Chapter Four

Endora

Endora glanced down to find a tiny glass bottle shut with a cork. She held the cracked bottle up. It had a piece of paper shoved in it.

Endora pulled the cork. A rusty yet elegant pocket watch was rolled inside the piece of paper. 

Ora realized it was a note, “Time is an illusion none can resist. Bend it to your will, and you’ll find success,” She slowly read it out.

“Umm…What?” Zeraphina was confused 

“It says so in this note,” Ora informed 

“A note? How did that get here?” Elex asked 

“Maybe it’s a riddle,” The blue-eyed boy noted

“Unless one of us can bend time, this riddle seems pretty useless,” Zeraphina said 

“Wait!” Ora pulled out the pocket watch. “It came with this.”

It was a worn-out golden pocket watch slightly larger than a coin. It had no chain attached to it and barely fit inside the tiny bottle. 

There was a scratch on its lid. She looked closer and realized it was too precise to be a scratch. 

Lines and curves of different sizes looped through each other forming, what Ora assumed were words. Occasionally, the curves or lines would have two or three dots above or below them. 

 But they did not belong to any language Ora knew. 

However, Ora only knew one language– the common language. 

“Weird,” Ora brushed the engraving on the lid. “Does anyone know what this is?”

The others all took their turns reading it. 

Elex fiddled with the watch, “Do these seem like Lorevian runes to you?” He asked Zeraphina.

“Lorevain runes?” The black-eyed girl asked. 

“In the ancient times when the Superior Realms were at war with Talzerith, our royals suspected that the court had been infiltrated, by Talzian spies. The suspicion was largely on the royal messengers, as a few rulers doubted if the letters they received had been tampered with.” Elex explained.

“So, my great-great-great-too many greats-Great Grandparents came up with a code language. The language is still used by the court when needed, and they teach it to all royals. It came to be known as Lorevian in honor of our family as my great-great- infinitely great grandparents invented it,” Zeraphina completed.

” Well, do you know how to read it?” Endora asked 

” A little bit. I learned the basics. But you are taught in-depth only if you are the heir to the throne,” Zeraphina replied

“Same here. I don’t remember much,” Elex agreed.

The fact they would keep such parts of history a secret from the commoners infuriated Endora. The commoners could harness great power if they put their minds to it, if they were not kept in the dark about their affairs, and if their knowledge wasn’t limited to what the royals thought them worthy of knowing. 

Endora gritted her teeth. If only the people could stand up for themselves and use their voices to fight for what is theirs. Fight for knowledge, fight for freedom. 

“They can and they will,” Endora thought to herself. “One day, the people will rise and stand against injustice. And Endora will be right there, among them.”  

Zeraphina Ashlore

 “Mirror..the…Sky….from…Ocean,” Zera read the words she could recognize.  

“Hhhm,” The black eyed-girl cracked her knuckles, “The ocean mirrored the sky, where the queen took us.”

Zera stared at the runes as if they would make sense if she stared long enough. 

“That’s it!” The black-eyed girl startled Zera, “Maybe we should set the pocket watch to the time when we were near the desert.”

“Unless the pocket watch is magical, that would be pointless. Hoping for that doesn’t make much sense,” Endora pointed out. 

“Nothing about this forest makes sense,” The black-eyed girl replied. 

“True. I think we should give this a try,” Mr.Nameless agreed.

“C’mon Ora. Nothing goes in trying,” Elex said 

“Ok…If that’s the best we can do, do it,” Endora agreed. 

Snap. 

Zeraphina pulled the crown of the pocket watch and turned it counterclockwise.

The watch showed 9’O clock at the moment. It was about 12 when they reached the desert. 

Zeraphina set the watch to 12 and pressed the crown.

Snap. 

The sound pierced into her ears. 

Zeraphina’s head felt light. The world around her blurred into blobs of color. The colors spiraled into the blob of color that was the pocket watch. 

Round.Round.Round.

