Beyond

Seraina: School

Hi Internet- sorry, yes I know it's been a week. I try. Well anyway, enjoy the chapter!

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Seraina: School

"Rena!"  I heard.

"Karen..."  I mumbled, but when I opened my eyes, Karen wasn't the one calling my name.  Kara, the girl from this world leaned over me, all crouched in the corner with a worried face that distorted her features, making them seem more gentle and subdued.

"What is it you did?"  She asked gently, her voice like a cloud.  "Maybe I can help."

"I..."  my voice trailed off as my throat closed up.

Try to talk,  I thought to myself.

"I'm not really from here."  Kara made a face.  She didn't believe me.  I needed to keep talking.  "I live in a different world, with a different Kara.  She looks like you, only her name is Karen.  My name from there is Seraina."

"Seraina..."  She said, and squinted at the air if she could see her breath spell out my name.  "What a pretty name."

I wasn't sure if she still thought I was lying, but I decided I could convince her perhaps with something else.  "In that world, it rains almost all the time.  I used to go to this hill there, called Seeker's Hill, only Adam didn't like it, because if you go too far down towards the Valley of the Lost, you can't come back."

"Let me guess...  you went a little too far."  She finished, raising an eyebrow.  "No wonder.  I was starting to think maybe Adam had been mean to you or something."

"He's called Adam here too?"  I asked, curious.

"Yeah."  Kara replied, taking a seat on the floor next to me.

"Well, I have trouble talking."  I said.

"You can talk fine now."

"Well yes, but not always.  Over there I had a condition that limited my speech, so when Adam stared at me in horror that I'd abandoned him I couldn't say a thing.  I had to watch him cry all the blue from his eyes and then run home."  I started to cry again, the tears icy cool, leaving frost tracks along my face.

"How'd you end up here?  I know that Rena's a really happy person, and the four of us have been friends since childhood."  Kara said.

"I didn't know that.  In my world, people turn up.  Karen was one of the first."  I explained, my voice becoming thinner.  "I ended up here because I guess the pit hidden by the fog in the Valley of the Lost is a portal to other worlds."

"Wow..."  Kara just held an amazed look.  "I get it, I guess.  I bet this has happened before too.  How do you get back, though?"  She asked, worry pulling her features sharper.

"I don't know.  I have to find what I've Lost."  I replied.

"What did you lose?"  Kara asked.

"I don't know."  I said.

"Maybe you lost something special, something important."  Kara speculated, brushing some red hair from her face.

"I haven't.  I hadn't lost anything."

Then Kara stared at me like I had three heads.  Then her face lit up, her eyes bright.

"Rena, I think I know what you lost."

"What is it?"  I asked, yearning for a way to go home.

Then suddenly I couldn't hear.  I saw her mouthing something, but then I was quickly yanked from that world, as if the Valley wanted me to stay captive.  I could see its heart now, evilly glinting and black, slyly smiling at me as I danced to appease it.

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