Sarah crept down the hallway towards the servant quarters, her heart beating at what felt like a million miles per minute. ‘Nearly there,’ she mouthed to herself in a desperate attempt to calm her heart, but her heart was having none of it. Sarah swallowed some of her own saliva, her mouth feeling dry as she placed her hand upon the doorknob of the door leading into one of the servant’s quarters. ‘Just in and out.’
Just as Sarah started turning the doorknob, she heard footsteps coming from down the hall and her heart jumped straight into her throat as she fumbled into the room. In a panicked jitter, she threw herself against the door as she closed it, desperately praying the door hadn’t sounded as loud as she thought it sounded when she had hastily closed it.
‘I – I should hide.’ Sarah thought to herself as the footsteps drew closer. She glanced towards the sleeping maid and her small servant’s bed. ‘I don’t know if I can fit underneath that bed but I don’t think there is anywhere else I could hide besides behind this door, and I don’t think the door will hide me that well.’
Taking another hasty breath, Sarah crept towards the bed and grimaced as her knees impacts the wood floor as she began laying down to crawl under it. Suddenly, she heard the door knob behind her rattle as it turns, and she quickly shimmied underneath the bed and unconsciously held her breath, her heart rate managing to climb even further.
Candlelight peered into the room, and Sarah heard a voice murmur, “No, Anna’s definitely sleeping. Did a breeze just rustle something? My mind must be playing tricks on me in my old age.”
Sarah gulped down some more of her saliva as she heard the door close again. ‘Well, that went well. I hope that didn’t start waking Anna. I better be quick about this.’
Sarah crawled out from under the bed and approached the maid’s dresser, glancing back at her sleeping form a few times, afraid she might wake up. After glancing a third time, Sarah steeled herself and slowly opened one of the drawers and glanced inside. ‘Well, there are the skirts. Why couldn’t this have been the male quarters?’ Sarah took a deep breath and took one of the skirts out. ‘Well, beggars can’t be choosers.’ Placing the skirt over her shoulder, she slowly closed the drawer and then opened another. ‘Shirts, perfect.’ Sarah quickly grabbed one and hastily shut the drawer. It squeaked a bit, causing Sarah to stiffen and glance at the sleeping maid again. ‘She sure is a heavy sleeper, thank goodness. Now to get out of here.’
Sarah walked to the door and placed her hand on the knob, a smile creeping onto her face when suddenly a cry sounded off outside of the room.
“Aaah! The princess, the princess! She’s gone!”
Sarah cursed under her breath and dashed for the floor next to the bed. As the screaming voice drew closer, Sarah held her breath and fled under the bed, clutching her pilfered shirt and skirt close to her chest. ‘Please don’t find me, please don’t find me.’
The door slammed open. “Anna, wake up! The Princess is missing! Everyone has been ordered to search for her!” A voice called out.
Sarah clutched the clothes harder and held her breath as the bed above her creaked and a dazed Anna practically fell out of her bed onto her feet.
“Whuzzat?” The young maid Anna yawned, clearly still half asleep.
“I said, the princess is missing! Come help search!” The desperate voice at the door repeated, and then the sound of footsteps fleeing from the door resounded.
“The princess?” Anna yawned, only to suddenly shake and cry out. “Wait, what?! The princess is missing?” Sarah watched as Anna’s feet fled away from the bed towards the door without even going to her dresser or bothering to dress.
Sarah trembled in fear and excitement, unsure if she could risk crawling out from under the bed or not. ‘This is the most thrilling game of hide and seek I’ve ever played. That said, I do think this is one of the last places they’d expect to find me. Far more likely that I’ve been kidnapped or am in the kitchen, if I had to guess. Should I just stay put? Actually, this bed hardly conceals me at all. It’s a fine hiding place now, while it is night, but I’ll get caught immediately once it is brighter out.’
Sarah shivered again, both in fear and a little cold. ‘Best get out of my nightgown and into these maid clothes. Hopefully they fit okay.’ She struggled and shifted under the bed as she shifted her nightgown up and over her head, surprised she could even manage that in the cramped space. She glanced at the skirt and dismissed it hastily. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to bend my legs enough to force that on under here.’ Instead, she struggled to get on the shirt, and then quickly fell still and held her breath again as footsteps sounded out in the hall. The floor shook as what sounded like several people ran down the hall, candlelight peeking through the door frame into the room a few times as they went.
Sarah held her breath and listened. After she was fairly sure she hadn’t heard any footsteps for 10 seconds or so, she crawled out of the bed and clawed her newly pilfered shirt on quickly. Her eyes darted over to the window. ‘How many floors up are we again? Do I dare jump out the window?’ Sarah walked over, fumbled with the latch on the window, pushed it open, and leaned out for a better look. ‘Second floor, that could be worse. There is a bush under the window, would that break my fall or would I break my leg and get caught instead?’
Sarah bit her lower lip as she pondered, but as she heard footsteps running down the hall again she shook her head, her mind made up for her. ‘Well you only live twice, I suppose.’ She thought to herself with a chuckle, and stepped over the window with one foot, then the other, and sat there on the sill with her feet dangling below. ‘Here goes nothing. Oh, shoot, why did I do this?!’
Stolen story; please report.
Sarah clenched her teeth shut, trembling as the floor rapidly approached. It took every fiber of her willpower not to cry out as she crashed into the bush below, branches and leaves bending and snapping under her weight and scratching up her legs into a mangled mess. ‘Ow, ow, ow,’ “Ow.” Sarah moaned in pain, unable to entirely hold back but quickly shutting her mouth again after her first cry. ‘I hope I didn’t break an ankle, I haven’t explored outside the castle at all since I arrived in this body and would have no idea where to hide.’
