Twilit Mage

Chapter 9: Otherworld

Mercury didn't know where she was anymore. She didn't know how long she'd been walking around here, what time it was, which way she was going. Sometimes she wasn't even sure which way was up or down. She just trudged on, slowly, quietly, on and on through the ever-changing gray landscape, dragging her bag behind her.

From the corner of her eye she kept catching shapes that disappeared as soon as she turned her head. Shadows like the ones earlier, faces, shapeless blobs, animals, or things that looked like animals until she tried to have a closer look. Every once in a while voices would echo through the barren land, whispered, distorted and unintelligible. When she tried to look for the origin of the voices nobody was there; and when she tried to listen again they seemed to come from different directions than before, or multiple at the same time, or no direction at all. Mercury shuddered and walked on.

Her feet hurt. Her legs were heavy. She was sure her soles were full of blisters underneath her shoes, shoes that she was still keeping on for the sole reason that she didn't trust the ground and didn't want to touch it with her bare feet. Her knees were starting to feel like jelly. Her bag seemed to be growing heavier with every step she took, and she had long given up on trying to carry it, hauling it after her over the ground instead. Her mouth was dry, but she didn't want to drink much. Who knew how much longer she'd need her water bottle before finding something else to drink.

Why was she even heading for the school, anyway?

She tried to shake off the thought, but it took root in her mind, creeping into her consciousness as her footsteps faltered, her eyes flitting around as if searching for a sign in the endlessness. Georgiana's reaction to replayed in her head, how her polite friendliness had shifted into fear and anger in a matter of seconds. Blake had said no sane person would mistrust her...but what if more people were like Georgiana? What if she showed up and nobody wanted her there? Was it really worth walking through the unknown like this, just to get to this school? Shouldn't she turn back and go home while she still could?

But Raoul...Raoul seemed to like her! She could at least–

But Raoul didn't know she was Twilit. There was no guarantee that if he found out, he wouldn't react the same way Georgiana had.

No. Raoul was nice, he would never–

But Georgiana had seemed nice too until...

Should she go on?

Should she head back?

Where was she?

Where was the bus?

Where was she going?

What time was it?

How would she get back out?

Mercury froze. All blood drained from her face. She...didn't know how to get out. She hadn't thought about that while running in here. She had counted on finding the bus and following it when it created another gate like the one earlier...but now that she was alone, what should she do?

Would she be trapped in here forever?

The thought closed in on her, gripping her heart with icy cold fingers. She might be stuck in here for all eternity. She had no way out. She might never find one. What would happen to her if she stayed here? Would she die of starvation or exhaustion? Would one of those shadows or voices kill her? Would she never die but stay here forever, frozen in time, until she forgot she had ever lived in the normal world?

The shadow's voice reverberated in her head, faint and distorted and almost mocking. Don't get lost.

The fabric of the ground and sky started to warp. The shadows grew longer. The jagged cliffs started growing, higher and higher, sharp and unsurmountable like giant teeth, the sky crawling downwards to cage her like an enormous mouth, impossible to escape. A huge tongue formed underneath her. The unnatural gray was getting darker, the stars and sun and moon disappearing. Mercury's reflection stared back at her from one of the teeth, wide-eyed and distorted, inhuman somehow, the colors fading out, getting grayer and grayer, starting to flicker, losing shape, turning into a shadow–