ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIGHT DOOR

I considered my options. First was the bottle of water. What would I give for just a drop of water right now! My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. It was right in front of me, but it wasn't mine.

My second and third options were two identical doors on either side of the room.

My fourth option was to wake up and return to my Bell's side.

{Mine! ~❤️}

Yes, so why was I all the way here at goddess knows where?

But the moment I thought this, I felt quite sure there was a reason for me to be here. Thinking back on all the times I dreamed traveled, I would almost always gain something from it. Whether it be information, a treasure, or an experience - it would turn out to be something that helped me later on. What if, just hear me out here, what if these seemingly random dream travels had been preplanned by the goddess for a purpose?

I was a blue wolf. My powers were dream traveling. Unlike other wolf bloodlines, the blue wolf appeared out of the blue. (Haha, I made a clever pun.) In lycan history, the blue wolf appeared once every generation (that was about once every century or two), and would be the crux that converged/divided/realigned the course of the lycan world. Because of this, the blue wolf was also known as the goddess' angel.

What if, just what if, the goddess wasn't as erroneous as I had thought and everything that had happened so far was exactly what she had planned? The dreams with options like a which-way book, the merger of our Green Packlands that the Lorent Oracle had foretold in a painting, the early shifting of Savy and Ben, and Jonah too, the rogue war that started and ended too early, the dream travels... Even my luck - what if it were not so much luck but predestination?

That I met Ki on the way home from school and saved him while saving Hank and Flynn. That Fluffy and Stephan had met us and decided to follow me. That Stephan was the Alpha of Red Cloud Pack and had an underground bunker to raise an army. That Fluffy was Heller's lost son. That Heller was one of the Princes of the Colored Mountains. That Grandma Luna gave me the Ring of Idonia for safekeeping. That there was a prophecy about it in the Colored Mountains. That I also inherited Grandma Luna's female Alpha wolf, thus activating the other alpha bloodlines... like alpha blade wolf powers - and meeting Gareth... and... it was like a web of too many coincidences woven together, and now my soul mate was the New Tyger King and the fulfillment of the Colored Mountains' prophesized Lycan King.

How did Harvey put it? I had "a way of bringing people together." Not just people, it felt like two worlds were about to collide on me.

And if this was really a crazy miracle of planned events, then WHY? Or rather, WHAT was the goddess trying to do?

Of course, I could be overestimating the goddess in the same way Harvey and his dad constantly overestimated me. Maybe everything that happened was just a combination of luck and consequence.

But what if it were not? What if I still had a purpose beyond whatever had already happened?

I looked around the room again. If that were the case, it would sure be nice to know what that purpose was. At least then, I'd know what I was doing!

But since I had no idea - I mean, that everything that happened so far was predestined was also purely speculation on my part, all I could do was go with my lucky sense of direction.

My lucky sense of direction felt like I should go through the door on the right. BUT I was so very thirsty! It was so bad, I was starting to feel nauseated. Okay, maybe a quick drink of water first. I'm sure the owner wouldn't mind. I'll return his kindness. I hesitated again... it's just a bottle of water.

I didn't recognize the brand. Maybe it was fancy water. The bottle certainly looked fancy. It was a smooth cylindrical clear bottle with a transparent cap still sealed, but its cap was wide - so the bottle wasn't really bottle-shaped. If you unscrew the cap, it would be like a very tall glass, just like the rest of the room, elongated vertically.

There was a logo of a white palm tree on the bottle. Not the kind that grew along the beach, wait, that would be a coconut tree. I frowned at the pearlescent white logo. It was a palm tree with five large leaves, opened up like the palm of a hand. There was a single wavey line drawn under the palm tree. I think it represented water, but that could just be because I was dying of thirst. Even the logo reminded me of an oasis. I picked up the bottle.

And then I immediately dropped it.

I shouldn't have touched it.

The bottle fell onto the floor with a "plonk" and rolled under the bed. I stood there for a second, just in shock, before crouching down still in show to look under the bed.

The bottle had mowed up a strip of dust carpet and settled next to a dust bunny.

It had glowed! Not the bottle, but the water! The moment I held the bottle, the water glowed! Not like fluorescent green toxic glow, no, more like glitter shimmering glowed.

I pressed my lips together and regarded what now looked like a very normal (abeit fancy) bottle of water lying under the bed. Did I just imagine that? I wasn't sure, but at any rate, I probably shouldn't leave the bottle under the bed. So very carefully, so as not to leave my handprint on in the dust, I reached in and pulled out the bottle.

