Infinity.

Chapter-8: Good news-Bad news.

She opened her eyes and looked. But she couldn't see anything. Or rather she saw nothing. It was darkness all around. No, it was blackness all around. She turned around and twirled. No light entered her eyes. She could feel no floor, no roof, no walls. She seemed to float in a dark medium. Where was she?

She tried to move forward but couldn't understand what forward was, what backward was. Only pitch black greeted her when she attempted to move. She started to panic. Her heart paced up and its sound reached her ears.

Just as she thought she was blind, she saw something on the two opposite sides of her face. On one side, there was a bloom of orangish light. The bloom resembled the burst of a rocket but in slow motion. Orange light expanded from a single point and spread out in all directions. And as the shade became fainter and fainter, it turned into a very familiar colour-Hazel. The colour spread like rays; each ray racing the other as it dished out into a disc. The middle of the disc, from where it all started, stayed black.

Adriana was very stunned by this beautiful display. She turned to the other side. There too the colour seemed to originate from one point but this was the only similarity. The colour was a deep rich navy blue. And it didn't bloom. The colour seemed to flow this time. The blue spread at random almost like a river. Thick veins of blueness snaked their way from the origin and from those veins countless tributaries protruded in a cursive zigzag. The colour shone and shivered in the darkness and soon another disc was formed, this one a hue of blue. She knew this colour; too.

Adriana was bewildered by the pure beauty that she had just seen. Torn between the hazel and the blue discs, she tried to figure out which one was more alluring. Strangely, the discs were still changing; dynamic. Very slowly, the discs turned into spiral galaxies. The singularity at the center and the stars revolving around.

"I am in the middle of the universe!" she decided.
"My universe." she added and smiled.

"And what 'bout me, huh?" A sound boomed and filled the vast space. And all at once, two large eyes opened in front of Adriana. Brown eyes. Diana.

Adriana just smiled. Diana was a part too. A major part. She noticed some motion in the galaxies again. The brown eyes seemed to smile and closed. The galaxies vanished as well. Blackness gulped her again and she was left devastated. She called for Diana but her voice just stretched across the dark vacant.

Adriana waited. And as she was losing hope, she saw wisps of light materialise again. They seemed to rotate around her like bees around a flower. It was something aesthetic.
Suddenly the revolutions turned violent and there was a buzz of light cocooning her and the black stretches changed and turned to a peachy pink colour. The type of colour you see when sunlight filters through closed lids.

"Trrrrrrr!" the alarm rang annoyingly loud. Adriana opened her eyes to bright sunlight on her face.

A dream...

She was almost disappointed. Getting out of the bed, she made her way to the wardrobe and put on a flowing dressing gown. It was getting chillier.

She was amazed how active she felt; being as lazy as a sloth most mornings. She went downstairs and began her cycle of life. Tea, contemplation, chores, and then finally came school.

As she walked into the school, she noticed Diana at her locker fiddling with something. Adriana chose her path and approached her. As she got closer, she could see the unkempt deposition of books and notebooks and pens, even charts. The inside of the locker door, though looked pretty with pink laces and was covered with pictures. Pictures that were pasted haphazardly; pictures which featured a tall lean boy, smiling and waving, and some had both of them- Diana and the boy. All the pictures were happy and Diana seemed very different, very young, very vibrant. It was as if she was 10 years younger then. Adriana wondered who the boy was, when the time was, who Diana was and what happened. She promptly registered the scarcity of information she had about Diana's life.