“Okay, now THAT is so not funny. A year, seriously? Don’t joke around like that!”

An eerie silence ensued for a couple of seconds before the grin reappeared on my teacher’s face, followed by laughter. Soon, I started awkwardly laughing as well.

“Ah, Cindy… what a joy you are. You can’t deny that you were fooled for a second.”

“I wasn’t...!” I abruptly paused. “Okay maybe I was, but you looked way too serious there.”

However, the second wave of silence that overtook the room was not reassuring.

“So you really weren’t, like, stuck here for a year or something, right?” I fiddle with my fingers, watching as the smile never left her face. “…Mrs. Juniper? It’s been only a few weeks max, right? You aren’t just playing with me?”

“Hmm, am I?”

Fuck. I forgot how unserious she was at times.

I held the wall next to me for support. Maybe I should’ve taken a few minutes to process this again, but I found that either I was becoming accustomed to the bizarre events or I was too drained of energy to care. It was probably the latter.

“Alright… alright so time is different here than home. Got it,” I brushed it off as quickly as I had learnt it and looked back up. “Anything else?” Seeing the contemplating expression that formed on her face, I quickly corrected myself. “Anything else that is important to know, at least? And by important, I mean ‘unordinary things that would never make sense back in our world’ stuff?”

“Cindy, you look like you’ll collapse on me any moment.”

She let out a soft sigh, getting close enough to place a hesitant hand on my shoulder. “I have an idea. Let’s first get you somewhere where you can wash up and relax. I’m sure you’re dying to eat too.”

I cringe, realizing how bad I must look—let alone smell—to her right now. As if my earlier behaviour wasn’t embarrassing enough.

“Yeah, let’s do that. I’m starving anyways,” I add, the aching of my stomach becoming more apparent.

Without further ado, we left her office. I followed her to what I assumed was the private lounge for the employees, as it was located farther away from the active areas of the building that only a few differently dressed guards passed.

It was a bit nicer than I had imagined actually; just like before, the room had a fantastical aesthetic to it and a smoothie blend of older periods. If I was any good at history, I would’ve tried to pinpoint the time range—But I wasn’t, so I could only say for certain that it had elements from the Victorian era.

Either way, it was useless whether I was a historian or not because everything else existed out of the imaginary.

Thankfully, the lounge was empty when we walked in, so I didn’t have to deal with the unwelcoming stares I got earlier in the halls. I felt my curiosity spike again upon entering as I glanced at the floral paintings and the few antique objects scattered around the shelves and tables. But alas, I had to answer nature’s call before I could continue my optical exploration. And I’ll be damn if I let the first clean washroom I encounter in this world go to waste.

Needless to say, clean clothes and warm food can, in fact, make a difference in a person’s mood. I cuffed the sleeves of my dress shirt and brought my focus to the meal placed in front of me, my hunger greater than the guy who thought he could eat a horse.

I mentally laughed at my own joke. Maybe I really was going crazy.

My chirpy mood did not last long; Mrs. Juniper stares as I ate was making me anxious. Despite my unfinished plate, I pushed it away, signalling that I was ready to move on. I knew this was going to last us a while, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t the least desperate to hear what else she can tell me.

“I’m guessing we’ll be stuck here for a while, huh?” I start after wiping my mouth with a napkin. Her face lit up and she fixed her posture on the chair.

“Talking? Yes, but not here. What do you think of taking a walk with me?” she grinned, looking like she already expected me to agree.

I wasn’t a fan of walking in new places, but I did not refuse the prospect of leaving the stuffy room and finally getting some fresh air. Especially after knowing that I had to return to another confinement, namely ‘my house’, and endure an encounter with Raphael’s father.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

“Let’s go.”

***

“So to get this straight, you went to sleep one day and… woke up here? Just like that?”

Would it be rude if I said I was jealous?

“I don’t believe I ate or drank anything different that day,” she added with a chuckle. I continued to trail behind her as we walked down the cobblestone sidewalk of the capital.

The streets were quiet and bare with not many people outside; I assumed that it had to do with the weather, as it was noticeably getting chilly. Although unsure if the dates even matched up with our world, it seemed like it was also a late April with how soft warmth followed the wind, only to disappear seconds later.

I tucked my hands in the pockets of the thin trench coat I borrowed, fooled by the weather again.

“And you, Cindy?”

I abruptly stop, knowing what she was asking. Damn, how was I going to tell her?

Before she could turn around and catch me hesitating, I pushed my legs forward again, quickening my pace to fill the gap between us. I thought of explaining the whole situation to her but decided against it.