The water glowed at my touch, but I didn't drop it a second time. Very quickly, but carefully, I placed it back on the bedside table. Nothing was normal in this room!

By now, I had two guesses about where I was. Either I was back in the Colored Mountains, or the Warlock Lands. I wished I could smell! It would be much easier to identify the magic in the air.

I walked over to the shelf above the desk. Could the books here be magic too? If they were, the magic must be in a deep slumber under the blanket of dust. I couldn't even quite make out the words, oh, they were numbers - written in ancient lycan.

Not that the warlock didn't have lycan books, I distinctly remembered he did, but the warlock was dead, right? And honestly, between the two, I preferred the Colored Mountains. So far, my bottom three dream travel locations were: Colored Mountains, Warlock Lands, and anywhere vampire infested.

Now that the possibility had occurred to me, I tried to figure out where I might be if this was indeed the Colored Mountain. It looked very different from Heller's Castle. It didn't quite feel like Bell's Tyger Lair.

I didn't always, but I usually woke up where Bell last made his bed. This wasn't any of Bell's bed that I knew of. Not the one in the Lorent's Alpha House, nor the one in my tower at home, nor the one in the Underground, nor the one in his Tyger's Lair.

So maybe I was somewhere in Heller's Castle? Or somewhere else entirely?

Okay, back to my options. I had two doors. I was thirsty, but not stupid enough to drink strange bottles of glowing water. Not yet, anyway.

I looked to the door on the right. I should've listened to my lucky sense of direction from the beginning, BUT...

I looked to the door on my left. What was behind that?

And who said I had to choose one option? Why not choose all of the above? I'd just take a very quick peek behind the wrong door. I wouldn't even step through. Promise!

I cautiously approached the wrong door. I didn't sense any danger. I couldn't see any door knob either. I looked around carefully and realized the door didn't have hinges either. There was a handle carved into the door though. I grasped it and pulled. It wouldn't budge. I pulled a little harder, and tried to shake it loose. It shifted, and then to my surprise, it slid open, like a glass sliding door, except it was made of wood. And then because I had tugged it too hard, it hit the end of its rail with a "clack" sound.

Immediately the lights came on. The large arched chandelier lit up, and the lights past the door came on too. It was a bathroom.

Like the bedroom, the attached bath was strange. Unlike the bedroom, it didn't even try to pretend to be a plain and normal room. The bathroom was lined with shiny polished wood. Like the walls, floors, tub, and counters - they were all made of yellow wood. I had no idea wood came in this color.

The sink had a crank handle, like the kind in story books. I pumped it and water came out. I let the flow wet my fingers just to check that it didn't glow. Hot! The water was hot. It didn't glow, but it was too hot to touch much less drink. Grrr... I looked helplessly around the counter. There was nothing on or around it. No hand towel or soap or cup. A cup would be really helpful right about now. I was so thirsty but I couldn't drink the water! Grrrr....

I couldn't do anything about it either. If the temperature could be adjusted, I didn't know how. I couldn't even make the water stop flowing. Would it stop on its own? I tried to crank the pump again, but it only made the water flow harder. The water filled the wash basin and the warm steam billowed and fogged up the large mirror in front of me.

I stepped back from the sink and caught my reflection. There I was, in a glittery long white dress, my blue hair wild like a horse in mid-gallop, and my expression as befuddled as I felt. What should I do?

What if I just left the tap running and walked out?

I should've followed my lucky sense of direction in the first place. It had never led me wrong. So why did I have to explore my options? I sighed.

I studied the tap carefully. I didn't dare to touch it again. After a while, the water slowed, and then it stopped entirely on its own. I frowned at it. Either it did automatically stop on its own, or I had just emptied someone's hot water tank - that is, if they had such things as hot water tanks here. It didn't seem like anything worked like it did back home.

I retreated back into the bedroom. Okay, let's just go back to following my lucky sense of direction from now on. No more picking up a quick drink, or checking out what's behind Door Number WRONG.

Just as I was about to head out - I knew how to work the sliding door now! I stopped because I heard the sound of footsteps on the other side. I froze, turning back to consider hiding spots. Somebody was definitely coming! Don't panic. The footsteps slowed in front of my door.

{Alpha approaches.}

Yeah, thanks Boo. And yeah, I think it would be fair for me to panic now.