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Message: <blockquote data-quote="awayfarer" data-source="post: 4227640" data-attributes="member: 42702">Ernest Stibman as Penelope Dondelinger in The Other World. PT-1Ernest Stibman endured the chittering clacks of the cameras as reporters, advertisers, stage crew and others swarmed the set of “Penelope Dondelinger”. He felt like a queen bee at the center of a hive, only without a way of exerting control over the brood. The getup they insisted on was a ridiculous admixture of yellow and pink that only an openly gay bee could appreciate.“Penelope, over here! Give us a smile” Shouted a portly man, his little sausage-like fingers barely grasped the too-small camera. Ernest flashed his teeth to the man. He scuttled around for a better angle and tripped on a cable left lying haphazardly on the ground. The others kept their cameras clicking. A nearby agent half-heartedly walked to the flabby, fallen man and helped to pick him up.Five more minutes of this and Teddy, the lone studio exec assigned to oversee the proceedings, spoke up. “Alright, that’s a wrap ladies and gentleman. There will be no more pictures today. I think we’ve got enough promo material. You know what to do from here. See you on opening night!” The swarm buzzed merrily to one another about how successful “Penelope Dondelinger” was going to be. Ernest was on a roll, no doubt, and his fan base was grew with each high-heeled step and each drop of the inane catchphrase “Go fish!”The white ottoman was needlessly tall. Ernest nearly tripped over himself as he stepped down. Admittedly he was prone to clumsiness. In fact it was one of the keys to his success. That and the fact that at 23 Ernest still looked like a gangly 14 year old. His ridiculous appearance and awkward motions had won, if not the hearts, than at least the moviegoing bucks of millions. All in all he had begun to tire of these same insipid roles.“Teddy, we need to talk.” Ernest said“Ernest, Ernest I don’t like that tone. Talk to me Ernest, what’s going on?” shot Teddy“I need a vacation.” The exec shook his head vigorously “No, Ted, listen to me for once. I NEED a vacation. They’re making me a doll here. I get dressed up and spout the same crap over and over again like somebody’s at my back pulling a string. Next thing they’ll have me…”Teddy interrupted “Ernest babe, I know how you feel. I haven’t had a vacation in seven years myself but it’s the business. You gotta just suck it up and play ball for a while. You’ll get some time to yourself after you’ve finished filming” he clasped Ernest on the shoulder. “We’ll be done here in no time. Hey you’re practically finished with it already.”Ernest shook his head “I just need a week. I need to clear my head. Just a week and I can do this.”Teddy gazed skyward and threw his hands in the air. Any pretense of warmth of was thrown out. “Fine. Let your agent know. We’ve got deadlines to meet. Make sure you come back ready to film because this is going ahead whether you’re ready or not.” The irritated exec left without a goodbye. Ernest sighed with relief as the man left.The getup was pulled off with all haste. Ernest hailed a cab and hoped the cabbie didn’t recognize him. He tipped the driver, went into his apartment, packed his bags and went to bed. As he closed his eyes that night he remembered Lake Sapphire. “The lake. That’s the place. Can rest…there.” Sleep came over him.Lake Sapphire was dazzling in the sunset as Ernest’s little yellow bug pulled off the dirt road. The overgrown gravel driveway was in sore need of maintenance and he promised himself he would get to it by the end of the week. The Stibman family cottage had seen lot of use in the twenty-three years that Ernest had been alive, but much less so recently. The lake had taken on a kind of cold pallor since Ed Stibman, renowned Hollywood agent and Ernest’s father, had gone missing eight years ago. In his will he had left the cabin to Ernest. It was a surprise to everyone. Ed Stibman was a huge, impressive man, just as comfortable outdoors as he was in a studio and possibly more so. Ernest didn’t share his frontier spirit or sportsmanlike attitude.And so for eight years a Stibman would come to the cabin and air it out, generally stay there a day or two and leave. It was a far cry from the fond memories of the cabin in his youth. There was one year in which the bodies of several drowned swimmers had surfaced, but that was at the other side of the lake, and in a month the Stibmans weren’t using their cabin. Lake Sapphire still mostly represented peace and quiet to some extent. Ernest had come here primarily due to nostalgia and the hope that maybe he could relive some of it’s past glory: fishing in the morning, swimming around lunchtime, barbeques around dusk. This time though, all alone.It did not take long to unpack the single scruffy duffle bag that the young actor had brought. There was still a little sun up. “Yeah, why not?” Ernest thought to himself. He changed into his swim trunks and walked down the hill behind the cabin. A mayhem of weeds had grown over the dirt path and a lot of time was spent ripping them