Sarah huffed and puffed. It had been a long hike so far, and the entrance to the underground cavern network was still a few miles away. She needed to get there before sundown, before the amulet’s power became too weak to keep the portal open. She spotted a large rock on the path and sat down. “Hey,” she heard a voice say. Sarah looked around. She didn’t see anyone. “Hey,” the voice came again. “Yes?” she said with a tinge of apprehension. Sarah reached for her dagger, putting her thumb on the button. “It’s me,” the voice came back. “You’re sitting on me.” Sarah looked over at the rock. “A talking rock?” she asked. “Stranger things have happened,” it replied. “Hey, listen,” it said. “I just wanted to let you know, there’s another entrance to the caverns. About half a klik north of here, take the right fork. You’ll see another big rock there, about my size. There’s a hole underneath him that leads to a secret tunnel. He knows you’re coming, so he’ll get out of the way for you.” Sarah sat for a moment, saying nothing. Then, she replied, “How do I know this isn’t a trap?” she asked. “It is,” came the reply. “And you’ve already sprung it. You sat here just long enough to give me time to drain the power from your amulet. Nothing personal, but we really can’t have you going into that cavern and messing up our plans.” Sarah pulled the amulet from her pouch and gasped in horror as it crumbled to dust.
NOTE: The brief narrative above was brought to you by TZ Books and The Bite-Size Fiction Project, created by Dave Baldwin and Sheila Lee Brown (this particular one is a Dave-story). The results of this project are bite-size story morsels for short attention spans. These tidbits are sometimes fun, sometimes weird…but always short!