Sarah started to move to get out of the bush and hissed in pain as the bush rubbed against the lacerations her fall caused to her legs. Sarah gritted her teeth and forced herself the rest of the way out of the bush, collapsing to the floor as she glanced around. She found herself in a small garden, surrounded on all sides by castle walls. ‘Wait, no, you’re kidding me. I thought this was outside!’ She glanced up, and did indeed see the sky. ‘Well this just got worse. I’d just hide in one of these bushes, but if the human shaped crater in the bush next to me didn’t give me away, my bleeding legs surely would leave a trail, or at least give away my scent if they brought hounds out after finding the bush I impacted upon.’
Sarah took a step forward, and was pleasantly surprised to find that while her legs hurt and sent pain signals to her brain with every step, they didn’t appear to actually be broken. The several scratches on each leg were stinging with each step, and some of them were definitely starting to bleed a little, however. Her eyes darted along each wall, and excitedly limped forwards as she saw what looked to be a trap door next to a wooden door leading into the castle.
‘Well, I can either go inside the castle and be caught for sure, or go below ground and hope I stumble into a hiding place underground. Oh, I hope there aren’t any spiders. Oh gosh, why did I think that, how will I get myself to go down there now.’ Sarah bit her lip again, struggling to overcome the idea of spiders. Her mind was quickly decided as she heard sounds of people entering the room behind the door next to her, and she quickly opened the trap door, praying that it wouldn’t be noisy. It seemed whatever gods she prayed to listened, as the door hardly made a sound as she opened it and quickly entered, slowly lowering the door back into place before proceeding down the flight of stairs, one hand against the wall to her side.
‘Stone steps and a stone wall leading downwards. I’d say this is surprisingly well maintained, but I definitely feel my fingers getting dirty from drifting along this wall. No spiderwebs yet, though. I think. I hope. Oh gosh, will there be spiders down here? Should I just go back?’ Sarah froze up, shivering with fear. ‘Spiders spiders spiders...’ She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. ‘Calm down, there are no… You know what's down here. We are going to hide, and we are going to escape tomorrow’s marriage to the prince of this kingdom. No man is going to make me his wife if I have any say about it.’
Sarah nervously chuckled and took another step, but froze up as her skin tingled with goosebumps. ‘That was a spider wasn’t it. Or was it just the wind, or just my mind playing tricks on me because I was thinking about spiders. Oh, spiders.’ Sarah took a choking breath, and tears started to trickle down her face. ‘I hate spiders, let me out. I don’t know what’s worse, being thrust into the body of this princess yesterday, finding out I’m getting married tomorrow and being unable to get anyone to take me seriously about calling it off, or that there are probably spiders in here, and maybe on me. Did I just feel a spider? Oh, please, no no no no!’
Sarah kept crying, unable to keep herself together. ‘Yesterday I still thought this was a dream, but now this is just a nightmare. I wish I was back in my dorm room, preparing for my final exams and projects. Now, instead, I’m not in my body, I’m not even a boy anymore, and I’m probably going to be bitten by a poisonous spider down here and die. Are there even any other kinds? With how bad my lucks been going, surely not.’ Sarah choked another breath of air, desperately taking refuge in her self destructive thoughts. ‘Wait, is this even Earth? Maybe there are no spiders here. I haven’t seen any spiders since I took over this body. Not that I could see any spiders in this darkness even if they did exist. Oh gosh, was that a spider? NO! Stop, George. Wait, no, it’s Sarah now. There are no such things as spiders. Just keep walking and find a place to hide. Good, Sarah, good. Keep walking.’
Trembling step after trembling step, Sarah descended into the darkness. ‘That’s right, there are no such things as spiders here. Waking up in this body is clearly the best thing that’s ever happened to me if you think about it. After all, with the one thing I’m scared of no longer existing, I’ll be unstoppable. I could be or do anything! If I don’t get found by the duchy's staff searching for me. A befitting problem for one with my status as princess, I supp-suppose.’
Sarah halts, her eyes widened, and her mouth hangs open in spite of the threat of spiders. In front of her very eyes was something she never expected to see.
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Status:
Name: Sarah Goodfellows
Class: Unselected
EXP: N/A
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‘I have so many questions.’ Sarah thinks to herself.
“I’ll check the catacombs!” A voice suddenly yells from up above.
‘But now is not the time.’ Sarah curses to herself in her thoughts, and quickly resumes stepping forward, nearly tripping as the floor suddenly flattens out into a straight hallway. ‘I have to pick up the pace.’ Sarah removes her hand from the wall, sticks both hands unsteadily in front of her, and limps forward as quickly as she can go. After a few steps, however, her hands land upon something hairy. ‘What?’
Suddenly, light streams into the room as armored footsteps echo down the corridor. As Sarah prepared to flee around whatever she just touched, the light reached what she was touching and she froze up, paralyzed with fear. 8 beady little eyes stared back at her as her hands trembled and removed themselves from one of eight, large, fuzzy legs. Finally, Sarah’s legs gave way and she fell down, trembling all over.
‘What unholy abomination of a world is this.’ Sarah cried even harder, her head feeling light like she might pass out any moment, but cruelly she managed to keep her senses awake.
As Sarah sat in front of the spider, the armored footsteps of a guard of the duchy arrived. A flash of steel swept in front of her, and Sarah found herself covered in spider blood and guts.
“What is a maid doing down here?” The guard grumbled and turned towards Sarah, holding his torch closer towards her with his other hands. “Wait, what? My lady? What are you doing down here?!”
Sarah didn’t bother to deign a response, instead she turned to the side and started to puke. ‘Well, this was a colossal failure of an escape attempt.’