CHRISTELLA

CHAPTER 1 THE JOURNEY A long time ago I left The Kingdom from where I was born. The Kingdom was an enormous palace that sat on a hill, containing thousand upon thousand of rooms, with huge surrounding gardens that were encompassed by a single white fence, with white gates. The situation of me leaving The Kingdom occurred when one day as I was sitting in a huge room that contained a tapestry that filled the whole room from floor to ceiling, I noticed that The Tapestry wove itself as it was magically spirited and contained in full detail all of the events that had ever occurred from the beginning of time of Creation. So whilst I was gazing at The Tapestry, I just happened to catch out of the corner of my eye a blank spot, a kind of unwoven part. In this void through an intuitive perception, I somehow caught a glimpse into who I am, or what my name is at least, even though this particular part of The Tapestry had not yet been woven. After the revelation of this insight I had by seeing into The Tapestry, a thought occurred to me! “Ahhh, The Gates! Let’s try seeing if I can leave this time.” For quite sometime now I kept on seeing a light far off in the distance and I felt compelled to go myself to see what this light really is. ‘If only The Gates to The Kingdom would open and let me out.‘ In the past I had attempted to leave The Kingdom numerous times, but had always never been unable to leave. I decided to walk down the long path towards The Gates. On the way I was thinking that I hope this works, that I have ventured on this journey a number of times now, and it always took months to walk down the path and even longer to walk back up to The Mansion. Finally I reached The Gates. Set within the stone pillar of The Gates there was a chalk board which required names to be written on it in order for The Gates to open. I wrote the name that I had previously seen within the void of The Tapestry on the board. Somehow The Gates knew the names of all the residents, of which there was a thousand, but whom had already left The Kingdom and therefore it seemed I would be the last one to leave. To my great surprise as soon as I had written on the board The Gates opened. I felt afraid to leave the grounds, as a spooky a sensation ran right through me, but cautiously I lifted my foot up and passed it through The Gates’ threshold. At this, The Gates spoke. I had heard them speak before, so this did not surprise me. The Gates said... “All that was... All that is... All that is to come... Is within you.” Somehow a jolt struck me, a feeling to withdraw my foot, but my balance was over extended. It was too late, my foot had already touched the ground on the other side just for a split second, and as I retrieved my foot The Gates disappeared. I looked around and everything was gone! The Gates, the white fence, all the grounds, including The Mansion. Everything had completely disappeared. At this point I noticed there was no daylight, all the light that I thought was daylight was in fact emanating from myself. I then felt a bleakness all around. And I could only see what was barren land and curiously the strange light far off in the distance. I set off towards the light, I kept looking back to see if The Mansion would re-appear, but it never did. After many months of walking the voice of The Gates continued to echo over and over, ‘I am The Mansion and all that was.’ I kept thinking, ‘What does this mean? If everything has disappeared, how am I to get back to The Kingdom, and what about all the people that have gone missing?’ There was nowhere for them to return now. The bleakness of the surroundings did not help at all, only adding to the sombre journey. I was haunted by an earlier event of a little girl I had seen when I was in The Kingdom. I believe apart from me, she was the last of the residents to leave The Mansion. She told me to never leave the grounds of The Kingdom, the tears in her eyes told the story. The horror of this memory left me feeling great regret at having stepped over The Gates’ threshold. All I could see were the tears of the little girl running down my own face. "What have I done?” I thought. All I could do was focus on the light ahead and to try and get there. This light that was emanating from me lit the way ahead, all types of terrain lay ahead, from grass to forest to sand and snow, every type of ground was here. I could also hear noises at the edge of my light, these noises sounded at least a good few miles away, although I could not see what was making the noises, they sounded like some kind of wild animal, that wanted to get to me and ferociously rip me to shreds, this was a very daunting prospect. On closer inspection whatever they were making the noises would not enter my light field. I felt relieved and very fortunate at this awareness. During the many miles of walking, I had a lot to think about and it occurred to me that if I am The Kingdom, then there is no need for it to still be there anyway. This concept and its realisation soothed me somewhat. About fifty years later my journey was taking me closer and closer to the light. I could see some cliffs in the distance, and I also noticed my light field around me was getting smaller; the further I walked the less and less light I seemed to emanate. The wild animals were still in pursuit of me, and had been during my entire journey. I still could not work out what they were, but I started to see their shadows more frequently. Whatever they were, they were big!