There's a legend within the Daylight Domain; of a man who ventured so deep into The Stalks that it became his home. It was said that he could stand on the surface of the muddy swamps of the bathies like it was solid ground, and endure the oppressive darkness of the Abysmal Domain for weeks without fear of surprise from the creatures that hunt in darkness, nor madness from the lack of solar rays. It must be true, because I figure how else would we know about all the different domains—or "zones" if you wanna be real fancy—in the green yonder, if it didn't happen at all?
They teach us their proper names from when we're really young, so that we know what the rules are, but even then it's not always enough. It's a lot of gobbledygook to me, so I like to give them little nicknames myself so that I can remember them better!
So, first there's normal land with no trees at all, and that's home. So, I'd just call it "home," except there's other places that don't have trees too, and they're called "glades."
Then there's the Daylight Domain, which is where you go if you want to have a nice little stroll in the shade or something, and you might find a squirrel or a big bug but it's usually fine, so I don't mind those as much. I do remember how to say this one easy, because of the time that Pewey made that stupid face and made fun of the way I said "Epitaigatic" that one time; so afterwards Rilah, Janny, and Fimbs took turns knocking his lights out.
Rilah and Janny are my best friends, and I like them a whole bunch. I think if anyone should think about what they want to be like, they should try to be more like Janny cause he's really tough and brave, but he's not even that much older than me by much! And Rilah's been around me lots since as long as I can remember. Our cots are close to one another, so I see her all the time and she's really funny. I'm not sure why Fimbs was helping them, because she doesn't really hang out with me that much? She's this kinda short-ish, jumpy girl, with short-cropped hair and a bunch of freckles and she mostly just hides or runs away from everything. I think she likes Janny, though. I sometimes try to surprise her, and she screams almost every time. It's really funny.
I don't like Pewey and his goons as much. Sometimes I think if he was the ones that got snatched up by a flat-footed sliper instead anyone wouldn't mind it as much, but Abba says I'm not supposed to say things like that, even if it's true. Every few months, or so, I hear about a new kid from the other side of the widland disappearing into The Stalks, or something coming out of it when it's on its way to another domain, and grabbing someone like a snack. Sometimes we can stop them, but not always. I just wish they would take the people nobody likes—like Jome, or Pewey, or Delton—but they don't listen to smart people like me.
Abba and Atha say that the creatures aren't exactly thinking about what they're doing, which is why they're dangerous, but they have to be some kind of smart to stay in their own domains, all the time. You almost never hear about the lumbering wyndhams folding a barn in half with their arms as wide as a riverbed, or the spiny galfaces skewering a person on its bony extrusions, or something crazy like a giant diredeer wandering into a glade and consuming the entire silo's worth of grain for a mid-morning snack. It's always jayflies, and rhinoskinks, and slipers that bumble their way into the sunlight. They're just too stupid to realize that they're lost, and they pick on people because we're easy. Well, maybe not jayflies, as much.
They're supposed to be in the Sunset Domain, and it's there that kids like me aren't allowed to go any more. They have a whole bunch of really pretty flowers and stuff, but it's not to be underestimated, because many of those plants actually eat people. Lots of people go missing if they're not really careful. Jayflies are like these weird, striped insect dogs, with wings the size of a flutterby net. It rains a lot in their domain, and they hate the rain, and whenever there's a storm you can bet that a whole bunch of them will come shooting through town, sounding like the whole world is having bad indigestion. They're mostly harmless, despite their horrible, raspberry-eyed faces. It's the things that eat them, that are really vile.
I haven't been to the Nighttime Domain, or the Nightwhere, or the swamps(this one has a lot of nicknames. I made up the "baths," because it's actually called bathytaigatic and it's liquidy like a bath! Get it?), but I hear that it's where all the water from the mesotaigatic domain winds up, and it's super deep. Like, imagine the tallness of a rainbow, and put that under the ground, and that's as deep as it goes. It's so deep that it's like it goes down forever. Mud and dirt and puddles for miles and miles and miles so much that it makes your head spin. Imagine if you fell into that place, and just felt like you're falling forever? I try not to think about it.
It's called the Nightwhere because it's got trees so tall that you only get little pinpricks of light filtering between the blades of the leaves, so high overhead. I think that actually sounds pretty cool, but it would probably get bothersome after too long. I like waking up to the morning with a rainbow in the big blue to greet me, and I really don't know why I'd ever want to give that up.
The Abysmal Domain is supposed to be where light stops entirely; because every single ray from the sun has something like a hundred miles of tree to work through to get down to where we are. I don't know much about this place, but that's only because few people have ever gone this deep and lived to tell the tale. People brave enough to make it this far, only do it because of the great treasures that can be found in the depths. Food that gives you special powers, medicine, jewels and rubies, but also a bunch of the worst animals that has ever been discovered, too.
The Hadal Forest is as deep as it goes, or so they say. Nobody has ever gone into it to know for sure what it's like out there, but Rilah keeps saying how she's pretty sure it can't be too bad. Every other day she's saying how she's going to be the first girl to bring back proof of the Hadal Forest and I mostly laugh but I'm also kinda scared because I think she means it.
Whenever she disappears, the thought shoots through my mind that "Maybe this is it! Maybe this is the time that she took off and left me far behind, and I'm never going to see her again." I'd hate for that to happen, but I'm always happy when she comes back to see me, hours later; hauling a whole host of new stories about crustaceans with feather-like tendrils, or an "Actual real-life horse! Way stinkier than you would think," as she giggled to me. No matter how insane her stories sounded on the recount, and I'm not sure how she does it, but she always manages to make her way back to me.
She always comes back.
So, why is it that this time, she hasn't come back at all?