out. Mosquitoes bit Ernest as he walked. Flies droned in his ear.It was exhausting work. By the time he had reached the lake he barely felt like swimming, and the sun was practically gone. “I’ve come this far.” Ernest thought. He rubbed his arms. It was surprisingly cold for a summer evening. His limbs shook. He waved them around to get his blood flowing and dove from the short dock into the dark water. It was cold. Ernest shot back to the surface, gasped for air and swam to shore. Even this late, even this far in the hills the water shouldn’t been this cold! Come to think of it, the air was getting a bit chilly too. A small fire at the cabin seemed in order.But… no. No! Damned, stupid Penelope Dondelinger would have done that. He’d come this far and he’d be damned if he were just going to turn back without a proper swim. Even if the water, the deep, dark blue water was cold. But wait, it was really, really cold and…There was a splash as Ernest dove headfirst into the lake, interrupted in mid-thought. The water surged past. Deeper and deeper he went, past fish (Go fish!) and watery weeds until there should have been a sandy bottom. But the weeds just kept going. No lake plants should be this long. And Ernest kept swimming faster downward. The surface light vanished.No, there it was! A small star of white was visible in the distance. Ernest swam towards it but his lungs ached. His stomach twinged with the effort of holding back breath. The swim was hard, like he were fighting buoyancy rather than going with it.Penelope Dondelinger’s alter ego kicked as hard as he could and with some effort reached the light. His body was pulled toward the surface. The end was in sight, but only a few strides towards the surface his breath resumed. Ernest breathed in the water. He began to panic. Movement became erratic and in a few moments slowed to a halt.This was it then, he reflected. The light didn’t seem much closer. What was that? The girl swimming towards him could only have been a hallucination. It seemed pointless to scream to a hallucination to help. Ernest went under. “Go fish!” swam through his mind over and over, grew indistinct and suddenly stopped. He was not awake when a small, feminine hand grasped him and pulled him to the surface.Light flickered. There were moments of conscious thought between inky pools of oblivion. A woman’s voice sung in his ear only from far away. Only the plaintive tone was understandable, the words lost. The last slip into blackness felt like days.It was a large, candle-lit cave that Ernest awoke in. A heap of warm furs had been placed under him. A song was heard not far away although the words were not discernible. A pair of censers hung from hooks in the walls and sent a mild but sweet scent into the cavern. Ernest at once attempted to prop himself up for a better view, but his chest ached at the attempt. He caught a glimpse of two halls leading away from the room he lay in, but that was all. Mere moments later the woman he thought a hallucination entered the room. She was tall, auburn-haired and wearing a long green dress with a pattern of yellow flowers. A golden cross adorned her neck.“Gri? Sne ta ia ta oijaga!?” the woman exclaimed. She nearly dropped the loaf of bread she held in her rush to actor’s sickbed. She knelt by his side.“I’m sorry?” Ernest coughed. “I don’t understand.”“Ah, then you’re an otherworlder! It’s been so long since I’ve seen anyone. Here, eat. You’ve been unconscious for two days now. You need to regain your strength.”A fit of coughing interrupted Ernest’s protests, and the woman entreated him so earnestly that he felt compelled to try and eat. The bread was coarse and heavy. Ernest felt full after only a few mouthfuls.“I’m sorry but the bread is all I have. There’s a lot of it. It keeps for a very long time too. I’d like to go out and perhaps gather some fruit but the ogres have been stirring in this area again. It’s not safe to venture far from here.”“Hold on.” Ernest exclaimed, “Just where is this? What is going on here? What ogres? And who are you?” Something else about her bothered him, something familiar.The woman wrung her hands. Her eyes shimmered as if she were on the verge of tears. “My name is Tarentia Alvaz. I’m sorry; it’s just been so long since I’ve seen anyone else. The ogres have slain them all, put them all in the Ossuary.” She let her face fall into her hands and began to weep. The cross caught a glimmer of light from the other side of the dark room.“That necklace! Where did you get that?” Ernest exclaimed. That was what was so familiar. It was the necklace his father wore. The Stibman family always tried to tell their father that it looked gaudy on him. Ernest had never been so ambivalent about it in his life as now.