Her surroundings were spinning. Or maybe it was her head. Zera knew nothing except for the blobs of color swirling around her. She knew neither who she was nor where she was.

And suddenly, the color turned into fog. 

The fog choked her throat and stung her eyes. It brought back coherent thoughts and memories of the past few hours.

Thud.

The cold stung Zera’s skin as she landed on a slippery surface. 

Ira Thalwar (New character) 

“IRA, CAN’T YOU HEAR ME?” Her mom’s high-pitched shouting interrupted Ira’s meticulously crafted daydream. 

“Coming!” Ira ran downstairs, hoping her mother wasn’t too angry. 

“How many times do I have to shout before you come?” Her mother scolded her. “One of these days I am going to snatch those earphones and throw them away. They are always in your ears, those pesky little things– ” 

Ira’s thoughts cut her mother’s never-ending rant out. While her dear earphones were often the cause of such scoldings, this time they were innocent. 

This time Ira had been busy coming up with the thrilling conclusion of her adventure-filled daydream. She had been roaming around in a creepy forest wearing a black mysterious outfit, fighting off anonymous attackers. 

She was accompanied by a brown-eyed princess and a grey-eyed prince. Zeraphina and Elex, she had named them. Then there was blue-eyed Mr.Nameless and amber-eyed Ora. 

“There she goes again,” Her mother glared her down with dark brown eyes. “Ira! Are you hearing me?” 

“Sorry,” Ira apologized to her mother. 

“I am going to the bazaar,” Her mother informed. “Keep your earphones away and be careful. Don’t open the door if anyone comes and–,”

“I know, I know. We have gone through this a million times,” Ira replied. “I’ll be careful.” 

“Ok… I’ll be back soon. Take care of the house and don’t make a mess,” Her mother said as she opened the door to leave. 

“Bye, take care,” Ira waved at her mother and shut the door. 

Pixie–Ira’s cat– followed her as Ira climbed the stairs and entered her room.

She walked past her messy table and glanced at the books stacked neatly on the shelves. She had read most of them a bazillion times, yet they showed no signs of wear and tear except for the slightly worn-out corners. Most of them were fantasy, and a few were sci-fi. It always satisfied her to look at them. Not just because they had elegant covers but because they were all remnants of worlds she had visited. 

But right now, she was busy creating her own. 

So, she put her earphones on and blasted Bollywood songs. 

Movies or songs. Melodious or energetic. Funny or Thriller. She loved anything Bollywood, which is why Hindi came as quickly to her as her mother tongue Malayalam, and English, which she was taught at school. 

Her knowledge of Hindi and bits of Marathi had come in handy over the past year. A year ago she moved to Mumbai from Kerala– her native place in South India– for her mom’s work. 

After leaving her grandparent’s home in Kerala she and her hardworking single mother have been living in Mumbai.

 Her mother finally succumbed to Ira’s long-running demand to get a cat. That’s how she adopted Pixie, the cat lying beside her as she lay on the bed listening to music. 

The songs provided the perfect background for her daydream, which now shifted to her breaking out in moves on the dance floor. Sometimes she twirled around embodying the elegance of a Kathak dancer. At other times she moved around the floor with the swag of a hip-hop dancer. And ever so often she broke out the thumkas (A Bollywood dance move) and did it the desi way.

She turned down the volume of the music as she realized she should probably watch out for her mother ringing the doorbell. 

Ira got up and grabbed her hairbrush. Now, that she had nothing else to do, she could finally brush her unruly hair. The black hair reached her hips and got tangled for no reason. 

Ira stared at her eyes in the mirror as she brushed her long hair. They were a common Indian eye color– Brown so dark that it almost looked black. She had brown skin that got darker near her eyebags as sleep was her frenemy. While she loved to sleep, it didn’t approve of her reading books late till night.

Speaking– or thinking is a more appropriate word – of the night, Ira realized it was getting dark. Almost 6:00 pm and her mom hadn’t come home yet. 

