2 The Scenes Within The White Circles

When Mia came to, she found herself floating in the air.

Only that she couldn't actually call it 'air' as there was no ground beneath her, and no sky existed above either.

Rather than 'air', it might be best to call it a 'space' — an unknown space.

This greatly surprised and frighten her. However, she tried holding down that fear. Mia began to look around carefully, trying to make sense of what had happened to her.

The first thing that she managed to take note was that there white circles floating around in this space. The size of the circles was approximately the same — which was the size of a small window.

Next to them were clocks of different shapes and sizes. Each of this clocks' face has similar symbols to the one seen on the golden circle that had pulled Mia into this unknown space — instead of the usual twelve numbers which represented the time.

Looking closely at the floated white circles, Mia could just barely glimpsed something flashed across inside them. Her thoughts were filled with curiosity as to what can be seen in those circles.

She tried to get closer to one of those white circles. However, she found herself unable to move even an inch from the spot where she had been, since the time she first came to.

She tried all sorts of things — flailing, kicking, pushing, and even pulling around randomly in the air — and still, she remained at the same spot.

As she gave up on the idea of trying to move, she thoughtlessly turned to look at the white circle closest to herself — it was a few feet away above her.

She simply looked at it without thinking much of anything, other than how much she wished the scene in front of her right now to disappear, and instead be replaced with a familiar scene — a reality which she could comprehend instead of this unknown space.

Mia wished that she was home.

Just as that thought flashed through her mind, she found that herself drifting slowly upwards and towards that particular white circle that she had been staring at.

Mia was startled by this sudden unintended and uncontrollable movement. However, just as she reached in front of that white circle, all thoughts soon disappeared from her mind and replaced with the feeling of complete awe at what she saw inside that circle.

Through that white circle was flashes of unbelievable scenes.

At first, it had only shown a galaxy — with its sun and planets. However, the thing was that, unlike the Milky Way, the sun was purple instead of the yellow-red-orange color, that Mia was familiar with. The number of planets also differed, this galaxy only has four planets orbiting the sun. Even these planets were different than any of the planets that she was familiar with.

After that, the next few scenes were those of what Mia guessed were starships. These starships were very different than any that had been portrayed in movies. They were much slicker and more advanced-looking.

The scene then changed again. This time showing flying robots, or rather mechas based on the appearance of what must have been the pilots' cockpits. They were all engaged in tough battles. Mechas were fighting other mechas while trying to avoid getting hit by the beams coming from the battleships assisting their men in battle. This was actually a war zone scene.

Only a few seconds had passed, but the scene had become too bloody for Mia to continue looking at it. She then decided to turn away from that particular white circle. Once again her sight came back to the unknown space filled with the white circles.

Having seen what was inside of one of those white circles, she came to the conclusion that there must be other surprising things, that could be viewed from inside the other white circles as well.

As Mia thoughts began to fill with curiosity, she soon forgot about the fact that she was currently stuck in an unknown place, with unknown consequences if she continued to remain there.

With no precautionary thoughts left in her mind, she turned towards the two white circles in front of her. The white circle on the right was flashing lights of blue and green, while the left one was projecting multiple hues of yellow.

Mia decided that she wanted to see what was inside the right circle first. However, once again she found out that she was unable to move an inch from the spot where she had drifted to just now — which was right in front of the white circle that viewed the galaxy scene.

"Hmph... How did I get here just now?" Mia began to think to herself.

She began to think back to moment when she had started to drift towards the white circle that she had absentmindedly gazed at. "Ah, right! Home! I was thinking about how much I wanted to be home."

So, without wasting any time, she excitedly with a heart full of hope, did just that — Mia stared at the white circle in front of her and thought about home. However, disappointingly nothing happened.

Mia blinked her eyes her few times in silent confusion. "Did I do something wrong? I'm sure that was exactly, how it was done just now?" She began to think for a while, but she really didn't know what was missing.

Suddenly, she snapped her fingers as she thought of something.

Mia once again turned towards the white circle in front of her. This time, instead of doing it nonchalantly, she thought desperately about how much she wanted to be home. Then-

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Nothing.

Again, nothing whatsoever had happened.

Mia expectation ended up with another disappointment.

A minute had been wasted with her staring at the white circle desperately just now. Half of the desperation was actually her true feelings.

Despite that, Mia still wasn't ready to give up. Not just yet.

She faced the white circle in front of her again. This time, instead of the right circle, she turned towards the white circle on the left. Once again, she wished she was home desperately.

Still, there was nothing.

Mia then decided to change her methods.

Rather than simply looked at either one of the white circles, she gazed at them fiercely.

When that also turned out to be futile, she tried something new — again.

Merely glancing at them, she thought about approaching either one jokingly.

Still, nothing.

Not ready to throw in the towel yet, she tried something else.

Shouting.

Nothing.

Crying.

Nothing.

Begging.

Nothing.

Singing.

Nothing.

Thus, Mia onslaught of different methods to approach the two white circles in front of her lasted for a while.

Some were more unique than the others — ones she was grateful that no one was around to see them — and ones she will gladly bring along to her grave.