“This…” Tarentia said through tears, “…belonged to the last person to come here. It was a man, many years ago. I was only a child and the last of my people. He washed up on the bank of the cave-pool. I did what I could and he was healthy again quickly. Uncle Ed stayed here for three years, I’m sure he felt homesick but he wouldn’t abandon me. He finally decided he would go out and fight the ogres but…”There was a heavy clicking sound from somewhere in the cave. Tarentia gasped. “Quickly! Get up, there’s no time now!” she hoisted her slim patient up and ran towards one of the openings in the cavern wall. An enormous shadow loomed as Ernest looked behind, but it seemed like it must belong to several creatures for there were two large arms, a spider like body and long, long neck. A slow series of clicks moved behind them.Tarentia led Ernest to the side of a dark pool. “I’m sorry to do this to you but we must dive in! Just hold my hand!” “Wait a…” she dove and dragged him under before he could finish his complaint. From behind was the sound of objects being thrown about. There was a terrible chattering yell. There was barely enough time for Ernest to hold his breath.They didn’t go far. Just under the edge of the pool was a small alcove only a few feet tall and maybe four across. It was shallow enough here that both could stand on the bottom albeit, with little more than their heads above the surface. They waited.And waitedA few long minutes later came the sound of a slow clicking, like someone striking metal poles against the earth. They stopped at the edge of the water. There was a quieter clicking noise. Then there came the scream. It was an unearthly howl of rage; a combination of a shrill, piercing yell, a low bellow and a distinct chattering beat. Something heavy pounded on…on what? It must have been the rock. Small waves washed over the shaken pair as they stood in their minute sanctuary. The pounding got more and more insistent for several minutes, and then was silenced.The clicking noise echoed into the distance. Ernest attempted to speak but Tarentia waved him into silence. She motioned for him to stay still, and dove under the water.Moments later she returned, and brought Ernest back to the surface. Each shivered on the edge of the pool; Ernest due to the chill, Tarentia for other reasons.“What…was that?” Ernest asked“An ogre.” Came the stifled reply.“They don’t swim I take it?”“Far more. They cannot enter water. It represents an impassible barrier to them. They react to it as if it were solid. They can push it around, deform it, but never move past the surface.” “Go fish!” popped into his Ernest’s head. His eyes went wide as he threw his hands in the air. “This is insane! I must have tumbled off that Ottoman. I’m on the set of Penelope Dondelinger. Teddy is freaking out that I’m in a coma, but not this.”“It is real.” Tarentia murmured. “We lost our war to them long ago. We were never very many but I’m the last. There are only three more of the ogres as well.” She turned quickly to him. “I want to leave here, but you know yourself how difficult it is going between our two worlds. Few have come from your world to ours and likewise. Although during the war many of ours did try.” Ernest reflected on this. Of the bodies they found on the shore of Lake Sapphire years ago none could be identified. The authorities wrote them off as illegal immigrants but couldn’t explain what they were doing on the lake.“So what do we do?” He asked. “I can’t spend the rest of my life here. I’ve got important…well, I’ve got things I need to do back home.”“You can stay here with me, and try to avoid the ogres.” Tarentia crossed her arms. She looked at the floor. “You can try and swim back. Or you can fight them.”In spite of himself Ernest laughed. “Fight? I don’t know what the hell those things are but I know I can’t do anything about them.”“Then you will swim or stay. Those are your options.”The thought of staying here with this woman might not have been a bad choice if it weren’t for the “ogres”, whatever they were. Swimming back was basically suicide and would be risky even if he knew which direction to go. He made the decision.“Tarentia.” He sighed, “Could those things even BE killed?”Her eyes brightened. “Yes but, only with a certain kind of weapon, and only by piercing one small part of their body. The ogres have destroyed most of the weapons. I believe a pair of them still exists. They’re in the middle of The Ossuary. That was the rumor at least. When there were still some of us left to pass rumors.”“Why didn’t they destroy them?”“The weapons fell into the courtyard fountain. They cannot reach them there.”“And the one spot, the weakness?”“There is a spot on their throats. It is difficult to reach as their necks are long and constantly in motion. They are not terribly bright creatures, but smart enough to recognize when something is a threat.”Ernest nodded. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand.“I’ll go with you. There’s little for me here.” Tarentia blurted out. “You’re my last hope. If you die in the attempt I may as well.” They stared at one another for a while. “I haven’t even asked your name yet.” She said.“Penel…um…Ernest, Ernest Stibman.” Said Ernest as his face reddened. “Go fish!” said Ernest’s subconscious. “Shut up” thought Ernest.They spent the next few hours discussing the details. The Ossuary was once the royal palace but was taken over years ago. It was only a day’s travel from the cave, at most. They rested for the night.</blockquote>

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