Chapter One : Kidnap & Call

1st January 3000

Planet Earth II

~~~

New Year, one of the few universally celebrated events. Not for Regina though, she was busy as usual, with absolutely no time to spare for petty celebrations and human- made festivals. Your average all-rounder high schooler wishing to get in and out of high school as smoothly and discreetly as possible (without her grades suffering, of course!), the only person whose attention she craved being her adoptive mother, Victoria.

She strode up the stairs as she returned after grocery shopping, her limbs moved mechanically while her brain tended to more significant matters. She entered, opening the door with a soft click and sliding her shoes off. She placed the groceries on the dining table and went from room to room looking for her mother.

She could've just shouted, but she hated it. She also highly disliked the people who made her shout, however, after looking in every single room and checking the bathrooms, backyard and garage. She entered the kitchen to find the stove on with milk boiling, about to spill over, the knife on the floor, a half cut vegetable on the chopping board placed on the kitchen slab, some pieces of vegetable on the ground, the big kitchen window wide open and a few drops of blood leading out of the window.

She had been trained to stay calm in all situations, but not this one. Victoria, the only family in Regina's world, was missing. She felt thankful to herself she had remembered to tell her mother last month to drop a few drops of blood if she was ever being kidnapped and could not be saved so that she would know what had happened.

She couldn't do much about it at the moment, but she would do anything when she got the chance. Its every man for himself. And woman. She headed to bed, and decided to take action the next day. It was hard, knowing that her mother could possibly be dead, and she was going to sleep like nothing happened.

She thought of the essential part sleep and rest played in a warrior's life, and compelled herself to rest. Lying still and breathing deeply, she focused on the nothingness she saw when she closed her eyes. As the only thoughts she had were of her mother, she feared she might breakdown if she let them flow.

~~~

2nd Jan

"It is time..." she thought, as she pushed the wall beside her bed. It looked like a simple wallpaper of a forest with cloth draped around it. Few people knew what it truly was, them being her mother and herself.

After pressing on the wall, she formed an "R" joining the red leaves and flowers by tapping on them. A keypad emerged on the wallpaper and she entered the numbers "01110010312", the door automatically slid open and closed as she entered. Many different clothes hung all around her, concealing the walls of the big open room with a plain white roof. The clothes were of all kinds, for all purposes, and on the right and left, there were different kinds of footwear under the clothes. The clothes weren't hung according to color or purpose, just randomly which proved discouraging to anyone seeking a pattern to go any further.

She slid her hands beneath two scarlet dresses and planted her palms on the wall. The wall slid open, leading to a sleek black room that possessed a sinister yet intriguing aura. Regina's gaze flitted across the room and finally paused at a glass door in the far-right corner of the room.

"Perfect" she whispered, as her eyes acquired a strange glow. The glass enclosure housed just about everything she needed for an ... outing.

She examined everything and once she had ensured everything was in perfect condition to use whenever the need shall arise, silently left the rooms. She headed to her basement, as school was the last thing on her mind at the moment. The basement had a big room attached to it which she had transformed to a training room. A complete training room with exercise equipment, steel rods attached to the walls, sturdy walls, and the finishing touch being the slight smell of perspiration which indicating the countless hours she had spent there.

She put on her wireless headphones and did what she had both anticipated and feared to do for years. She called her father as she started her workout, the call seemed to take forever to reach him. One minute, fifteen push ups, and two missed calls later, he answered the third call. None of them took the initiative to say hello or do small talk, so Regina decided to get straight to the point.

"Gone." She said.

"I see." He answered.

"So the time has come. You are ready, I suppose?" He continued. She sensed a trace of sorrow in his voice at first, but it vanished as swiftly as it appeared, making her wonder if it was really just an illusion as his voice turned as firm and emotionless as hers. It was not that they did not have emotions, but it was not a situation to be emotional. True warriors must master having control over their emotions, and they understood that.

"You shall be the judge of that. Location?" she asked.

"Where the queen lies for infinity in her deep slumber, when she slept..." he replied and cut the call.

