City of Fate

The blind reversal

Emelia quietly slid her belt off as she watched the two people in the front seat closely. She felt as if these two could be trusted, they had saved her after all, but there was only one real way to find out. The short guy, who in the light and without the malaise of battle, truly was short and could barely see over the dashboard. He kept looking in the side view mirror. The taller man was focused on driving, although he had slowed down now that they had sped far enough away. She decided this was as good of a time as any.

She wrapped each end of the belt twice around each hand, readying herself and stealing her nerves. Emelia took a deep breath and swung the belt over the driver's head and down to his neck and pulled hard, bracing her knees against the back of the seat. The car immediately swerved, a cacophonous squealing sounded from the tires. Again time slowed, the car spun slowly, clouds of smoke billowed lazily outside the windows. The driver reached up in slow motion to grab the belt, but the short man moved with unnerving speed and grabbed her hand, spinning it around her back, causing the belt to slip from her hand. Time returned to normal and the driver spun the wheel around a few times and hit the gas, straightening the car.

"What the fuck, Em." The short guy said, in a creepily familiar voice, the driver coughing a little from the front seat.

"Yeah, that was totally uncalled for." The tall guy said, a little hoarsely, turning to look back at them.

"Watch the road. I got this, Mase." The short guy said. To Emilia, he seemed to shimmer and wave, like he was obscured by water and for an instant he almost looked like a teenage emo girl, but just as quickly shimmered back to look like lumberjack Gimli. Emilia shook her head, thinking it must be a trauma hallucination.

Then it hit her. Had this short little man, with an ax strapped to his back, of all things, just called the driver Mase? And did he know her name?

"Ouch." Emilia chided. "Let go!" Wriggling her shoulders to try and release the mans grip.

"Will you stop trying to kill us all?" He asked, his voice was rough and gravely.

Emilia looked toward the front seat and the driver did the weird shimmer thing and she saw a mop of red, curly hair where there had , just seconds ago, been long black hair pulled up in a short ponytail.

"Fine, but you gotta tell me what the hell is going on here!" Emilia said reluctantly, disappointment thick in her voice.

The Dwarf lookalike released her, hands still up in front of him in readiness. "Easy now, I am much faster then you." He said calmly, Looking her in the eyes. She saw something in his eyes, something familiar.

The man tells the driver to stop the car. The tall guy nodded and pulled into a vacant parking lot and shut off the car. 

"This is going to be a shock, ready yourself." He muttered a few words under his breath. Nothing could have prepared Emelia for what happened next.

The world around her shimmered, an explosion of sparkling, colorful dust seemed to float around her like she was in the middle of a glittery snow globe. Emelia shut her eyes tight afraid that she would get something in her eyes. Around her, new sounds seemed to dissolve into existence. When she opened her eyes, the world was a different place all together.

From the ground up to the tops of the buildings around her seemed normal, but rising high above were gleaming towers, sleek and modern, and most importantly, not there a minute ago. Birds flew around the tall structures, scratch that, were those Dragons? The people walking around, normal, but mixed in were, tall slender Elves, short squat Dwarves, Dark shadowy creatures in long robes that seemed to billow in an unfelt breeze. From a near by alley, seeming to extract from the shadows themselves a huge black Dragon strolled by. It stared at her head tilted sideways, but nodded cordially to her companions. She spun around taking in the scene. Crouched in a corner of two buildings, reading a huge book, was what Emelia could only describe as a Giant. He was humungous, his arms were long, as well as his legs. Huge forehead and bulbous nose topped with a long mop of blonde hair, adorned his large round head. What struck her the most was how he was dressed. He had on jeans, a dark grey tee shirt over a white, long sleeve thermal. Now that she thought about it, all the strange and unusual Critters that where roaming around, were dressed like trendy, modern people. Even the smallest of the denizens, gnome-like creatures, with long beards and what seemed like personified animals, where dressed like anyone else that roam... her world? None of this made any sense to her.

"What is going on here?" she said, turning to her companions. Her shock and confusion was evident on her face as she stared back a forth between the two.

"Ok, We will explain it all, but there is one more pill for you to swallow, and believe me its going to be a hard one." The tall darkly dressed dude said turning to the shorter one with a "take it away bub" gesture.

"Ok, here we go." He stated, then he mumbled a few words, obviously in a language Emilia had never heard before.

The two, who couldn't be more different, one tall, slim and dark and the other short, thick and well muscled, shimmered in a tornado of brightly colored glitter. Then standing before her were two figures who couldn't have been more different from what stood before her a couple seconds ago, before her stood her two best friends in the whole world, since as long as she could remember, Mason and Carol.