Ira tried not to worry– but that was impossible.

Elex Sylvaine (Back to the test)

Elex winced as he tried to get up from the frozen floor. 

After floating in oblivion through blurred-out colors for who-knows-how-long Elex found himself back where he had started– on an endless body of ice that reflected the sky above him. The sky still looked like someone had punched a hole through the clouds. But this time the clouds were darker…..threatening, almost. 

They reminded him of how far he was from home, how much he missed his friends and family, and how alone he was. 

He realized there was no one around him for miles.

Elex got up and searched for his new friends. The last thing he remembered was the snap of the pocket watch as Zera set its time. He had no clue what happened to him after that, much less what happened to his friends. They were nowhere to be seen now. He wondered if they were stuck in the swirling colors too or if it was just his mind playing tricks. 

“Ora!…ORA!” Elex roamed around helplessly. “ZERAPHINA!…Hello?! Are any of you here?” 

“ORA! ZERAPHINA!” Elex repeated the names of friends he knew what to call. 

“MR.NAMELESS!…. BLACK-EYED GIRL?” He hoped they would recognize he was calling them. 

“IF SOMEONE CAN HEAR ME, PLEASE RESPOND!” Elex called out desperately.

He wandered in search of his friends– in search of anyone who could keep him company, actually. 

But every inch of the plain looked the same. He didn’t know where to go. He didn’t know where he was.

Elex realized that he was lost. He was lost and he was completely alone. 

He was on the verge of crying when he noticed his reflection on the floor. His reflection wasn’t surrounded by nothingness this time. Trees and plants surrounded it. But not the creepy kind this time.

These had colorful leaves and fruits. Even the barks of the trees were colorful. They ranged from pale white, brown, black, grey, and warm cinnamon to vibrant red, orange, and even rainbow. They came in all textures, smooth, rough, deeply furrowed, striped, and thorny. Sometimes they were covered in mosses and lichens and sometimes the bark peeled away. 

The reflection brought back memories of Elex’s childhood. 

He was suddenly six years old, chasing around a butterfly with his cousins in the Sehimian Prismwoods.

“Wren! I saw it first. Finders keepers remember?” Elex reminded his cousin.

Wren giggled, “First to catch it keeps it,” She declared. 

Ziona and Orson– Wren’s siblings– laughed as both Wren and Elex failed to catch the butterfly. 

“I guess that’s what we get for troubling an innocent creature,” Elex sighed.

“You should ask me to catch it next time. I would have done it so easily,” Orson bragged.

“Sssuure, you would have.” Ziona rolled her eyes.

“Then why didn’t you try catching it?” Wren challenged her brother. 

Elex ignored his redhead cousins’ bickering and walked back to where their parents had set up camp. He walked past the colorful plants and fluorescent flowers. Once in a while, he stopped to gaze at the exotic birds and butterflies– found only in Everkeith. He plucked a few of the fruits and berries he saw along the way, already imagining their sweet and sour flavors piercing his tongue as they melted on his tastebuds. The Frostberries and Riarees were his favorites. 

Elex felt the warm breeze rustling his hair and brushing his cheeks. He grinned. There truly was no other place like the Sehimian Prismwoods in this world. It was the Sylvaine family’s happy spot. He could roam around the woods all day. He could roam around the woods all his li–

“Ouch!” 

Someone slammed into Elex interrupting his walk down memory lane. 

Endora

Endora snapped out of her bright daydream and patted her head, which throbbed from bumping into Elex.

“Ora! I’m so sorry,” Elex frantically apologized before Ora could shout at him. “I don’t know what was happening to me… I was in this weird daydream and I was roaming around in the Sehimian Prismwoods and I was a child and… then I bumped into you. Sorry! I am so sorry!” 

“Wait. You were hallucinating too?” Endora asked

“Yeah… You did too?” 

“Well, I was not in any forest. I was stuck in a cave, following the light.”

