Crimson's Prophecy

The guidance

The platform consisted of a material which looked and felt like graphite and it was uncomfortable to spend the whole night on it. The actual ground lay fifty feet underneath the platform and wasn't visible for the eyes of humans because it was so dark all around. The creatures didn't need the light - it had to do with their sight and how their own eyes were built. Sheila had read something in the diaries her grandfather had left for her. Those diaries she wouldn't be able to read anymore after one of the creatures had stolen them from her. To get them back would mean to find a pinch of salt dug in somewhere at a beach.

What had happened to her yesterday? She felt awful because of a fever which was a couple days old already. That didn't mean that there was medicine you could take in the Kathrenian universe. Unfortunately, it also didn't mean the creatures would take a rest and start to fight you again as soon as you were healthy and got back all of the energy you needed to avoid too many near-death experiences. One or two of them every once in a while were normal, but yesterday it just had been too much for Sheila.

She got up even though she wasn't all that motivated to find a place where she could sleep next time she felt tired. In the Kathrenian universe day and night didn't exist. It only existed in the heads of the people - and the creatures. That was a big advantage to humans in general, otherwise the main beings of this world would have had millions of chances to kill Sheila already.

There was a bit more behind the truth: If you cooperated with the creatures and worked as slaves for them you were safe. That's what most people did, even if they knew they were strong enough to survive in the world either way. Sheila had chosen for the second option: She refused to ever help the creatures in any way if she could avoid it. Sometimes it happened that you were forced to help them to save yourself. It was just like that one time when creatures had surrounded her on a hallway of one of their open castles and her only chance to stay alive was to go through the wall of the creature's buildings: One of her enemies had walked through the wall while his fellow species had moved closer in on her on that hallway. She had touched the creature's forearm who still had partly been moving in the wall, pulled herself into it and walked through the graphite. It had hurt, Sheila hadn't ever done it before and wouldn't do it ever again if it wasn't necessary for her to save her life once again. But if she hadn't done it back then, she'd be dead - and not only in such a situation she had already been close to death. What had made it worse for that one time in the wall next to the hallway is that creatures usually can move faster there. They were the ones who had built the walls and because of the system of the Kathrenian universe they could walk through them. Human beings could only do so if they got in body contact with the creatures who still were in the wall - that was what Sheila had known from one of her grandfather's diaries and she had applied that knowledge to the reality she had to face for a couple of months by now. The creatures, again, worked for their system with the help of it. Sheila wasn't informed on those secrets a lot. She had tried to find out about it more, but when she was on her own the probability of her succeeding at getting more information wasn't going to grow. She was more than aware of that. On the other hand, in the Kathrenian universe just like on earth people weren't your best friends right after you met them first. The problem got bigger in the creature's world because it was harder to make contacts to other people you found and could trust.

Maybe it was her fate she hadn't found anyone fighting on her side yet. She had met objectors like her before, but those one's she either hadn't trusted or they'd died pretty quickly. That's why Sheila sometimes got quite emotional and started to cry out of nothing. When it happened she allowed it to happen, knowing that she was a human being just like others and couldn't always hide her feelings, especially if someone died who she had known only for a few days. Let it all out instead of swallowing it down, that was how her mind worked best. What's the point of keeping frustration, anger or sadness in your soul anyway, she sometimes asked herself when there was no one else for her to talk to. With that attitude she always explained to herself why she hadn't died already yet. It at least made sense to her, that was all that mattered.