Then, she tried the other white circles as well — both closest and further away from her. She even tried her previous actions of flailing around everywhere — still, nothing had worked.

In spite of doing everything she could think of, Mia was still stuck in the same spot in that unknown space.

With feelings full of disappointment and frustration at this unexpected situation, she began to shout flinging her fury and staring at nothing in particular in front of her. "Fine! This is stupid anyway! I might as well just stay stuck here for the rest of my life."

Then, unexpectedly something happened this time — Mia began to drift forward at high speed causing a surprise shout to escape her mouth, "Woah!" Her current speed was so unlike the slow drifting that she had the first time she had managed to move from her spot at the beginning.

She continued to drift forward with that speed to somewhere unknown.

As it turned out, the place where she had stared at aimlessly just now, had a white circle located at a distance further back from where she had been.

After what felt like miles, Mia stopped right in front of a white circle.

Strangely, she could feel wind blowing and smelt what seemed to be fresh air coming from the circle. However, the fresh air was even fresher than the freshest mountain air that she had ever breathed in.

Feelings of curiosity now replaced Mia's frustration. Before she started pondering on how she had managed to get there, she decided to first peek through the white circle in front of her. Once again, she turned awed at what she saw.

The scenes inside this white circle were of the wide-open blue sky. However, instead of the familiar aircraft, flying through the sky were many types of airships. The sky was full of them. Surprisingly, each of them seemed to be flying according to systematic routes — similar like the ones airplanes have to avoid disastrous collisions. Each of these airships was occupied with numbers of passengers on board of a gondola. Based on the scenes that Mia saw, these airships seemed to be a common transportation for these people. They were riding it to go everywhere. For shorter distances, the airships will be smaller in size — with smaller envelopes and gondolas. For very long distances, the gondolas will be larger or increase to two or three in number per airship.

Now that her curiosity had been fulfilled by what she saw from her second white circle, Mia once again turned around towards the direction where she had come from.

Dipping her head in silent contemplation, she began to ponder how she had managed to move from her previous spot again. Interestingly enough, both movements had been unintentional on her part.

"Hmph... What exactly had happened? All I know was that-" Mia raised her head. Her eyes were shining bright with realization.

Without any particular reason, she sighed. Mia then thought back to those rich color of blues and greens from a certain white circle. She crossed her arms to her chest in an expression of frustration and said with a tone full of complaints, "I don't even want to think about being there. There wasn't anything interesting enough to be seen."

And then, something surprising happened.

No matter what she had done previously, Mia was unable to move from her spot no matter what. However right now, just by complaining a bit, she had not only managed to move but also drifted back to one of the two white circles she has had an eye on before.

"You've got to be kidding me, right?" grumbled Mia with disbelieve when her suspicions turned out to be correct. It turned out that whatever controlled the movement in this unknown space, it won't let you move when you desired to. However, when you didn't want to, it'll let you move.

"Are you a tsundere or something?" she asked no one in particular. However just then, at the moment when she had asked that question, she felt that the unknown space had actually winked at her in a playful manner.

Shocked, she thought quietly in her mind, "I definitely had imagined that... Yep, definitely."

Ignoring the chilly feeling that had formed in her heart, Mia turned towards to look inside the white circle in front of her.

Just like before, the scenes that flashed across were as awe-inspiring.

This time she saw scenes from the deep sea. As expected, there were a lot of familiar sea creatures swimming around in the water. However, as the scenes changed into those at a deeper depth, most of the sea creatures there were those that she had never seen before. Those that she managed to recognize were those that were supposed to exist in legends and stories only. Nevertheless, the most jaw-dropping scenes were that of what lay on the seafloor itself.

"Is that what I think it is?" Mia's face had turned into a complete shock. Her eyes were literally bulging at what she saw.

On the seafloor was an ancient kingdom surrounded by a large bubble-like structure. This structure seemed to be some sort of protection from the dangerous creatures that was prowling around. It also kept the water out of the kingdom, for it seemed that its citizens were just like any other ordinary human who required oxygen to breathe — instead of beings like the mythical merfolk. This was of course if you were to ignore their mostly silver hairs and piercing ocean blue eyes. Their stature was also unnaturally bigger and they have extraordinary strength.

"Look at that bulging muscl-" Mia began to think, but then stopped as she realized how inappropriate her thoughts were.

"Cough, cough. I think I had enough of these deep-sea scenes already."

She then turned towards the white circle projecting the yellow hues, and thought, "Please don't make me go there."

Then once again, as expected, Mia drifted towards that particular white circle.

This time, she rolled her eyes in exasperation, before peeking inside the white circle.

Unbeknownst to Mia, her disdainful attitude was about to cause a very scary event to happen soon afterward.

She had just begun to view a few scenes showing deserts and pyramids when she felt a few repeated soft tugs.

At first, she simply ignored it as nothing worth noticing and continued to watch the fascinating scenes unfolding right in front of her eyes.

Just then, the tugs became forceful that she had to turn away from the white circle — especially when it had begun to pull her sideward, moving her a few inches at a time.

Then suddenly, the forceful tugs turned into a full force drifting — pulling Mia across the unknown space.