My assumption of the weather getting colder was right; as I peered to the side, I caught the waves of the shore nearby. The wind would pick up, only to stop and enunciate the sounds of water roughly hitting rocks, but it was welcome.

It did not take long to reach the wooden dock facing the lake. I snapped out of my thoughts and finally responded. “I got hit by a truck,” I kick a pebble, watching as it rolled off the platform and fell right into the water.

“The news was that shocking?”

I had to take a few seconds to understand what she meant. “Uh no, I mean that literally. I did get hit by an actual truck. Like, I was just walking on the sidewalk and it just…whoosh, bam! You know? Haha…” I trailed off, unsure when it was appropriate to stop talking. Should I have described my death that way?

Yeah, maybe it was time to shut up.

Another moment of silence followed before the words seemed to register in her head. She opened her mouth slightly and then closed it.

“Oh... oh wow. I’m sorry.” I was thankful for the minimal response. I walked up to the edge so that we were looking out towards the rippled blues side by side.

“So are you…?”

I replied quickly, already knowing the question that followed next. “I’m not dead. Just passed out in the meantime,” I lied.

If we were alone, I might’ve told her the truth. But it was likely that the eyeballs were still following me, and our earlier conversation had already revealed much more than I’d have liked.

I didn’t know if she believed me, but it took her longer this time to reply.

“Cindy,” for the first time, I sensed the hesitation in her voice before she continued. “It must’ve been difficult, yeah? I mean, getting into that accident and then ending up in an unfamiliar world… and as a convict no less. It’s a wonder that you’ve held up back there.”

‘I probably wouldn’t have, if it weren’t for the eyeballs,’ I wanted to add, but I kept that to myself.

“Yeah, it was.” It was the only response I could manage, my voice wavering at the end.

It helped to be outside after eating, so it didn’t take long for me to collect my thoughts again and tell her what I truly needed to say. “Mrs. Juniper, I thought I was dreaming for a while, that maybe I’ll suddenly wake up and it’ll be a Monday morning and I’d hear my mom yelling at me that I’ll be late and then I would catch up to the bus and text my friends complaining about how much I want to skip and—“ I exhaled sharply, realizing I was rambling. “That… it—it never happened I guess. But now that you’re here, we can at least work together to figure a way out.”

“It’s impossible.”

My eyes snapped over to her, more so shocked by the curt answer.

“There’s no way out, I’ve tried. It’s like going back in time than simply just travelling to a new country, rather,” she continued, her facial expression unreadable.

“But…True, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Like—wait, if we could travel here instantly and live normally without any sort of restrictions, then there has to be a way to go back!”

“And how could you be so sure?” she turned to face me. “Cindy, you’ve been here for only a week, you don’t understand,” she spoke in a way that may have appeared condescending to others, but I knew that she didn’t mean it that way. Still, the disappointment must’ve been evident on my face as I could see her stop herself from adding onto the grim situation.

“Listen, I,” she hesitated again before abruptly stopping herself. I frowned as the silence continued, but as I glanced at her from the side, she had her face turned to ocean, refusing to meet my eyes. “While I was doing some research a few months back, I stumbled across this artifact of some sorts, rumored to possess energy unusual for a stationary object—oh wait, you probably don’t know this, but you have magical abilities—”

“I know,” I interrupted before quickly elaborating as I saw her surprised expression. “I-I don’t know how to use it of course, but I heard all about it from the... guards.”

“Right. Well, we can discuss the details of that later, but going back—the artifact I’ve been reading about resembles a disc. I’ll spare you the details but essentially the history is complicated due to its unique ability to grant the holder power to travel dimensions. Allegedly.”

Judging by the uncomfortable tone in her voice, I thought that she would stop talking. But after growing quiet for a bit, it seemed like she had sorted out her thoughts.

She stared at the shaky waves of the lake as she continued. “As you know, even the strongest mana users here are incapable of time-travelling or attempting practices that alter the course of the world and its time, even the higher beings,” she paused, as if she had mentioned something forbidden but didn’t linger on the last comment. “I can’t say for certain that this will work, but what makes me confident that it has a link to ‘our’ world despite countless other possibilities I’ve considered in the past is the fact that the disc is capable of restoring souls to their original owners.”

I froze. “You mean…!”

“We’re foreigners to this world, Cindy.”

She turned her attention back to me. “I know that any entity in control of this world will recognize our souls of those that do not belong here. And so would it be wrong to assume that this device—a mistake that was never meant to fall in the hands of humans—can be our key?”

***