3 The Castle Ruins

At this time, Mia was drifted across the unknown space at a speed much faster than any she had ever experienced before.

As though that wasn't scary enough, her sideward drifting had to go in random directions, rather than simply following a straight pathway. She'll sometime drift upwards and then suddenly downwards — the opposite had also happened to her. At times she'll be zigzagging around, and others, she'll be going in a circular motion following an irregular pathway.

The high-speed random drifting had caused her screams to be choked up in her throat unable to get out for even a second. Her eyes were closed out of fear, and tears had been flooding out non-stop the whole time.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I won't roll my eyes at you ever again." Just then, as if whatever unknown force that had been controlling the movement in the unknown space had heard her plead, Mia was pulled into a sudden stop.

When Mia sensed that the frightening drifting had finally ended, with her body still shaking from the experience, she slowly opened her trembling eyelids and saw that there was a white circle right in front of her.

Strangely enough, other than that sole white circle, there were no other white circles around in that particular part of the unknown space — wherever it was that she had been forcefully dragged to.

Unsure of what else she was supposed to do, Mia turned to observe the white circle right in front of her.

One eye-catching difference about the white circle was that floating in mid-air next to it was an old clock — an ancient schoolhouse regulator style pendulum clock. So far, all the white circles that she had drifted towards to and those that she had merely glanced at, had a rather modern-looking and polished clock beside them. The schoolhouse, however, was really dusty and rustic-looking. Some cobwebs had covered some part of the clock, especially inside the pendulum box — longed formed by spiders that had come from who knew where.

Inspecting the clock closely, she noticed that unsurprisingly its hands were no longer moving — both of them had stopped at the number 12. Interestingly enough, though the clock was clearly dead, its pendulum was still swinging...

Left to right-

Right to left-

Repeatedly.

Unbeknownst to Mia, she had become completely entranced to the movement of the clock's swinging pendulum.

Left to right-

Right to-

Suddenly, Mia's trance-like focus was abruptly interrupted by the whispering voices coming from inside the white circle.

The whispering voices were speaking in a strange language that Mia had never heard or even read before. Despite that, she had an inexplicable sense of familiarity with that language.

'She came back,' they seemed to whisper — whomever the voices belonged to.

On Mia's side, albeit not understanding a single thing what those voices were whispering about, she came closer towards the white circle.

'The sovereignty of the Night, the destroyer of Daylight,' the whispering continued.

At this time, Mia had turned her head sideways towards the white circle to make herself hear more clearly the language the voices were whispering with.

'Let us come home, My Lady,' they beckoned to the oblivious Mia.

By then, Mia had given up in trying to understand the strange language. Instead, she decided to peek through for the scenes inside the white circle.

'Let us!...' The voices urged loudly together.

Just then, rather than seeing flashes of many awe-aspiring scenes like before, Mia found herself being spirited away into the [World] inside the white circle.

******

The first thing Mia saw after suddenly being spirited away was the soil on the ground — instead of the usually empty space that she had gotten used to by now. The only thing was that the ground was a few miles from where she was floating in mid-air face-first looking down below her.

Startled by her current position, Mia quickly adjusted it. She easily got her feet situated below her by simply swinging her body back a little, assisted with her hands backpedaling at her side.

After getting used to the stilled position in the unknown space, Mia was completely unaccustomed to her current wobbled floating in mid-air condition. The only good thing about her current condition was that she could freely move around in the air by simply flapping her arms like a bird and angling her body towards the direction she wanted to go — but moving too freely has its own repercussions.

Several times, Mia's floating-flying got her too off the mark from where she intended to go and she ended up somewhere unfamiliar. Moreover, her wrong flapping motion and angling of body could also cause disastrous events to unfold — such as spiraling around in the air continuously or accidentally head-diving into the ground. However, luckily enough, Mia hadn't actually materialized in that [World] — her presence was more like those of a ghost or a spirit — as she had realized from her 'few' accidents.

As she was still adjusting herself being in the air, she soon came across signs of a castle ruin on the ground. As an archaeologist student, Mia immediately felt attracted to it. She excitedly changed her direction and flapped her wings- (I mean) hands towards the ruins to have a closer look at it.

Just like any other longed abandoned structures, the ruins have a rather dark and lonely feeling about it.

Flying across the former majestic castle grounds now full of its own remains, an eerie feeling started to form in Mia's heart at what she saw.

Even after all the ruins that Mia had first-handly saw with her own eyes, or even seen from the history books, this was the first time she had seen such a devastating-looking castle ruin.

After a few more twists and turns of seeing the same destructions, Mia flew back upwards enough to have an overall look of the ruins below and she immediately noticed something frightening.

There were a few giant circular scorched marks all over the castle grounds. It was as if the castle had been hit by several giant explosions which blasted everything to smithereens. There was nothing left of the castle except the half-ruined castle keep — even there the broken part of the castle wall seemed to be too purposeful. For through that broken wall Mia could see the throne room. Except for the destructions caused by age itself, the throne room was otherwise left unscathed — as if it was meant to be a mocking symbol for the fallen Lord of the Castle.

Drawn towards the only structure remained of the former castle, Mia flew towards the castle keep and straight towards the broken wall of the throne room.

"Just as I thought, everything still remains intact. Whoever they were that had destroyed this castle had done it with hearts full of hatred," Mia shuddered at what could have been the caused for this much anger. "However..."

