This time, I didn’t wake up. I was transferred to a huge room decorated with frescos all along the walls, high ceiling and wooden floor. There were furniture as well, two velvet yellow couches in the middle and a little glass table, but in the vastness of the room they seemed so small. Varjik sat on one couch and beckoned me to sit on the other, without speaking. He poured something from a delicate teapot to two crystal glasses and rested his body on the couch lazily. I took my glass and smell the clear liquid inside.

‘Be careful with that. It’s not like anything you’ve ever tasted before’, he said, nonchalantly.

‘Should I?’, I asked, hating that I sounded like I was asking for his permission but too scared to try it without it.

‘It depends. Do you want to stay here forever?’

I let the glass down on the table carefully and thanked my good stars that I asked him before trying.

‘I don’t even know where I am’, I told him, trying to hold my gaze still. It was hard, looking at those unreadable eyes.

‘You are in Luceel’, he said, sipping from his glass. ‘I thought my subjects informed you of that already.’

‘Your… subjects? What are you, like a king?’, I sniggered.

‘I am exactly that’, he answered, not amused.

‘Oh…’

I was embarrassed and lost for words. A king? Again, I tried to tell myself that there was no reason to feel awkward or scared or anything really, I was in a dream. This was just a dream, nothing else. But just to be on the safe side, I wouldn’t have that drink anyway.

‘So what then, is this drink like an invitation from the King to become a citizen of Luceel? Or a… subject?’, I said, with my newfound smirkiness.

‘It is a challenge’, he replied, not flinching a bit, but he seemed somehow challenged himself. I gained even more courage. I leaned forward, conspiringly.

‘You know King Varjik… This...’ I did a circle with my hand, showing the room, ‘All this, is nothing but a dream I am having. I am sorry to break it to you.’

He tossed his head back and laughed loudly. It echoed in the room, a haunting noise that made me shiver.

‘A cocky stray. We surely didn’t have one like you here for aaages’, he dragged the last word. He got up quickly and grabbed my arm. In a flash, we were standing in front of one of the mural walls.

‘Let me guide you through milady. Let’s see if this cockiness will stay with you after the tour.’

In the top of the wall in front of me there was a painting of the earth as I know it and next to it there was a similar one but… transparent. Below it was the same painting but the two sister planets were touching each other. Below that, another one, this time the merge between them clearer. It went on and on until the floor, and in the last drawing, the transparent earth was completely above our earth, like a misty filter or a drawing on rice paper.

‘I don’t understand’, I told Varjik which was standing next to me the whole time, quiet.

‘I know’, he said. ‘You people never do, even when the truth is right in front of your eyes.’

‘Do you find it so hard to just explain without the benevolent comments?’

He lifted the side of his mouth into something like a smile that didn’t want to show itself as one. ‘Then don’t tempt me’, he replied. ‘But let’s start with the guided tour’.