‘Varjik?’

I called his name again, hoping for something that I didn’t quite know what it was. I wanted to see him again, to have him explain what this place was and how I got there. I waited for what seemed like eons (but most probably was only seconds) and then I saw it. The bright dot at the far end coming towards me. But… wait. It wasn’t alone. Two balls of light were heading my way this time. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them again, I felt the silver light all around me, circling me, trapping me in a perfect weightless body.

‘He was right’, a woman’s voice said, sounding like ice frost crystals. I didn’t move or talk.

‘She is indeed a brand new stray, isn’t she? Wow, we haven’t had that for the longest time’, another voice said, a man’s voice this time, but not Varjik’s. I held still, waiting. I didn’t know what to say, so I prayed they would ask me something, anything.

The light in their bodies slowly started to fade, just as it did with Varjik, and the forest around me became clearer. I gazed at it lovingly. This time I was not afraid, I wanted to be there.

‘Like what you see?’, the woman asked. I looked at her face and my breath was taken away from me. Her eyes were the darkest green I ever saw and were sparkling like emeralds. Her skin was white like Varjik’s but the veins were glowing a silver color, not purple. Her hair was short and with curls, a faded red color that reminded me of some of the cool girls in my school. Momentarily I wondered how it must feel to be that beautiful.

‘Where am I?’, I manage to ask, sounding probably like a scared puppy.

‘Oh, the lady speaks. What do you know?’, the man said.

‘You are in the Forest of Fire and Water. But I don’t think that’s your question really, is it?’, the woman asked me and I realized that’s true.

‘How?’, I said, not knowing what reply I was waiting for exactly. An explanation, I guess.

‘That’s more like it’, she replied while resting her elbow in the man’s shoulder. Gosh, they both looked so cool. The man had black short hair and half of his face was covered with a silver mask, just like in “The Phantom of the Opera”. The half of the face that I could see was perfectly structured though; a strong jaw and emerald eyes, just like the girl’s. His veins were glowing silver as well.

‘You are in Luceel. Or, as your kind calls it, the Dream Land or Dream World, or whatever. You people have no imagination at all’, the man said, boringly.

‘Luceel? What… How?’

‘This is going to take some time, isn’t it?’, he asked the girl. She let out a stifled laugh and then looked straight into my eyes. It almost hurt, looking at her.

‘Come with us. I know somebody who will explain it better.’

And just like that, they carried me away. The girl was holding my right hand and the man the left one and we were floating, moving fast in the air. I looked at my surroundings as our speed increased, trying to remember, trying to understand. Then all I could see was light.