grabbed my hand and we ran out of the road and into a dark, dingy lane, a dead end, blocked by a brick wall. “Good work” I said, holding in all my expressions and emotions and trying not to portray how impressed I was. “Good work? That’s all I get for saving your life? Talk about being ungrateful. Anyways, I have somewhere to take you to. Come with me.” He turned, and started pressing the bricks in a random order. Suddenly, the bricks started to move away and what I saw inside made me gasp with astonishment.

It was a garden, and not just any garden, it was a garden with bewitching flowers, water as shimmery as diamonds and fruits which tasted out of the world. Marcus guided me to a fountain in the middle of the garden and asked me to turn to the last page of the book. I took his advice and flipped through the pages of the book until I reached the last page. “Read it.” he said, with an unusually cold voice. I looked at him with questioning eyes and started reading it. 

“This is it then. The end of my story. You betrayed my trust and my love. It’s funny though, isn’t it? How I always imagined that my story would have a perfect ending and it turned out to be this.”

“I don’t know what this means.” I said. “Don’t you?” he asked. “No, Marcus, I don’t.” but deep in my heart I started realising. “Did you really think I did this all for you?” “Marcus” I whispered. “Thank you” he said. “Marcus, don’t, please.” He smiled, the last one I would see. “Bye, Leela” he said, and vanished.