• ***Author's Note: It's great to see you! Thank you for following along. We are on the fourth chapter now. I do hope you've been keeping up with the story. Hope you also take some time to read the other things I've written. Thank you so much for reading my work.

    Book's Summary: Sarina thought her life was normal until the day she started having the strange nightmares. Then everything changed and strange things started happening to her. To many people, night time may have been the best time for them to party, hang out with friends, and go out for fun, but for Sarina things weren’t so easy. Night time for her was not the best, but the worst. One night her life completely turned upside-down after having a very extraordinary encounter with a fearsome creature.



    Chapter IV: Who Are You?

    “Hurry, run to the door! Don’t worry about me,” I yelled to them, waving them to go ahead before everything collapsed. The building was filled with nothing but fire and smoke, I could hardly breathe. But I had to go back for that little girl on the second floor. One of them told me the little girl got separated from them because she was looking for her doll. If I didn’t hurry up, she could die. I wrapped my jacket around my head and ran up the stairs. It was difficult, but I reached the second floor in maybe less than a minute.
    I heard a small cry from down the hallway once I reached the top. The smoke was so much that I had to cough many times. I quickly ran towards the crying girl and found her sitting down on the floor holding a rag doll to her chest. I could think of nothing but to pick her up quickly and run out the door as fast as possible. We were barely off the second flight of stairs when it finally collapsed, making me scream as I heard the cracking sound of cement and steel together. We were out of the door when the building began to fall down to the ground altogether. I breathed out a silent thank you to God. It was almost like a miracle. I could feel the spots on my body where I got burned in several places but overall I was fine. The little girl passed out in my arms when we were barely out of the door, but she was breathing normally.
    “Thank you so much!” The mother of the child bowed to me a few times. “I can’t thank you enough!” I smiled to her and held her hands.
    “God was merciful. It was nothing. You must now take good care of her,” was all I said and left. I looked down at myself as I was walking away. It was the first time that I saw the clothes I was wearing, and expected them to have dirt all over and some evidences from the fire, instead they were incredibly clean and seemed to be glowing. But now, I must—
    “Wake up. Hey, get up from there already,” I heard a new but familiar voice said.
    I must be dreaming again, only this time it wasn’t a nightmare, but a nice dream. In the end I had the opportunity to save some people in my dream, and instead of it becoming a nightmare it turned out to be a heroic dream, where I saved a little girl from the fire. I looked down at my palms and the letters weren’t there anymore; I couldn’t see them anywhere and I even turned my hands around. But what had been left in my palms were some weird looking marks. The only difference this time was that they didn’t look like burnt marks anymore, but white round-shaped marks, more like white spots. What happened to them? I wondered if the man saw the glowing words engraved into my palms when I passed out.
    “I healed your hands because you somehow got yourself burned by something, but those white spots will never go away. I tried to wipe them off, but they wouldn’t disappear, so you’ll have to be careful that no one sees them,” the young man said, his voice was still cold but not angry.
    Opening my eyes as he said that, I looked around the place and was surprised. Instead of a desolated parking lot, we were in some kind of a cave, and my silver-blue car wasn’t there anymore. What on earth—
    “I brought you here. This is where the portal to the human world is hidden.”
    I felt a shiver go down my spine. “P—portal to the human world?”
    “Tsk. You’re not in your world anymore, so running away wouldn’t do you any good, it will be wise to stay close to me.” I didn’t like how he sounded. It was as if he was mocking and insulting me. Wasn’t he also a human? A human in some elaborate costume?
    “You’re lying. Stop kidding around.” The anger in my voice couldn’t be hidden anymore. I needed to get home and bring the groceries to Mom. I shouldn’t be sitting here doing nothing and playing some tricks with a cold stranger.
    He laughed, mocking me with his cold alien eyes.
    “If you don’t believe me, go look for yourself,” he said motioning me to walk outside the cave.
    I staggered back inside the cave after what felt like a century of staring at the beautiful but unfamiliar landscape outside, feeling the iciness of my hands as I pressed them both against my face. Tears were brimming in my eyes. I must be going insane. Why do I dream so much? I asked myself. When I looked back to the stranger, he had his eyes closed and an arm propped over his forehead as though attempting to nap.
