New Short Story! - Elena - Chapter 1

Bennanio is a beautiful place. Casually perched on the top of a glamorous mountain situated just outside the city of Lucca, Italy. About an hour north of Lucca, after hurdling a large group of mountains, was where this beautiful location exists. The ideal holiday location – well for Malcolm anyway. For a couple containing Malcolm and Cindy – both aged 45 – this was the perfect place.

Cindy sat there relaxed on her seat in the second last row of the Ryan Air flight approaching Pisa, Italy. She was staring out of the window to the very appealing country of Italy, nice and comfortably, with some chilled music through her earphones to accompany her peacefulness.

Her husband on the contrary, was in a deep sleep. However, he was awoken by a shocking bump on the plane as a terrible storm was raging in the skies of Pisa.

“Not long now, only 10 minutes to wait “said Cindy very softly in attempt to soothe his fear at the storm. He wasn't keen in flights, and was rather startled towards the unpleasant bump. Upon landing, Malcolm began to peer out of the window Cindy previously had been, and noticed something rather odd. He noticed a small young girl, perhaps about 8 years old, holding a small bunny rabbit teddy casually staring at him. He attempted to alert his wife to her presence, but the aeroplane was still travelling very fast after just only touching the ground. Moments later, Malcolm dismissed the sight and blamed his eyes for playing tricks on him whilst he gripped the hand of Cindy tighter as the plane attempted to slow down.

 About an hour later, Cindy and Malcolm were through the majority of the mountains and were only 10 minutes away from their glorious holiday location. It was about 9pm in Italy, and since it was half way through the month of October, the sky was dark and a full moon shined over the mountains. It was a pretty exciting journey from this moment – being so close, and the couple played their own fun game which was to see how many fire flies they spotted whizzing past until they reached Bennanio. Malcolm tested his memory, and recalled the names of numerous small villages they past as they neared Bennanio, and brought up their own little memories of their past visits to the province of Lucca. Finally the Bennanio sign appeared through the darkness, and lit up as the car headlights gleamed on it. After the next bend, they would be there. The couple enjoyed their last turn and Malcolm chuckled as he played a clever little prank on his wife Cindy, by pretending the car had run out of fuel, and allowed it to roll down the hill for a bit.

Well at least they had their fun, because the moment they turned the corner they were gobsmacked at what they were looking at - a complete disaster. Malcolm slowly stopped the car and pulled up the handbrake, and slowly unbuckled his seat belt. Moments later, still speechless, he slowly wrenched himself out of the car and stood there with his hands on his head, with his mouth wide open in shock.