Chapter 1

The Books

The row with my dad has lasted for so long; I no longer have any breath to yell at him. Silently cursing him, as words were beyond me, I take the stairs, two at a time, up one long flight and a second short one, composed of only 6 stairs. Running as fast as I can, I head for the bedroom directly opposite me. Flinging the door open, I launch myself onto my bed without giving my ridiculously untidy bedroom a second glance. Right now, I can concentrate on more than my bedroom.

The bed groans and heaves, but I ignore it and set about the important business of crying. I hate crying but now, it seems that the only way to occupy my time was by reflecting on what Dad had said and done. It felt like he had committed an unimaginable crime, as if he had betrayed his own daughter. But then, if I concentrate on that, the tears of anger wells up behind my eyes and even though I try to blink them back; they overflow, sending streams of pure liquid sorrow down my face. There was no way out of the horrible cycle. Unless I escape,I think to myself. Not physically of course. I love adventure, and when I was younger, I used to want to run away to find it. But my guilt and love for Mum and Dad had forced me to delay leaving until someone found out and told. It was if a mysterious being was working behind the scenes, trying to bring my schemes down.

The only option available to me is to escape mentally. I grabbed at a book and turned the cover and the map of the setting, Alagaësia. I know this book well. It was my favourite, Eragon by Christopher Paolini. I've barely turned to the first page when a book comes flying out of the bookcase and hits me on the head.

"OW! MILLIE!"

It's my natural reaction, something goes on; I'd assume Millie had done it. Millie and I get on well together sometimes, sometimes not so well. And on the occasions we don't get on so well, we really get on each other's nerves.

I turn around but the door was closed shut. I look at the books that were…? BOOKS? I didn't put the other book there. Who did? Or was that the book that had decided I needed a head bruised. I look back at the bookshelf and another book flies out of the shelf. I duck instinctively. It speeds over my head and lands on my bed. It stays there for a moment, quivering. First Eragon, then the book that hit me on the head, then the next, and finally a green hardback I don't recognise opens, as if the same wind was blowing all of them. The pages turned and turned with frightening speed until there were no more left. Except from the free page at the back that is a blank page with nothing on - nothing? There was a picture on it. Incredibly detailed as if it were…real.

The picture was moving. Knowing exactly what to do somehow, I put my hand on Eragon, and the other book at the end, I don't recognise, and I also put my hand on it. Eragon seems to open a shaft of golden light that expands until I could dive in. The portal seems to suck me in. I give a yell of surprise as the books I rest my hands on, disappears, and suddenly, I have nothing to hang on to. I am sucked into the portal leaving my world behind.

When I awake, I am lying in a room of a house on a bed. The covers are coarse compared to what I am used to, but the smell of the house was the smell of herbs. I don't know who I am or where I am. All I know is that someone knows I was here and helped me. I feel strangely cold, but it was the sort of cold that comes after fighting the warm for too long. There is also the sensation of a new mind, new defences, although I have no idea how to marshal them. There is also a place inside of me that offers unlimited power, although, like my new, open thoughts and defences, I'm not sure I can touch it yet. I don't really care about those things. I don't know where I am. If I don't know where I am, I am in danger.