Her Scar wasn't Blood

Chapter 11 - The crystals of Somnium.

I opened my eyes; it's official: our journey had started. Looking around, there's nothing like home. It's a flat, purplish world with some kind of crystals floating in the sky. I looked at Frye, who was clearly just looking for our exit. Before we got in here, she told me that we don't come out of the world's portal each time; we can emerge at a random place or directly from the portal. In any case, we can't just go back in. First of all, it would be boring, and second of all, we get teleported to a world where there's a problem—something to do before we can take the portal.

"Be careful, Astra; we don't know what those crystals do," she said while walking in the same direction.

As she walked, one of those crystals approached her. She looked at it and stopped moving.

"Is everything okay, Frye?" I asked.

No answer. I was a bit worried about what was happening with her, so I simply waited.

"Frye? What do you see in that cry—" I was interrupted by a hand over my mouth.

"Don't say that word. Each time you do, these things show you some kind of fake memory that will only hurt you," they said.

I turned around quickly. A fish-like person was waving at me. They weren't much taller than me—just a bit taller.

"I'm Althea! An ancient mage," they said.

"... I'm confused. Is this your world?"

"Nope. I've been locked here for a long time. I lost track of time."

I looked at them in shock; we had to have fallen into a no-exit world first.

"Do you know where the portal is?" I asked.

"Yeah, but I never managed to figure out the issue with this world," they answered.

"Oh... maybe we can help."

"Your friend is a bit locked right now."

I looked at Frye, a wave of panic washing over me.

"How much time is it going to take before Frye can come back?" I asked.

"Not more than five minutes."