CHAPTER TWO - QUESTIONS

"A war?" I urge the messenger for an answer, still confused.

"What do you mean a seize?"

But words that he could have used to indulge me, he wishes instead to spare on caution.

"Run," he tells my supposed sister, the little boy standing in front of me who is my younger brother, and the rest of those who had crowded the only entrance and exit of the open door to my chamber.

"There are secret passages in this castle that lead to central Mrina, you should get there and warn the others," he says, his face almost touching the ground as he yearns for more air.

Before he could make up another word, however, his head conveniently fell to the ground, laying him to rest.

Just in the blink of an eye, the core of his body had gone missing, and he fell apart in two pieces as a flying spear ate his body mass and disappeared without leaving a trace.

It is already too late.

The enemy, whoever it is, has already breached the castle, and hordes of them, I can see are running towards where we are, wrecking everything they find on their way.

"Quick," says my sister.

"Lock the door," she says as she rushes to the door, pulling me by my hand as she does it.

Everyone, a dozen or so young women rush to make it inside, but as they do that she pulls me further away outside letting them hide inside.

When every one of them reaches a safe space inside the chamber, when the windows are shut close, and so are every other smaller areas, that are big enough for a man to enter, my sister pulls me, and the little boy outside, and asks the boy as she almost insists with her gaze to, "Do it," with a calm look her face.

The little boy with his sloppy long hair doesn't hesitate, and he instantly closes his eyes and makes a sharp snap with his right hand, soon after which a blinding light forces me to cover my gaze.

When I can see again, an iron structure that seems handcrafted into perfection has replaced the door to protect those who are inside.

Not even a massive elephant could break it, I think.

Just then "I have so many questions," she tells me, my sister.

"But I want you to see what I've become in all these years you were gone,"

"There is plenty that I want to ask you, and you can ask what your heart desires too if you can kill one of the enemies who are rushing in to kill all of us," she says, "Just like old times,"

What old times, I wonder.

It doesn't make sense.

How can a soul be present in two different worlds but still remember bits and pieces of interactions in both worlds?

"I don't understand,"

"I don't get it," I try to tell her, but dressed in a long, flowing cloth that is draped around her slim, slender body, she drags the extended fabric of red, green, and gold as she charges in towards the marbled halls of majestic heights, towards the enemy in graceful moves, almost dancing and without armor or even a weapon.

Twisting and twirling on the marble floor on her bare, red-painted foot, I chase after her moves to catch up with her, but right as I reach ten paces towards her, she urges the little boy with her eyes to do something again, still dancing while she gestures it, and just like before he snaps his finger to cause a bolt of blinding light, to which I can do nothing but shut down my vision again if I wish not to lose my eyes.

When I opened my eyes, three men dressed in bronze metal armor around their chests had missing heads, that were nowhere to be seen.

"I have become a dancer, you see," says she, as her words echo around the halls in grandeur, as I spot a room in which a throne is placed, and upon it a crown.

"Well, a little more than a dancer," she smirks as she continues.

"Do you remember my name?" she asks me, as she rushes in with a sharp silver dagger that I know for a fact, that little boy had somehow just made for her, a conjecture to which I have no proof of.

As more men of malicious intent close in on her, she snaps her finger just like the boy did before her, and her simple action triggers a bright light, that gleams slightly more than a full moon's shimmer to take form on her hands.

And this time, I can see what it is.

I can make out the process of the strange arcane.

A stranger letter emerges from the palm of her hand in graceful ascent, in a silver light, and as soon as it becomes tangible, she disappears and re-appears behind the enemies in a majestic sway of her streaming moves, an opportunity that she doesn't give away which ends in their lives ending instantly.

As their heads drop onto the floor still with a glimmering smile on her face, she continues.

"Chaya," I remember it, her name,

Thanks to sheer fear that her menacing dancing murders instilled in me, or due to a wave of nostalgia from something similar that I have seen before.

How can this be happening?

I distinctly remember being a soldier in a war against a federation that waged war against a regal empire.

I remember everything that I did in the last seven years when I was there, but not before.

But there are still memories from before those seven years about her and this place.

What is going on?

"So, you are my brother!" her eyes linger on me for a while before she starts to spin again, this time flashier than before.

Though one wouldn't understand the emotion of these frantic moves of her sway, I quickly recognized it as anger or anguish.

"Are you going to stand there looking like an idiot? Or are you not even slightly curious about everything that's happened before you gained consciousness again?" she asks me.

Though I can honestly say that I am more than slightly curious, my heart yearns for my eyes to continue watching her, even if it ends with her killing people so very ruthlessly.

Yet, I try to focus and reach out my hands to my little brother, who is honestly confused about what I am getting at.

