"A LOVABLE BULLY"

*****

Lo and behold! An actual kitchen. She immediately recognized the utensils hanging on the wall, the stove, the furnace, and the fridge.

The first thing she approached was the table near her right. Thankfully, it was quite low, just above her collarbone. And this was enough to allow her to see the piece of paper sitting atop the clean kitchen table.

Picking it up showed that whatever was written on it was addressed to her.

"Dear Milya," was what was written at the top.

And that was all that the girl, Milya, could read. On that page, at least. Because beyond the first two paragraphs that she couldn't read, turning the paper around proved to be useful, allowing her to read at least a part of whatever was written in this letter.

The same moment she read and understood the words, the sentences, that name, written on this small, irrelevant, and insignificant piece of paper, her fingertips almost dug into it with how tightly her grip became, crumpling the paper.

"Right now, you probably wouldn't be able to read any of what's written here except the opening and this paragraph, and I prefer it that way."

Visions, her mind was flooded with some of the happiest moments of her life a decade ago, no matter how short they might have been. Visions that—memories that she held closest to her heart—she cherished the most.

"The world has turned into a place I wouldn't want you to see, this is not the world I promised to show you."

A kind smile, shining down upon her skin like the gentle rays of the setting sun filtered through her windows.

"I really, truly wanted to see you—talk to you—one more time after ridding you of that illness and sending you off, but circumstances just wouldn't allow for it."

A gentle hand, one she so desperately wanted to hold without the thin rubber on the way. That hand, that warmth she had never felt before, and so desperately craved.

"I wanted to tell you about everything, show you everything, experience everything with you. Unfortunately, now is a bad time. The world will soon be suffering through a great amount of turmoil and chaos."

"Y-you… you're a bully…" Milya didn't care what was written, not at the moment, cannot at the moment.

"And with how unique you are, I'm certain you would be in the middle of it all."

"You come into my life, turn it around…" Tears fall on the surface of the paper, soaking into it and dampening the written words. "Make me feel not alone for once…"

"And I didn't want you to live a life of danger, not when I can do something about it."

"…and then disappear completely, leaving me all alone and feeling miserable…" Heavy sobs, one coming from the deepest corner of her heart, bringing along a barely hidden, unwanted grudge.

"Although you'll probably hate me for this, I didn't want to keep you hidden from the rest of the world and further isolate you."

"…right when I needed you most…" Heavy sobs, one coming from the deepest corner of her heart, bringing along a loudly pronounced, desperate longing.

"So I thought, why not just transfer you to another one, to another world? Not my brightest idea, I know."

"You're just a bully…" A whispered lie, one even she doesn't—wouldn't—believe in.

"But in that world, you would be safe. Or at least, safer than here."

"…so stop making me feel so relieved…" A whispered truth, one coming from the very bottom of her heart, one she wholeheartedly believes in.

"Although it saddens me that I won't be able to join you, I'm needed here. Even so, I want you to experience living your life in that beautiful world, even without me or anyone else you love."

"…so happy…" That she wasn't abandoned, that she wasn't forgotten, that she is still loved by the person she loves the most.

"I'll join you eventually, when things here calm down and I get some free time, maybe a vacation, to spend. Or maybe I'll take too long and you'll return here and join me in fixing this world instead, who knows. But if it's you, it's a high possibility."

"…you can't just disappear…" A bright smile, one reflecting the joy jumping within her heart, bringing back life to her dead eyes, to her mind that has already succumbed to an inevitability. "…and come back to turn my world one more time…"

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"You're a brave girl like that, after all. But until then, I want you to live the best of your life. Learn about others, make connections, meet friends. I want you to overcome your loneliness, and be happy."

"I already am, because of you…" She mumbled with a giggle accompanying her soft sobs. "…but that's not what you mean, right?"

"And if in the future you're still unable to do it, then I'll be with you by then. I'll blow away your loneliness. I'll show you what it's like to be happy, like how you've shown me."

"Me? Making you happy?" The girl softly giggled in amusement, wiping away her tears. "I can't see it, but I'm glad it wasn't one-sided."

"Until then, before we meet again, I want you to just enjoy life and my home world. I promise it will be a great journey for you. Remember to always stay safe and out of trouble, alright? That's all for now."

"Your best childhood friend, Avis…" She finishes off, staring at the slightly crumpled letter. "You are literally the only friend I ever made outside of my family, so I don't know about the 'best' part…"

The girl looked upward and fell on her back, not paying attention to the slight throbbing the impact caused. She stared at the ceiling and contemplated what her best friend had informed her.

"So I'm in another world, huh?" She thought to herself. "Somehow, I'm not even surprised."

