Meteorfall

She felt her consciousness begin to surface as if rising from the murky depths of an ocean. Something was beckoning to her. She stirs as her mind begins to focus. She squinted one eye open and was instantly hit by a bright light. Her hand immediately rose to block the offending light and under its shadow, she was finally able to fully open her eyes.

With her sight finally adjusting to the brightness, she looked around and wondered if this was the afterlife. The room could only be described as spartan. The walls where white and the bed and furniture were made of light-colored wood. She spotted a dresser with a mirror and quickly got up to approach it.

Standing in front of her was a girl she thought she would never see again. She may look as if she had gained a few more years but the familiar face and the unmistakable unruly pink hair was there.

Saki sighed.

Was it all just a dream? She wanted to ask, but deep inside her subconscious, she already knew the answer.

Everything she experienced was real.

Her drowning was real.

Being pulled across space was real.

Regardless of how difficult it was for her mind to understand this, she knew it was all real.

The door suddenly opened and the next question that was on her mind was somewhat immediately answered when a now familiar man appeared behind the door.

Hunter stopped mid-stride, his face changed from relaxed to wide-eyed then back to relaxed within the span of a single second. 

"You're awake." He entered the room.

"Your house?"

"Yes."

The air between them was thick enough to be cut by a knife.

Saki pulled the robe she wore tighter. She is very conscious that underneath it, she was wearing nothing.

NOTHING!

Her eyes narrowed as she realized something.

"Alright, pervert man...what did you do to me?"

Hunter's embarrassed reaction was making her furious.

He DID do something to her. 

No wonder she woke up feeling weird.

"No...NO! I didn't do anything...YES, something happened but not what you..nothing happened, alright?"

His face is turning bright red.

"Hello, kids!" It was Hamarr holding two cups of coffee.

Hunter's pleading look made Hamarr chuckle as he handed him one cup.

He gave Saki the other.

She took it with a smile to Hamarr but when her eyes passed Hunter's direction, they turned cold.

This made him wince.

"Let's skip the awkward phase and go straight to 'he did not do anything to you' part,"

Hamarr began.

"Nothing that bad, anyway," he added lamely.

"You are not really helping, old friend," Hunter looked at him sternly.

"You might want to sit down for this, Saki," Hamarr suggested.

Saki went to the edge of the bed and sat down.

She made sure to cross her legs tightly and when the robe's unfastened lower end slipped and showed a goodly amount of her legs, she pulled it over them and shot Hunter a warning look.

He rolled his eyes and sighed.

"You already know of the Wang Corporation, right?"

"Corporate by day, pirates by night...right?" Her look was mildly challenging but Hunter did not take the bait.

Hamarr did not even skip a beat.

"Right-O." He laughed.

"You are not even denying it." She seemed taken aback by Hamarr's nonchalant admission.

"I supposed we are at that," Hamarr shrugged.

"We are an acquisitions company. You can say we are more of a salvage-type. We do go to remote and usually dangerous places to retrieve artifacts. That is an open secret."

"What's that got to do with all that has happened so far?"

  Saki did not like where this was all heading.

"We sometimes go beyond the borders of our reality. Our excavations sometimes take us outside our own dimension. You didn't seem surprised." Hamarr and hunter exchanged glances.

"Oh, I am. But I adapt quickly. I did experience something outworldly and it takes someone who has gone through that to know it was all real. I had trouble accepting that at first but my whole being knew it was real." 

She shivered.

"Then we can do this faster." He glanced at Hunter again.

"Go on. There is no skipping THAT part," HUnter nodded.

"On those expeditions, we follow instructions from what we call Fox Scrolls. They always bear the image of a fox and it gives detailed instructions on how to acquire certain artifacts. Most of all, it allowed us to map specific energy signatures and make temporary pathways."

Hamarr paused to maybe allow Saki to take it all in.

"So far, it took us to locations that gave us the wealth and prestige you now see."

Saki sipped her coffee and motioned for Hamarr to go on.

"However, these scrolls are not complete and we know we are diving partially blind in these expeditions. We have only mapped a small portion of it. Moreover, there are those we call Fox Gates that draw in massive amounts of energy. Whenever we encounter those, we notice that our readings are unquantifiable and 'accidents' have tendencies to happen."

"Tell me, do these accidents happen near or around those Gates?" Saki's tone was neutral but the old guy sensed a dangerous aura around Sai as she spoke.

"They do, yes. These gates do not appear in our world. They are always within an open sub gate. We suspect that the thermodynamics' quantum application prevents these gates to appear outside of their own cosmic locality."

"If that is what happened to me, if i got pulled to one of your Fox Gates, how? I was never anywhere near your sub gates."

"Random pockets do appear sometimes," the old man explained blandly.

"There is nothing random in these, much less your sudden intrusion into our lives. Before you go on, allow me to make a brief phone call, please." 

Hamarr was not inclined to acquiesce but Hunter impatiently gestured to allow Saki her request. 

Saki made a call and immediately returned to the bed.

"You were right. I was just getting to that part...but maybe it would be best if i let Hunter handle that." 

"Thanks," Hunter said drily.

He went closer to where Saki was sitting and looked her straight in the eyes.

"What i am about to tell you might or might not change things between us but whatever happens, please bear in mind that we were just following the trails laid by the Fox scrolls."

"More revelations, less excuses." Saki's irritating eyebrow went up.

"We found out that these scrolls that we have are more than treasure maps. They seem more like instructions from the past. My family had been tied to the fate engendered by these ancient documents."

He never took his eyes off Saki as he spoke. Saki sensed the sincerity but she couldn't shake the feelings that she had fallen into a trap.

"You were right to be suspicious of us. In our dimension hops, we found what we called Flame scrolls. It mentioned something like a key to these gates. In all our jumps, we have never successfully opened a Fox Gate and the one we went through last night was definitely one."

"Then...how did we…?"

"Your family is a keeper of several of these Flame Scrolls. Your family ritual- the one performed by your priestesses is contained in them. If you haven't guessed it by now, your family has a key."

"Is that why you got close to me?"

There was an edge to her voice now.

"There was a deeper reason for our actions. One that could not be easily explained but it does appear that on the surface, our intentions were dishonorable. Forgive us. We did not intend it to be this way."

Hunter heard rumbles of several cars in the distance.

He went to the window in time to see a fleet of black cars entering their compound.

"It seems my Uber is here. If you'll excuse me…" She went to the bathroom before neither man had a chance to speak.

When she came out, she was fully dressed.

"Saki, you did not have to call half your family's troops. I could have taken you home."

"You were right the first time, Hunter. I did guess correctly what you were hinting at. This is just to make sure that you won't hold me here against my will."

"We would never do that…" he hung his head in defeat. 

"There is no telling what you would or would not do, Mr. Wang. Never come near me again."

With that, she resolutely turned her back and walked towards the open door.