Mercury looked from side to side, taking in her surroundings with wide eyes.
She was standing in an unfamiliar landscape. All around her the ground was gray and barren, strange, jagged rocks poking out of the ground like teeth. The sky was an unnatural shade of gray, strewn with twinkling stars, a sun and moon hanging from it side by side without casting any light. Here and there it seemed to reach down and connect with the rocks poking out of the ground to form pillars like the ceiling of a cave. Everything was wrapped in cold, grayish twilight.
Mercury blinked. Where was she? And where was the bus? She was sure it had gone in here, but now there was no trace of it to be seen. Had it sped up so much? Which way had it gone?
As Mercury stood and continued to stare, something stirred at her feet. Something gray and shapeless emerged straight from the fabric of the ground, followed closely by a second form, both of them blurring and wobbling and flickering until at last they took on the shapes of something remotely human, too abstract to look like real people, the only distinct features the unnaturally wide, jagged, grinning mouths.
"Good morning," one of them said at last, its voice inhumanly distorted.
"Good m–" Mercury started to say, but her voice was cut off.
"Good afternoon," said the second shadow.
"Good evening!"
"Good night!"
Mercury stepped back, looking back and forth between the shadows as they danced around her, circling and grinning. "Wait," she said awkwardly, raising her hands. "Which is it?"
"Pick one," the first shadow said cheerfully.
"Or two," the second one added. "Or three, or all of them. Time isn't real."
"O...kay..." Mercury had no idea what they were talking about, but she had even less of an idea what to do about that. "Good...morning, then?"
The shadows started circling her again. "Good choice," the first one said brightly. "Very good choice."
"Excellent choice."
"Most amazing choice."
The second one stopped moving, creeping up uncomfortably close. "Where are you headed, Miss?"
Mercury looked around again. Was it just her, or did the landscape look different than it had a few moments ago? "A bus!" she said, her eyes still desperately flitting around in search. "I followed a bus here...Have you seen a large black bus coming through?"
The shadows paused.
"Maybe so," they said in unison.
Mercury frowned. "Maybe?"
"Maybe it passed through here," the first shadow said as lightheartedly as ever. "Maybe it was over there. Maybe on the other side of the world."
"Maybe yesterday, maybe today, maybe tomorrow." The second shadow started switching places with the first, back and forth, so fast that Mercury couldn't follow them with her eyes. "Maybe you came right after it. Maybe you didn't. Maybe you're not standing on the ground right now, but on the ceiling."
Mercury looked down at the ground. It was strewn with stars.
"This is the Otherworld," one of the shadows whispered as it flitted from side to side as if it was dancing. "Time and space don't exist, Miss. You can go anywhere, at any time."
The shadows slipped into each other and merged into one single two-headed creature, two voices speaking in sync. "As long as you know where you want to go."
Mercury stared at the shadow, then at the landscape beyond. "So I can just head wherever and get where I'm trying to go?"
The shadow hesitated for a second, then it nodded its two heads. "You could say so."
"Okay." Mercury breathed a sigh of relief. Go straight on, and she'd find the bus and the school eventually. That sounded doable, even in a bizarre place like this. "Thank you!"
The shadow stepped aside and let her through. "Bye-bye!" its two heads shouted as it bounced and waved, turning to stare after Mercury as she started to walk away. Their voices twisted into one, their last words echoing after her as the body merged back into the ground, each syllable growing more distorted.
"Be careful not to get lost..."
~ ~ ~
Raoul tossed his bags on the floor, kicked off his shoes, flopped down on the mattress, and stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling.
There at last. At the school that had promised to teach him real magic when no one else would, hundreds of miles away from home and the only other Twilit Mages he had ever known. He had always thought his parents and big brother were the only ones who'd ever teach him how to handle his powers. And now here he was.
Not that he needed to be taught magic, he mused as he gave a whistle and a gust of wind swished through the room, picking up his jacket, flying it over the floor, and placing it down on his chest like a blanket. But Sullivan Blake had promised him something more, something that his parents and brother alone could never give him.
He had promised to let him meet another Twilit Mage girl. Another girl just like him.
Raoul rolled over, thinking of that braided girl's words earlier. Mercury was Twilit. Was the girl Blake had been talking about Mercury? What would the old man say if he saw she wasn't there? Would somebody go looking for her and find out where she was?
Not that that would help much. If Mercury didn't want to go...
But then why had the old man promised to let them meet each other?
Raoul sat up. Here he was, thinking about some girl he'd only met once just because she'd been a little brave and nice back then. He really had to be starved for friends, huh? How lame.
With a huge yawn and a stretch he climbed off the bed and put his shoes back on. No use moping about that girl he might never see again. Since he was here already, might as well go looking for some other people and see what came of it.
~ ~ ~
Georgiana closed the door and stepped out into the dormitory hallway. It was mostly empty but not at all quiet; to every side of her people were in the middle of unpacking or visiting each other's rooms, and almost all doors stood open, voices ringing out of every single one and echoing off the walls. The only door around that was still closed was the one across the corridor; it looked untouched, almost as if no one had entered it all day.
Georgiana walked past the rows of doors, the plethora of faces, some of which she vaguely remembered seeing before, but most of them strangers. She didn't pay much attention. She had no plans of visiting any rooms or speaking to anyone; she mostly wanted to get outside and explore the school grounds as soon as she could.
Someone knocked into her side. Georgiana muttered an apology and kept walking, heading for the stairs and descending to ground level, still not paying attention to people. She was almost at the door when someone cut across the hallway, a stressed-sounding woman's voice calling out to her as she walked. "Excuse me, miss! You're a freshman, right?"
Georgiana stopped walking and turned around to recognize the woman who'd been handing out the keys earlier, an exhausted-looking lady whose name she had forgotten again. "Yes," she said politely. "Can I help you?"
"Say, do you know how many girls there are in your grade? I looked through the lists and everything and there should be sixty-seven, but I swear I only counted sixty-six keys when I handed them out...You don't happen to know if there's been any change, if one person didn't show up after all or what happened to her or..."
Georgiana frowned. Mercury Day's face flickered through her mind. The missing girl...That could only be her, couldn't it? She wondered what had happened to her. Returned home, probably. It was only a matter of time until the school board knew.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly, turning away. "I have no idea what happened to the one girl. But if you ask me..." She adjusted her blazer over her shoulders. "I highly doubt anyone else will come."
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