7 The Other World

Finley Cai Aies Hall March 28th, 20XX

I woke up in a daze and harshly blinked a few times to wake my brain up.

It took me a few more repetitions of opening and closing my eyes before I could keep them open. Where ever I was, it was bright and difficult to adjust to. I sat up on the unstable platform they had put me into and finally took stock of my surroundings.

The first look around refused to stick in my brain as reality, so I had to look around multiple times before I could accept it.

I could best describe the space as a brightly lit garden inside a greenhouse. Disregarding the fact that it was still winter, the plants within the place didn’t look real but were clearly alive. The trees looked like exquisitely carved gold, but still swayed naturally in an invisible wind, and its leaves were made of fine silk that impossibly kept its structure without a single wire.

I got up, intending to walk around the dreamlike landscape, but my body quickly crumbled down to the floor and I recognized that my legs had lost their strength.

A pair of slender but strong arms caught me and propped me back up into the cot.

“Are you feeling better now, Your Highness?”

I jolted away from the supporting arms as I registered the title and shuddered as I remembered the source of the caring voice.

“Your Highness?”

Her high-pitched voice called me again with the same title and sent an ominous shiver down my side. She had used the title earlier, but I had figured it was a part of her overeager audition. Now that she had kidnapped me to wherever I was, it carried a bit more weight.

She circled me again and looked me over as she did so.

“Are you hurt anywhere? I tried to be as gentle as possible transferring you here.”

I pushed her gentle hands away from me and got up on my own, slowly this time, and tried to accept the hallucination like events.

There was no way she was…flying, right?

I closed my eyes once, and then twice, and stared up at the girl that had started this entire acid trip. She looked just the same as before, but the wings I’d already thought looked too realistic, effortlessly pulled her up into the air and she maneuvered around me like she’d been flying her entire life.

“Where am I?”

“This is the center of the Fairy world”

A few words fluctuated and sounded weird to me, but it was understandable, so I didn’t pay it much mind. There were many more things to obsess over than a few unclear words.

She grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of the greenhouse and into what looked like a castle. I tried to resist, but she tightened her ridiculously solid grip to where it would have only hurt more to struggle.

“Where are you taking me!?”

She did not answer and kept moving at the same pace towards our unknown destination. I shook off the annoying feeling of deja vu and focused on looking at my surroundings to find an exit. If I could find my way out of here, then I could call for help and get back to regular life….or well, as regular as my life was.

It was an extravagant castle and as far as I knew, was nothing like anything in the city I lived in. They had probably taken me out to the countryside or out of the country and judging by the gleam of the diamond-gilded walls; it was probably an incredibly wealthy person who had kidnapped me……... maybe a slighted investor of the company?

I tuned back into my current situation when Cambridge stopped in front of a bright emerald and gold door. Despite all of my unanswered questions and comments, I couldn’t help but think how tacky this person who had kidnapped me was.

Even the workers I’d seen had had wings strapped onto the backs of their uniforms, which were way too ridiculously brightly coloured to be for cleaning.

My heart went out to them as I recalled a few of the more ridiculous requests I’d gotten from some jobs in the past.

Even though I was sure Cambridge had not knocked, a pleasantly pitched voice rang out from behind the door.

“Come in!”

There must be security cameras around.

We walked in to see a pretty woman who had colour-coordinated her clothing to the door and the room’s interior, gold and green….mainly green.

“Cai.”

She said my middle name with a complex tone and her smile faltered as she looked me over.

I wondered why she used my middle name to address me but played along for now. It looked like she was in charge around here, so maybe I could negotiate with her.

At this point I had no idea where I was, nor was there any obvious way to escape. Rather than trying and making an absolute fool of myself, I calmed down and heard them out, hoping we could come to an agreement that involved me getting home by the end of the day.

“And you are?”

She gave a calm but slightly displeased smile as she spoke.

“You may call me Esmeralda. I’m sure you’re wondering why we brought you here?”

I nodded, still slightly dazed from the sensory overload coming from the sheer vibrancy of the room’s colour and the fact that she was currently hovering in the air instead of sitting down like a normal person. My eyes darted around the room even as I responded and I tried to locate ropes or a holographic projector. Anything that could help me confirm that none of this was real.

“I’m a bit more concerned about the where and the how rather than the why”

She laughed at my response; a hollow and lacking sound that contrasted heavily with her bright and warm appearance and brought out a sleek green baton that if I wasn’t so firmly determined to stay in reality would have been better described as a wand.

I tensed my leg muscles in preparation to run from the potential threat. While the conversation had been going pleasantly, I did not want a repeat of what had happened with Cambridge.

Esmeralda laughed again as she saw my reaction and slightly lowered the baton.

“There’s no need to be so on guard, I will not hurt you. I just want to ask you a few things before I tell you why you’re here.”

I found it difficult to believe that the only purpose of kidnapping me into what was possibly another country was to ask me a few questions, but at this point; I’d accepted that I was vulnerable and helpless. All I could do was to play along until I found an opportunity to get out, or until someone realized I was missing and hunted me down.

As if to confirm the feeling of helplessness I felt, the doorknob melded into the door and disappeared. The room was a few hundred feet in the air, and they’d sealed the door shut. Even if I somehow got past those two obstacles, Cambridge was more than physically strong enough to stop me despite being so much smaller.

“Ask away.”