    “Who—who are you?” I asked, hesitating a little fearing his anger.
    He opened his eyes and looked at me for a moment without saying anything. His eyes would have looked beautiful if they weren’t so cold. They were the same color as his coat and as everything about him, they seem to glow.
    I thought he would never say anything, but finally he said, “You don’t have to know. Ugly girl.” His last words pierced me like a pointy blade. Why would he say something so harsh? What have I ever done to him? He was the one who brought me here, so why wouldn’t he tell me who he was?
    I ignored my feelings and said, “Well, I’m—”
    “I already know who you are, slave. Unless you have something important to say, you don’t have to open your ugly mouth each time. Foolish woman. I don’t want to hear anything coming from you.”
    I didn’t know whether to scream in frustration or cry. Why would God put me in such a situation? Whining was never something that I would do, but in a situation like this, it couldn’t be helped, could it? Surely this must be a dream, a nightmare of some sort. It was a normal occurrence now in my life after all. To any normal human being, something like this would never happen. No one would ever believe me if I were to tell someone at home that I was sort of abducted by a man from another dimension, or that’s what he said, and who would believe it if I said that there was a portal that could take someone to another world? They would laugh at me and think I was crazy. They’d even think that I was just playing with them and I may end up being stoned to death. Who was I kidding?
    “Now, if you’re ready to depart from this place, I will guide you to where you’re supposed to be.”
    “Why did you bring me here?” I couldn’t stop but asked.
    His eyes were piercing when he looked down at me.
    “You’re a slave since you were born. You are fated to become a slave. Be honored and be grateful that I was the one to fetch you from Earth myself, or you’d be dead by now.”
    My throat was dry. I couldn’t understand what he was saying. A slave? Me? Dead?
    I wish I could keep my mouth shut, but I must know why he was being harsh with me. He must be playing some kind of a game to make fun of me.
    “What do you mean of me being a slave? Surely this is a dream, or you’re playing some kind of a game for fun,” I laughed dryly, feeling fear creeping in inside me once again. “Right?” Please say you’re just playing, I wanted to add.
    I watched him turned around slowly and then all at once vanished into thin air, and in just merely a second, I felt his hand around my neck. He was looking down at me with barely a thin thread of patience showing in his face. His lips were in a thin line and his eyes were glowing like dark-blue flames.
    “You sure are a very talkative ugly creature. What gave you the confidence that I would answer all your questions? I could have killed you if I wanted to, but unfortunately killing you, even as a slave, is forbidden. You should be glad you’re in one piece. It’s never my place to give you the answers you want. Also, I loathe you. You disgust me, so if you want to keep your whole body when you get out of here, if you ever will, you better know your place. I am way higher than you in status and you are nothing to me. Don’t ever think you can say whatever pleases you. Do not talk back to your betters.” And with all that said, he roughly let go of my neck and I collapsed on the ground breathing hard. The feel of his hand around my throat didn’t seem to want to go away.
    This man truly was cruel. Who the heck he think he was? But learning my lesson, I didn’t say another word to him. He led the way down the mountain, where the cave was located. The opening of the cave was barely in sight now. It was a little cold up here and I kept on wondering what season they had at this time, but then we were on a mountain, so the altitude was much higher than normal.
    “Hey, you, keep up,” he said as though commanding a real slave. I’m not a slave, I wanted to tell him. I was only a teenager of seventeen years, who had some friends back home with no boy friend, had two little brothers, great parents, and still attending high school. I was only a normal teenager who had a normal life—well, until things like these started happening. Nothing more, nothing less. No, I really was nothing less.
    My feet felt numb after a few hours of walking. My whole body felt exhausted and I could barely open my eyes now. Back home it would be nighttime, but here it was only daytime. Getting use to the time here from back home was more difficult than only traveling from one country to the other. Finally an hour later, my mind and body gave in and I fell face down to the ground—but I didn’t hit it. The stranger was quick and saved me from hitting the ground. With no effort at all, he lifted me up by one hand and carried me like a tiny sack of potatoes on his shoulder.
    “You are such a bothersome creature,” I heard him say in annoyance before I fell into a deep slumber.


    (to be continued...)

    Previous Chapter



    Chapter I

    Chapter II





    Other Submissions:
    A Heart's Awareness (Poetry)
    The Crimson Queen (Fiction - Tiny Story)