Week 10 Storytelling: Left Behind

The old man watched as one by one, people ascended into the upper world. There were four ladders placed in position for people to climb up, each of a different color. As more and more people went up, the makeshift ladders began to wear down until there was only one ladder left. By the time the last of the people had gone up, the last ladder, too, was worn out. The old man looked at his equally old wife and wondered what they were going to do. They were too old to make it up these ladders into the upper world, and even if they could, there were no working ladders left to make it safely.

"Take us out!" yelled the old man. "Don't leave us here!"

The people stopped and looked back at the old, feeble couple but did not make an effort to take them out. After all, they all thought the couple wouldn't survive the journey upwards anyways so it was a lost cause. They kept on walking and began to explore the new world without any more thought of the old couple.

The man looked at his wife in disbelief, fuming over the fact that they had been left behind. "Why would they do that? Why were they leaving us behind in this godforsaken underworld?" he thought to himself.

The old woman called back up to the people, "You will come back here to us."

The people who heard the woman wondered what she meant. Surely they would have no reason to go back to the awful underworld. They took the old woman's words as nonsense and paid no more attention to the old couple. Little did they know that the woman was a witch who knew spells that could do unimaginable things to people. She had lived happily in the underworld with people she trusted, so until now, she had no reason to use spells or even let people know she was a witch. Things had changed today, though, and the old couple knew that the others were not to be trusted anymore. It was time to take action and get even.

While the others were up exploring the water-laden upper world, the old lady was hard at work preparing her spell. While the others knew what water was, they had no idea what rain was or why the upper world was covered in so much water since they had lived in the underworld their whole lives. The witch, however, knew of stories that talked about great storms causing lots of chaos. She wanted to cast a spell that would cause a storm so bad that the others would be forced to back down in order to survive.

Twenty minutes later, the spell was complete. "Make the storms rage and batter the upper world until the others have no desire to stay there!" she exclaimed as she finished the spell.

In the upper world, the people noticed that the sun was rapidly vanishing behind a wall of thick, dark storm clouds. To them, this was a novel experience and had no idea they were in for the biggest scare of their lives. As the clouds grew darker, the wind began to pick up until it was howling. Then came the sheets of rain just being dumped from the sky. Thunder rumbled across the sky as it was lit up with blinding lightning strikes. Within seconds, the people were soaked with no shelter in sight. They were bewildered that water was pouring down from the skies. As they looked up in shock, large balls of ice began to fall and knock people out. They yelled out in pain, trying to protect their heads from the painful onslaught of hail. In the distance, a funnel-shaped cloud was beginning to descend to the ground, and with it came strong winds and lots of debris. In fact, there was so much debris and so much wind that people were picked up into the air and thrown hundreds of feet into the air before landing in a crumpled heap.

The only option was to go back into the underworld if they wanted to survive. The remaining people fought their way back to the entrance of the underworld just as the tornado was about to swallow them up. They closed their eyes and jumped blindly back into the underworld. The fall was so deep that most ended up being knocked out upon contact with the ground. After opening their eyes, the first thing the people noticed was the old couple calmly drinking tea as if nothing had happened. The old man looked like he was clueless,  almost as if he was under the spell of the woman. The old woman had a creepy smirk on her face as if she was amused.

"I told you that you'd be back," she whispered to the people before letting out a wicked laugh.

Tornado; Wikimedia Commons

Author's Note

In the original Apache creation story, people in the underworld discover a mountain that has reeds that grow up into the upper world. Unfortunately, four girls go to the top and tie the reeds in knots so that they stop growing. This leaves the people unable to reach the top. However, they have four ladders that they use to get to the upper world. After all the ladders have been worn out, an old man and woman are still left in the underworld. They call out to the others trying to get them to help, but ultimately they are left behind. At this point of the story, the old couple is left behind and eventually become rulers of the world of the dead. The manner in which they become rulers of the dead was not mentioned.  I wanted to focus my story on them and how they felt about getting left behind in the underworld. I also wanted to portray them as sinister and wanting to get revenge for the selfishness of the others. I thought it was fitting to make the old woman's character an undercover witch so she could use a spell. Also, since we are now right in the middle of tornado season, I thought it would be a great idea to somehow incorporate that into story for this week. Ultimately I decided to have the old lady/witch cast a spell in order to cause a tornado that would drive the others back into the underworld. 

Bibliography

The Emergence from Apache Tales by P.E. Goddard