The Realm Protectors

Chapter 50 - Ciana

I'm swimming in darkness.

It's thick and oily, running over my skin with a slippery chill. Blackness clouds my vision as if my eyes are closed, but I feel my eyes open. My mind is blank, completely thoughtless. I look down, trying to discern where I am, but I only see black. The air is chilled, stinging the inside of my nose. Shadows dance around me, vicious shapes and dull stars spinning in a lazy stupor. Everything feels both real and not.

"Hello?" I call into the darkness, my voice echoing as if spoken through a tube. Whispers echo back to me in a chorus, sending a chill down my spine. This place is so empty that the vacuum is beginning to have a voice.

I close my eyes, light streaking behind my eyelids. I open them again to a night sky, crows streaking overhead. Air whips my hair and clothes, trying to tear me apart. Feathers flutter against my skin, and I realize I'm being carried on the back of a massive ebony crow. Its head is cocked to the side, one eye staring at me eerily. A screeching caw comes from it's beak, calling to the other crows flying around us. I don't even have time to scream before I'm swallowed in a pit of feathers. I cover my face with my arms, doing my best to shield myself from the onslaught. Light streaks across my vision again, and I'm transported to somewhere else.

Dark wood floors creak under my feet, light streaming in through high glass windows. I look up to see puffy white clouds floating lazily across the ceiling, spinning lowly as if to start forming a hurricane.

"I wondered if you'd show up," Someone chuckles. I spin around to see a desk floating a few inches off the ground, a chair facing the opposite direction in front of it. The voice is familiar, but my mind is too sluggish to place it.

"Who are you?"

"Come closer, Ciana, and see for yourself."

Doubt and fear flicker in my mind like the shadow of emotion. My body moves before my mind does, bounding softly across the room. I'm propelled into the air slightly as if the wood panels of the floor were actually trampolines. There's another chair across from the mysterious desk, and I bounce up to take a seat. The chair spins around by itself, turning me to face the mysterious voice.

I don't believe my eyes.

"Professor Grantwood?"

Grantwood smiles, the corner of her eyes crinkling slightly with premature wrinkles. "I suppose it's more appropriate for you to call me Cira, now."

My jaw is embarrassingly slack, and my brain refuses to accept the image in front of me.

"How are you– where am I?" I ask. "How are you here?"

"This is your dreamscape, Ciana." Grantwood says, voice lilting and soft. "You are unconscious and have been for quite a while."

"Unconscious?"

"What is the last thing you remember, child?"

I pause, searching my brain for the right answer. "We... we were in Vesi. Outside the capital, Saari. Guarding the gateway."

"Good," Grantwood nods. "What else?"

My brain feels like smoke – memories appearing and then fading in my hands. "I... I don't remember."

Grantwood hums, a pleasant but thoughtfully worried expression on her face. "You took quite the blow to the head. I'm not surprised you don't remember."

"Professor, what happened?"

Grantwood stands from her chair, falling slowly to the floor. Her feet seem to sink into the wood as she raises a hand to me.

"I will show you,"

I take her hand, letting myself sink back to the floor. She seems smaller in this... this dreamworld in my head. Grantwood nods when I reach the floor, pulling my hand gently towards the tunnel of clouds forming in the corner. She stops right in front of it.