"But how Avis did it…" The girl smiled and sat up, fondly looking down at the letter in her hand. "…is not important right now."

She slowly stood up before looking around the room with adoration. "Could this be your house? I know I'm inexperienced, but I'll do my best to take care of it."

"You want me to enjoy life, enjoy this world, and improve myself?" The girl smiles softly as she returns the letter to the table. "Then I'll be the best version of myself to the point that you won't recognize if I'm truly the girl you knew."

The girl leaves the kitchen and returns to the living room. Right under the staircase leading to the second floor was another room whose door she failed to notice earlier.

Curious, she approached and opened it. It was just a bathroom, a little spacious, clean, and properly tiled, but otherwise just an unremarkable bathroom. On the other end was a toilet bowl. Now that she thinks about it, she hasn't used one of those for the last decade, has she?

The girl looks at the toilet bowl in slight apprehension. She closed the door and turned around, deciding not to think about it at the moment since she didn't need to go yet anyway.

The girl stares at the room in silence for a solid minute before a thought pops into her mind. "What am I supposed to do now?"

With nothing to do in mind, the girl decides to return upstairs and explore the two remaining rooms that she saw. On the way upstairs, she couldn't help but notice how beautifully aesthetic this house was. Plenty of decoration that felt neither lacking nor overwhelming.

Back in the hallway between the rooms on the second floor, the girl ponders which room to enter first. With not much of a thought, she chose the nearest room, the room whose door was parallel to the one she woke up in. With q quick turn of the handle, the door swung open.

Inside was quite a spectacular library. Shelves reaching the ceiling covered each wall, with the exception of the wall with the door. All are packed with neatly organized books of varying sizes and thicknesses. The room had no windows, the only source of illumination was the circular chandelier that held five lanterns. Right under it was a circular table, a comfortable-looking sofa, and a drawer all sitting atop the soft carpet.

"Ah, Avis' favorite pastime is reading books, wasn't it…?" She mumbled, walking into the room and scanning the shelves for anything that she could understand.

Each column of the shelves was labeled with a word she couldn't understand. In total, there might have been 18 labeled columns while two remained unlabeled. Surprisingly, it was those two last shelves that had books that she could read. Taking one out, she flipped through the pages, curious to know what kind of books her best friend loved to read.

"It's… about magic?" There were things and terms that she didn't know or couldn't understand, but she was sure the book was talking something about magic and flow and stuff. "The title did say it is about magic circles for beginners…"

Confused, she returned it and took out another one. This time, it is a book about herbs and flora that she didn't know. Not that she knew much about them anyway.

"Maybe these were randomly placed here since none of them belonged to the other shelves?" With a confused frown, she returned the book to where it was, not sure if she was interested or not.

Her curiosity now sated, she left the room and approached the last one, the one at the end of the hallway. She raised her hand and reached for the unusually high door handle. "Why are the handles in this house so high up? It's not short people friendly."

Her fingers wrapped around the handle. Right when she started pulling downwards, her hand suddenly felt empty and the door handle phased through her hand.

"Eh?" The girl dumbfoundedly stared at the door handle before taking a few steps back, scared.

"Ghost door handle!?" She exclaimed both in fear and astonishment.

"Wait, no. Those can't be real, but then again…" Her thoughts trailed off as she took more steps back.

"…I am in another world, right?" She mumbled in disbelief.

A shiver runs down her spine when she is reminded of the scary stories her mother told her when she was still living with them a decade and a half ago. Afraid, she turns around and entered the only bedroom of the house, now feeling safe.

"Wait, what am I doing? Even if ghosts were real, there's no way a door handle ghost exists, right!?" She thought as slides down against the door and onto the floor.

"But what if the ghost possessed the handle…?" An absurd thought, but one that is somehow plausible to her. "But if it did, shouldn't I still be able to touch it?"

"No no no, why am I thinking of ghosts as the only possibility here, it's another world." Finally, a proper thought process. "That one book was talking about magic, wasn't it? Maybe it's just that? Maybe magic is real in this world?"

The thought drove the topic of the ghost and her fear of it immediately out of her mind, replaced with excitement. "Maybe that's what Avis used to make me healthy? I need to learn that stuff!"

The girl stood up and bolted out of the bedroom, practically kicking the door on the other side of the hallway open. She returned to the corner where the books she could read were, taking out the one she first read. The issue of the phantom handle now buried six feet under the ground by her growing excitement as she reads the book.

Head buried in the thick book, she clumsily made her way to the sofa and dropped the book onto the table before taking a seat, leaning forward and focusing on each word that was written in the book.

*****