“Following the light ?”

“It was like a fever dream. I landed in this place from a swirling blob of light, then I looked at my reflection. I was in a dark cave. It was pitch black. And I was scared to death.”

Endora could still hear her scream echoing through the cave. 

“And then?” Elex asked 

“Then, I heard a voice–voices. It was an amalgamation of every voice I had ever heard. Dad’s, Mom’s, yours, Zeraphina’s, Nameless’s, and the other girls. ” 

Endora didn’t mention the voices of the people she often hid from or that the only time she heard her mother’s voice was her mother’s last scream. 

“What did it say?” 

“It said, ‘There is always some light of hope in the darkness, Ora.’ And you know what the weird part is?” She asked Elex

“What?”

“That is exactly what my dad told me to encourage me for the test…..” Endora pondered for a second. “But maybe it’s not that weird. The incident was just a dream. It was all just in my head. And so was Dad’s advice “

“My dad says that dreams are just our subconscious mind having fun,” Elex said. “Anyway, continue your story.”

“As the voice bounced around the cave, I was blinded by a flash of light. At first, it was overwhelming. But soon, it felt like a huge warm hug. The light was everywhere. It was around me. It was inside me. It was me. It was amazing,” 

“Woah, you’re getting dreamy-eyed over a flash of light,” Elex snorted. 

“Uh?..Umm…” Endora blinked. “Where was I?”

“You were in a cave, surrounded by light.” 

“Oh! Yeah…So, I followed the light around. I was swimming in it, forgetting everything. I didn’t realize I was actually moving around until–”

“I bumped into you.” Elex completed.

Both of them were silent now. Neither of them wanted to acknowledge how clueless they were. Endora silently hoped that Zeraphina, Mr.Nameless, and the black-eyed girl were safe.  

She wondered what dreams or nightmares they had– if they had any at all. 

Talon Lochlan

Thud.

Thud.

Thud. 

Talon’s heart pounded in his chest. His ears still rang, minutes after a terror-struck shriek had pierced his ears and the air around him. Now, silence filled the plain. 

Silence. Oh! How Talon had missed it. The silence felt like music to his ears after the pain they had endured. Talon wished he could drown in the silence and the peacefulness. But, that was the problem. The peace the silence brought could never beat the terror the noise had injected into him. 

Peace. Terror.

The latter felt more familiar after the hectic day he had. Peace was a distant concept, occurring only in the best of his dreams. 

A dream. That’s what it was. 

Talon sighed. What had his life come to? Chaos. Chaos was the only answer if Talon, living his best life in Runnel’s Retreat, laughing, playing, and swimming around with his family was just a dream. And him being lost in the middle of a frozen sea surrounded by emptiness, gazing at a patch of clear sky in a single enormous cloud and wishing for the buzz in his ears to stop was reality. 

The sound of distant sobs broke his train of thought. He decided to check who it was. 

Though he wished to see the few friends he had acquired during this disaster, he hoped none of them was the person crying. Talon couldn’t imagine what the shrieks and sobs meant for the maker if they brought such terror to the hearer. He didn’t want his friends—or anyone— to go through that. 

But of course, hopes are meant to be crushed in this plain of confusion. 

Talon found Zeraphina huddled on the floor, weeping. She stared into the distance, wide-eyed— not glancing away for even a second. To Talon it looked like she was staring at nothing. 

“Princess Zeraphina,” Talon gently approached the crying girl. “What happened?” 

She didn’t answer. 

“Princess,” He tapped her shoulders. “Whatever happened must be bad. I’m sorry for you…But I think you should get up from the icy ground before your feet go numb.”

No response, again. Zeraphina wouldn’t look at him and kept crying. She closed her eyes shut and clasped her mouth, trying to suppress her sobs. 

“Can you hear me?” Talon kneeled beside her. 

“Look at me. Princess!” He called when she didn’t reply. “Princess! Can you hear me?! Zeraphina! You are worrying me.” 