Taking this chance as my sister immerses herself in a melody only she can hear, as she waits for me to do something, the enemy soldiers rush in towards us.

An action to which her reaction should have been their instant deaths, but she does nothing to end them, instead she lets them close in on her as she calls them out, and mocks them in her dance.

"Well," I speak up, but the boy doesn't understand it still.

I expect of him to provide me with a weapon like she did before, but he locks away his eyes from my gaze and moves his head away in awkwardness.

But as I wait for the boy to grant me a weapon or an object that I can use to fight, an enemy dressed casually different from the rest of the soldiers walks in right next to me, as fog dissipates, revealing someone right next to mine.

He had appeared almost instantly, and even my sharp reflexes fell short to react to that.

Instead of killing me that instant, he chooses to aim it at the barricaded door where the other women my sister locked away for their safety were left behind, with similar letters in his hand that emit a dark aura. Only plenty more menacing.

"Greetings," says the man standing close to me, placing his hands on my shoulders as a huge explosion causes the roof from a few feet away to fall apart and crash to the ground.

"Ah," he remarks, when the raised dust from the blast he created collapses in on itself to reveal that there was not even a dent on the door my brother had created.

"You are quite talented, aren't you" he looks at the boy, as he tries to walk towards him, in steady steps away from me. "Talent of that sort is welcomed with open arms where I am from"

Just then Chaya throws one of her knives at me, which I catch in a swift move killing him instantly as I cut his throat open.

His body falls to make a satisfying thud on the ground. 

"What are you even doing?" asks Chaya playfully. "He could have killed the both of you"

"Hey, give me a break," I tell her.

"I don't think I am even up yet. I just woke up" in a defensive manner.

"Ah, Yes!"

"Yes, I do" she frowns, as every enemy comes to a halt at once. "But so did these mercenaries who put on the armor of a kingdom long dead to attack the only castle in the middle of nowhere where there is nothing of value"

"They don't seem to have any problem dying. But if you die, I'll kill you myself" she says.

"Ah, but you are wrong" speaks the man that I had just killed.

He appears again in the distance, from a shattering fog just like he did before, this time so very close to the door where the women are safely locked behind.

"How can you say that there is nothing of value here?" he grunts in anger.

"The woman of Mrina are the most elegant, and beautiful in all of Ahana, and my lord, his majestic have always had a distinct liking to them," he says, as he touches the door which disintegrates revealing everyone inside. "I caution you my dear, to pray not speak ill of his treasures"

"Huh," frowns Chaya as she proceeds to move in close, "What is even happening in the world?" she says.

"Miracles after miracles are spawning like dead bodies in a plague, and now you wretched homeless cutthroats claim to have a king too?"

"And what kind of a bastard is he, your lousy king who attacks women? Does he have a name?" she asks, taunting him to attack her.

But "You're a feisty one, aren't you" says he, as he walks inside the chamber.

"I suppose his majesty would come to like you if only you were a little well-behaved. Tell me, would you like to exchange yourself for the freedom of these pleasant creatures?" he says, his hands almost touching one of them.

"Would you like me to cut open your gut to free your dirty soul from that stupid body?" snarks my sister, as she almost snaps her finger again to do something with it.

"Patience now," he says as his hands reach for his dagger. "A mark on their pretty faces is the same as death, don't you think"

"Filthy bastards," rages Chaya.

But taking a deep breath, she asks, "Tell me, then," keeping her hands apart to compel no further action from that man, "Where are you from? And who is this king that ordered you to attack Mrina out of all other realms?"

"My apologies," says the towering man gracefully as he bows in a curtsy.

"I should have started with it! My bad" he seals his lips.

"My name is Avi. I am an emissary from Krit. Servant of His majesty, the…"

"Krit?" Chaya stammers.

"That damned kingdom had fallen long ago when my ancestors killed that wretched old king. Did you give your crown to some bastard just because he was conceived in a dirty pond of filth just like the old one?"

"Silence!" yells the man.

But catching him off-guard, I quickly rush at him with the silver dagger in my hand and cut his throat while I'm still in mid-air, an action which plunges me deep into the quarters, the same place where I fell when I tried to reach for the mirror.

Yet, he still comes back unscathed, just outside the chamber, as he continues his conversation with Chaya as if nothing happened, "You are a bigger fool than you are foul-mouthed" he says.

"No one could kill my king,"

"He had been in a slumber undisturbed for the last thousand years. But he is awake now, and this world shall be his once again"

Deep slumber?

Awoken again?

A screeching warning in my gut tells me that this might be something related to me. I too have woken up after seven years of being in a coma.

What does this have to do with me? I think.

As I try to leave the room and go back outside again, however, a whirling air takes form like a container that which doesn't allow my exit.

And so, I am trapped inside.