Standing by the 'entrance' and over-looking the entirety of the throne room, Mia frowned when she noticed something unexpected.

After scanning the aging room for any signs of it having a chance to suddenly collapsed, she decided it was quite safe for her to be inside for a moment.

Mia then walked cautiously towards the throne. Unlike any other lavishly decorated and mostly metal royal seat, this throne was made of obsidian. The throne was decorated with the phases of moon and stars — simple and elegant. Yet, as Mia touched the armchair — for right now, though it had completely left Mia's mind, she strangely could touch the things in this throne room — she could imagine the might and absolute strength of the former owner of this throne.

"For someone like this to have had his castle destroyed to bits like this..." Mia shook her head solemnly. The seat of power will always bring unexpected enemies — and most of the time than not, the enemies were someone really close.

For back then, despite the destructions and mocking gesture, Mia had noticed how clean and tidy the throne room was — especially the area around the throne.

Now that she was viewing the area up close, Mia became surer of her suspicions. "Despite all they had done, the perpetrators seemed to have respect for the owner of this castle," concluded Mia.

Though the royal emblem had been shredded off, the two tapestries still hung neatly on the wall behind the throne with its worn-out red color. The throne itself, other than the cobwebs and dust that had accumulated over the years, still held strong — even the floor of the throne room had some bits and pieces of the destroyed wall. Moreover, settled carefully on the throne was the most beautiful diamond tiara she had ever seen.

"Wait... A tiara? It wasn't a Lord, but a Lady — a Queen?" Mia picked up the tiara gently from the throne and brought it to eye level. Similar to the obsidian throne, this tiara was also decorated with moons and stars.

"This tiara is really lovely-" Just when that thought crossed her mind, her eyesight turned blurry for a moment. Mia blinked her eyes a few times, trying to get her vision to focus once again.

However, once she could see clearly again, the view in front of her felt weird and unreal. Mia lifted her right hand then to brush off the discomfort from her eyes, but half-way through the action she suddenly stopped. It turned out that though she had clearly lifted up her right hand, her eyes didn't seem to register the motion. Currently, through her vision, both of her arms were still holding onto the tiara.

Then, the stilled hands suddenly moved, turning around the tiara in her hands in a relaxed motion. This situation completely shocked and frightened Mia. For despite what her vision was currently showing her, Mia clearly still had her left hand holding onto the tiara and her right hanging half-way in the air.

Mia moved her hands some more in front of her eyes, but no matter what, her vision still registered a different motion than the one she actually did.

Just then her view changed drastically — rather than the hands that were holding the tiara — it showed the throne room, but it was different. This throne room looked polished and clean — really clean. There was no indication of the ruined castle that it truly was right now.

Mia finally realized what exactly was happening to her vision. She was actually seeing through someone else's eyes — most possibly the Queen of the ruined castle. Now that she truly looked at the hands that had once again occupied her vision, it was different than hers. These hands were pristine and pale in color — it was as if the owner had kept herself away from daylight for a very long time, and based on the closed curtains covering all the windows, she might have truly done just that.

Suddenly, her view changed again as the Queen whipped her head towards the opposite direction from the throne — towards the tall double doors to the throne room. Both of the doors were opened instantly to reveal a burly man dragging someone who could've been a Lord — based on how luxurious he was dressed.

The Lord was struggling hard against the burly man's iron grip — who didn't as much as faltered in motion — as he continued to half-drag and half-lift the Lord towards the Queen.

Literally throwing the Lord at the Queen's feet, the burly man harshly grabbed onto the Lord's shoulders as he held the man on the spot.

Through her vision, Mia could only see what the Queen's saw, but not hear what she heard. So, when the Lord began his mute shout as he continued to struggle against the burly man's hold, Mia could only guess — based on his red face and angry expression — that they were cursed words thrown at the Queen.

After a while, something horrendous happened. With one swiping motion of her right hand, the Queen had torn opened the Lord's neck. Mia didn't see what weapon the Queen had used, but below the Lord's chin — on his throat — was now a shredded gaping hole. Through it, she could clearly see that where the Lord's trachea should have been exposed was now an empty space and blood was flooding out non-stop.

At that horrible sight, Mia loosened her grip around the tiara and started vomiting on the floor in front of her. At the instant that diamond tiara left Mia's hands, her own eyesight returned.

Stroking down her chest to calm herself down, Mia turned to look frighteningly at the tiara that had bounced off a few steps away from the throne.

"If that was truly the owner of that tiara, I'm not surprised that her castle was ruined this horribly," thought Mia as she condemned that demon-like Queen.

After the visions she saw, Mia's interests regarding the history behind the castle ruins diminished greatly. More than anything she just wanted to get out of this surely blood-smeared throne room. However, before she could leave, she turned to look at the tiara on the floor gloomily and mumbled, "I really don't want to go near that tiara again, but more than that I don't want to accidentally enrage any ghosts out here, so let's just put it back and leave."

Just as she about to picked up the tiara, Mia suddenly felt a strong force attacking her.

The force pushed her out of the [World] of the white circle and back into the unknown space.

However, the strong force wasn't done with her just yet. Before Mia could fully comprehend what had happened to her, she found herself being pulled into another high speed drifting across the unknown space. At the very least, this time, the drifting was indeed following a straight pathway.