He glanced at her face, which had gone completely pale. She looked unconscious. She looked like her mind was not present where her body was. Like she was dreaming.

Talon remembered his dream. He would have been stuck in it all day if the princess’s scream hadn’t snapped him out of it. He wondered if Zeraphina was stuck in a similar dream. Obviously, hers was less pleasant. It was more of a nightmare. Yet Talon tried to wake her up. 

He grasped her shoulders and tried to shake her out of it. “Wake up! Wake up, Princess!” 

“PRINCESS ZERAPHINA!” He screamed. 

Zeraphina Ashlore

“Princess Zeraphina!” A voice called her.

 Zera realized she was dreaming as the voice rang in her ears. She latched on to the familiarity of the voice and tried to escape.

 “It’s just a dream. It’s just a nightmare.” She reminded herself. 

A pair of baby blue eyes stared back at her as she ripped her eyes open. Zera realized they belonged to the boy who had accompanied her in the forest— Mr.Nameless. 

Many emotions glinted in his eyes. Terror. Pity. Relief.

Relief. It was the same emotion that flooded her mind. Though her body still shook and she felt sweaty, even as she sat on frozen seawater. 

“Are you okay?” Mr.Nameless asked. 

Zeraphina nodded as he helped her stand up. Her feet felt numb. Mr.Nameless stood by her side keeping her steady. 

“What happened? Did you have a nightmare?” The boy asked

“Yes.” Zera let out a soft whimper. 

She could see the concern in Mr.Nameless’s eyes. So she forced a smile, hoping she didn’t look as miserable as she felt.

“I’m fine, Mr.Name—,” 

Two figures, who also seemed to be clad in black, running toward them caught her attention. She couldn’t recognize if they were Ora, Elex, the black-eyed girl, or someone else due to the masks. 

“Do you know where Ora and Elex are?” She asked Mr.Nameless.

“Nope. I was alone when I dropped here after you set the watch to noon.” Talon said. 

“Hello?” The two people came closer. “Is that you, Zeraphina?” 

“Ora?” Zera recognized the girl’s voice. “Elex?”

“Zeraphina! And…is that Mr.Nameless?” Elex asked. 

Mr.Nameless laughed. “Yeah, it’s me, Mr.Nameless.” 

“I’m so glad you guys are alright!” Elex said. 

The corner of Ora’s eyes crinkled like she was smiling. “Me too,” Her smile faded. “Did you see the black-eyed girl?” 

“No,” Zeraphina answered

“I hope she’s okay,” Elex said.

Zera hoped so too. She also hoped the black-eyed girl wasn’t having a nightmare like hers.

“Is no one gonna acknowledge how we ended up here?” Ora was the first to ask.

“Well, it was weird—,” Mr.Nameless started.

“Major understatement.” Zeraphina cut him off. 

“I agree,” Elex nodded. “Everything blurred after you winded the watch. I was floating and spinning. And then I landed on this icy cold floor.”

 “And he dreamt about roaming around in some Everkethian forest.” Endora completed. “I dreamt of being stuck in a cave. At first, it was dark and then I heard a voice. All of a sudden there was light everywhere, I was floating in it and then Elex rudely bumped into me.” 

“Did you guys have dreams too?” Elex asked Mr.Nameless and Zera

“Yeah. I thought I was back at home, safely for I-don’t-know-how-long. And then I realized how not-so-safe I was.” Mr.Nameless answered.

“Did you have a dream too?” Ora asked Zera.

Zera tapped her feet. “Yeah,” The others waited for her to explain more. She didn’t. 

Mr.Namelss glanced at her. Zera stared at the floor hoping he wouldn’t tell them about her total freak-out. He didn’t. For which, she was very grateful. She didn’t want more people to think she was a crybaby.

 She did not want anyone to know her fears. 

“Congratulations!” A voice said from behind them, saving Zera from having to think of a topic change, “You have passed the test.”