Chapter 2: In The Past

In the early morning of year 1661, the rays of sun scattered in the light blue sky with cotton white clouds hovering the entire place of Panab. An ordinary day taking place in this provincial land, where trees calm the heat of the summer season. The warm wind blowing with a hint of sea salt, for this place is just a few hundred meters up the coast. A woman in her late twenties woke-up to the chirping of the birds. She is a short native of the land, with long black hair and a nut-brown skin, the only daughter of the Gajria Family.

Getting up she changed her night dress to a pair of maroon long-sleeves and a brown skirt that covers her up to her ankle. Walking to their wash area she washed her face and see herself in a tiny mirror hanging on the wall, a small smile graces her lips. She went to the kitchen to have some bread, soup and a glass of milk that was prepared by her mother before leaving to go to the market. Finishing it quickly, she heads straight at the back of their bungalow house which is surrounded by shrubs and trees which is also near to a forest. There, they have a small well where she started to fill the water containers while humming a song that only she knows. It is for her plants and tree. Walking a few meters from the back of their house, she watered first her only planted tree, a one of its kind, her favorite. It is around seven meters tall now with white bordered green leaves that are as big as her palm. Its trunk is as big as her arm with branches pointing to different direction. Her smile could not be suppressed, for this one is hard to grow, it is fertilized by something very special once every 3rd of the month. Looking at her left and right side to make sure no one is around, she whispered to it "Grow up more, grow strong." came her small voice while tapping it.

Ludeen is considered by people in this place to be odd. When she was little, a mere 5-year-old girl. She was often seen to be talking to animals, the birds who are chirping and dogs who barks, the cats and even to a frog that was peacefully resting in their backyard. Her parents often scold her and ask her to stop. But she could not, and as time goes by, she started to talk to their backyard plants. Once in her 13th year, a local boy of her age notices her, and gave her a single daisy flower. To the boy's surprise, Ludeen swatted his hand and yelled at him for killing the flower. From then on, everyone seems to be aloof of her. Even her parents could not do anything about it, but given that Ludeen is their only child, they love her. They provided everything and only hopes for the best of her. When Ludeen came to the age of 16, her parents started to look for a suitable man for her, to be her husband. They arrange visits and let Ludeen go to social gatherings in their place in the hope that their daughter could attract decent males. But she was just not fond of those things and marriage was just not something she looks forward to even if she is at the marrying age. This worries her parents a lot. Now, at the age of 29, she is still single and no one in their place would like to marry her. She is way too past the marrying age set by this land's society. But even though her parents continued to support her, and her parents are everything she has, or so that's what everyone thinks, even her.

Ludeen loves her family and does not want her family's name to be drag to wrong accusations such as being a clan of lunatics, worst being part of a cult and doing witch craft. That's why she decided to just whisper her words, so one will notice, she's keeping it to herself.

Walking to see her other plants in the other part of the land of her father, intending to water them too and pluck the weeds that grows around them, she notices smokes around her plants. She hurried her footsteps, and started to run. Fire! Her plants are burning she thought to herself, wanting to extinguish it, she pours all the water in her pails, going back and forth to get more water, but it's not enough, "no.." she said, all the beautiful lilies, and the dandelions, sunflowers everything was like shouting for help. Ludeen was looking utterly devasted seeing her plants slowly burn to ashes. "All my hard works, all my friends.." she closed her eyes and tears run down from it. What will she do? Her father was away for a business and her mother was still in the market, their place is away from the others, and there is no one around to ask for help.

As her sadness grows, a thin smoke suddenly comes off of her body, as if getting out of her skin. When she opened her eyes, she was engulfed in it. At first, she thought it was from the burning plants for the smoke seems to be of the color white, grey and black, but the smoke she was in was not connected to the other smoke in the fire. Putting her hands in front of her, she blinked once, twice to see a red smoke mixing with the other three colors, "what is this?" she quietly questioned no one. She does not feel any heat at all, but she is feeling anxious. With every second the smokes emitting from her body was increasing, inching closer and closer to the fire in front of her, to her plants, then covering everything even her. As if she was in the middle of the clouds or in a thick mist almost dreamy, the difference is just there is this red smoke. All her surrounding now are just white, grey black and red smokes mixing all up together. She was breathing normally and her eyes does not hurt from it, but even though Ludeen has all the right to be afraid, afraid to even move a step forward or backward. This is as if she was taken to another world. Her feeling of sadness changes to disbelief and curiosity, she felt lost and afraid. In her 29 years of living this world this is the first time she had experience this. Why is this happening, how could this stop, Ludeen started to run away, into the opposite direction of the fire which she knows, even if she can't see anything but smoke. She run, thinking she could get away, but she feels like she wasn't moving away from her original location. Not even an inch away. She's feeling tired and nothiings changing. This increases her anxiousness, she stopped to breathe, "HELP!!" she shouted to the top of her lungs. But no one answers, no one can hear her. At this moment she was thinking that she's just dreaming. She can't even hear anything but her own, no chirping birds, wind whistling nothing at all.