i had a freaky and vivid dream this morning, and while bored at work, i decided to make it into a short story. i changed some things to have them make more sense. i hope you guys like.
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Jane had been in England for eight days, and was having the time of her life. She had gone shopping at Harrods and seen all the touristy sites. Every evening, she ate fish and chips and had a pint. Jane couldn’t wait to go home and show her parents and friends all the pictures she had taken.
Today, Jane decided to just go wandering about. She had already done everything on her list, and the woman at the front desk of the hotel had told her that there were a lot of quaint small streets a little to the West of the city center.
This morning, Jane had walked around a quaint tea cup shop and an antiques shop. After browsing the curios, she stopped in at a Swedish pastry shop, of all things, and bought a chocolate dessert the clerk had called a vacuum cleaner.
After walking around for another hour, she looked around and realized that she had completely lost her way. All the old gray stone houses looked the same, and, moreover, they looked uninhabited. She tried to trace her steps back to an alley where she had taken a wrong left, and came across a wrought iron gate. The gate was about twelve feet high and looked old and black. Jane lightly touched the metal bars and the door opened a few inches with a loud creak. “Well, this is interesting,” thought Jane. “I wonder what this was for. Probably to keep pets or something inside.”
Jane stepped inside and saw that about fifty feet in front of her was another iron gate, and about fifty feet in front of that was another. It was like two large cages. To her immediate left and right were tall gray stone buildings. Each had a large arch in its side. It looked almost as though there was a large opening dug into the side of each building that had been walled up. After the buildings, there was another alleyway that ran through this first cage, but there were similar metal gates at the cross section. Beyond the cross street were another two gray stone buildings with arches, similar to the ones before.
The gate separating the cages was wide open. Curiously, there was an open padlock hanging on the door of this gate, so one could lock it if inside the first cage. Even more curious, there was a red mini-cooper parked along the side of one of the buildings. It seemed very out of place in this surreal setting. This second cage was exactly like the first. Jane was about to walk forward and see if this all led to another cage, when she heard someone yell, “Hey!”
She looked around, and she saw a young man walking up one of the side alleyways towards her. He opened the side gate and stepped into this second cage. “Do you know how to get out of here? I parked my car here and went to look for someone to give me directions.”
“Um…sorry. I’m a tourist and I just wandered here and got lost, too.”
“You sound American. I’m from Canada. My name is Tony.”
“Jane. Nice to meet you.”
The two shook hands politely. “I came from this way. Maybe if we get out of these creepy cages, we’ll find someone. These buildings don’t even have windows.”
The pair walked back to the first gate and Jane pulled. It didn’t budge. “That’s strange. It locked behind me.”
“Bonjour!” Tony and Jane turned around and saw an older couple who looked just as lost as them. They said something else in French and Jane looked at Tony. “Aren’t all Canadians supposed to know French?”