She sighed, as she gazed at the wall in front of her, lost in thought while continuing exercising. After working out for all these years, her muscles seemed to have memorized every movement, her breathing perfectly in sync with the movements, she did not need to think, her body already knew what she was supposed to do, and how she was supposed to do it.

After hours of working out, she headed to her room and took a cold shower, the best way to stay fresh and energized the rest of the day. Her breakfast was much larger than most people's and her activities just as rigorous. After breakfast, she decided to spend her day exercising and reading the history of the Rubei family.

Her father had instructed her not to get in touch with him and not to study anything related to her family etc. until "it" happened.

She loved to read, it was as if she was in the lives of other people, just watching, detachedly. Being an observer is a privilege. You don't have to make decisions, but you can learn from the choices of others. You do not have to go through anything, yet you get to understand the hardships of others. You experience emotional rollercoasters, therefore helping you control your emotions. She wasn't the kind of person to read the same book more than twice though, so her best option was to visit the library, get what she wanted and return it once she was done.

She took about ten books every month and since she loved to read, she spent around three hours reading every day and had already finished reading more than a thousand books. She felt that books helped her grow mentally and emotionally and helped her increase her maturity, understanding, imaginative, and notice the minute details of every situation.

Her room had crimson walls, a study table with a chair, a bedside drawer, a closet, a wooden queen-sized bed, on one side of it was a big window with a sill big enough for her to sit in the sunlight and read while looking outside, and on the other side was the wallpaper that led to the hidden rooms.

Her room was mainly crimson and red, she had renovated it this way when she turned sixteen and never felt the need to make any changes since. Slipping on a loose hoodie and leggings, she gazed at her drawer wondering which book she should read first.

She didn't want to accept it, but she felt quite excited. After all, she hadn't met her father since many years, and he would now tell her everything, everything he had thought she was not ready to hear before... He would tell her the reason he had not been with her all this time, why she was forced to grow up without her father, and who it was that took her mother, her only family that had remained with her all these years.

She possessed no emotional attachment to her father; they had never spent any quality time together and her mother died when she was still only a baby and could not even speak, though she had a few pictures and vague memories of her. As far as she remembered, her mother looked quite different from her; around five feet tall, with dark brown hair and brown eyes, as her hair she did not look anything special, just the kind of girl who could effortlessly blend in a crowd.

At 6 feet, with light skin, long hair and enchanting beauty, Regina could stand out just as effortlessly as her mother could blend in. She never liked standing out due to which she avoided going out, and sometimes she even wished she was average like her mother so that she could befree without being stared at or treated like she was an alien. It wasn't that she was self-conscious mostly that it was slightly frustrating to be stared at all the time... She got used to it though, and now whenever she went out it didn't really matter to her who was staring, since she rarely ever went out anyway.

She chose the book meant to give an easy introduction to some concepts that would help her understand the other books, especially the more complex ones. It was on top of the other books crammed into the drawer which was obviously meant to store costly valuables or money, not books. However, these weren't common books and it was a matter of utmost importance to keep them safe and their existence preferably remaining hidden.

Regina respected her father's words and the laws of her ancestors, she knew there was a reason behind it all, and therefore she kept them hidden and safe. "A simple introduction to the Therianthropes", the book was named. She settled in her corner by the window with three cushions supporting her back and her hood covering her head. This moment, which was a part of every single day of her life was one of the best moments of her day, as she curled herself up by the window and engrossed herself in another world, escaping from her tiresome and monotonous reality.

The sun beamed at her, making her skin appear golden and her eyes seemed to be carved out of shimmering deep red rubies. She grazed the cover of the book with her finger, and just like every book she had not yet read, this one too held a lot that was soon to be revealed to her. She gently flipped the cover open and a blank page greeted her, it was a stainless bright white even though the books had been with her family for decades.

She attempted turning the pages yet they all stuck uniformly together. She tried to force it open, but her attempts proved futile as the pages stuck together, persistent and snow white. She stared at the blank white page in front of her and her mind went blank as she found herself unable to think of a solution to persuade the stubborn book to open up and let her read.

After a few minutes of staring at the blank page, a few words appeared out of thin air on the page, that said "A true Therianthrope shall know the way".