My name is Elaine. The story I am about to tell you happened to me, but you don’t have to believe it. I know I wouldn’t if someone told it to me. Read it, like you would read a fairytale, a dark, scary fairytale that you would never read to a child, unless you wanted to scar the poor thing for life.

It all started on the 11th of December. I was back from class and I was texting my best friend Mary furiously, telling her how angry I am with Dean and Barry who had decided that it would be a good idea to pour hot tomato soup over my jeans and then tell everyone in the cafeteria that ‘Elaine has the period’. Idiots. They didn’t even know how to syntax the sentence properly. After a few back and forth texts with Mary, I was calmer and I went to have a hot shower and then lay down for a nap. I wasn’t particularly tired, but I wanted to forget the embarrassment in the cafeteria and sleep was a good way of doing just that. I closed my eyes and…

…I was in the midst of darkness. Then, slowly, steadily, a light started to show at the far end. It looked like an illuminated dot that was there to put an end to something. Then it was like a comet, coming towards me, without speed but with perfect determination. I had no other option than to stay put and wait for whatever it was that was coming my way to reach me.

It’s difficult to move in a dream, you know, even after years of trying to practice lucid dreaming, I still haven’t managed it. I am aware that I am dreaming, but I cannot really do anything about it other than just observe the natural flow of the dream. I am like the audience in the theatre, but never the actor. At least I wasn’t… until that day.

The thing drowned in light was in front of me in seconds. It took me a moment to realize it had the shape and size of a human body, that is how stunned I was. The human thing made two full circles around me, examining me, leaving bits of silver light behind it. I couldn’t move. I was only aware of holding my breath; I was afraid of the light, I was afraid of the dark, I was afraid of… him. Him?

I heard his voice in my ear before I saw his face. ‘Well, well’, he said, in a rusty voice that gave me goosebumps. ‘Whatever do we have here? A stray one?’

I didn’t reply. I didn’t know how to reply to that, nobody has ever called me ‘a stray one’ before. He circled me again and the light around him, better yet, the light inside him, slowly faded, as our surroundings started to become clearer. It seemed like we were in a forest of some kind, but not a human forest. At least not any forest that I know of, because this one had red tall trees with leaves that looked like velvet and smelled of something long forgotten. The ground was watery although my feet were not wet. It felt like I was floating, and my body didn’t have any weight at all. If I wasn’t scared to tears, I might have actually enjoyed the scenery, even marvel at it.

‘Where did you come from, little stray one?’, he asked me, in a voice that just above a whisper. It made my neck tingle, hearing him talk. I turned and faced him, ready to reply, ready to tell him to stop calling me ‘stray’, ready for everything… Apart from what I saw.

My mouth dropped open. In front of me, there was a creature that looked like the perfect combination between a wild animal and a human, smiling and showing some alarmingly sharp teeth, while looking down at me. His eyes were shaped like a cat’s but their color was that of a husky. He had straight white hair that went down to his lower back and he was wearing an emerald cape, too long and too big for me to see anything under it. I only saw his hand as he offered it to me for a handshake- it was milk white but with dark purple veins that were glowing underneath the skin.

‘I am Varjik. And who might you be?’