Our second world- book one: Past beginnings

Chapter 8: Haren

"Well, here goes nothing," he mumbled, putting on the ring. Within a matter of seconds, he was whisked from his room to an unfamiliar place. It didn't take him long to realize the room he now stood in was the same shrine he and Grace had landed in the first time they traveled between the worlds.

"Welcome to my humble abode," Grace said from behind him.

"It's great, you've really fixed up the place," he said, noticing how clean everything was compared to the last time he had been here." How long have you been staying here?"

"Since I got back," Grace replied.

He followed her past the dragon statue in the middle of the room and down the hall to a room lit by a large lantern hanging from the ceiling. On one side of the room was a small bed. Well... it was more of a thin mattress on a slab of wood. In any case, above the bed was a small window, and, shoved against the wall to the right of the door was a large wooden trunk. Next to the bed on the left wall were two shelves stuffed full of books, most of which looked to be handmade, and he noticed that many of the spines had been labeled in Grace's curly handwriting. He also noticed that all of them seemed to be about medicine, or plants, or both.

Grace walked over to the trunk and pulled a mint green...something from it, and walked out to the hall. When she came back, she was wearing it instead of the lavender-colored robe she had on before. She had also braided her long hair down her side and tied it with a white lace ribbon.

"You look nice," he said.

"I'm going to bed," she replied, throwing her dirty clothes in a small, woven basket behind the door." There aren't any other beds in the other room yet, but you can sleep in there if you want. It's down the hall, third door on the right."

"I'm sure I can find somewhere else," he replied.

She threw a blanket at him," don't. It's late already, so either you sleep at your own house, or you sleep with me."

"Ah, so I'm sleeping in here then?" He joked.

Grace replied by hurling a pillow at his face," I meant in the hall, or the guest room. Make a choice."

He laughed. Picking up the blanket she had thrown earlier, he headed out in the hall. Coiling his tail up in the crook of his back, he fell asleep on the floor. Even though it hadn't been that long, he'd gotten pretty used to having a tail now. Well, enough so that he wasn't accidentally knocking things over with it anymore, but that is a story for another day.

It was late. Probably around midnight or so, when he woke up. It had been the same dream--the same nightmare-- that's been haunting him since the accident. His memory of the event played back like a recording in his mind, as vivid and real as the day it happened. Though he was awake now, the stink of blood and iron still stung his nose. He rubbed his shoulder in an attempt to soothe the aching in his right arm. He could still clearly remember the pain. The pain of being crushed between a burning chunk of metal and shards of broken glass; The pain of being yanked from the wreckage that had been his parents car; The pain of the hours of surgery to remove and replace his arm. It was all imprinted vividly in his mind. Something he would never be able to forget. A shudder crept down his spine just thinking about it.

He knew there was no hope of getting any more sleep now, so he folded up the blanket he was using and set it by the wall with the pillow before making his way out to the main room of the shrine. He walked over to the dragon statue and sat in front of it on the floor. Its claws nearly the size of his hand and its feet the size of his head. It was the kind of statue that made you feel small and insignificant when you were next to it. For good reason; It almost touched the ceiling high above.