Through Space and Time

Ten

"Where are we now?" Raegan demanded the moment they landed, their hands snapping apart as if a spell had been broken. "Can you see anything?"

Miguel blinked a couple of times, his eyes slowly adjusting to the new, very bright light. "I don't know. It doesn't look like anywhere I've ever been before."

Raegan nodded. For some reason, she had never revisited anywhere either, which seemed crazy with all the randomness surrounding this journey. Perhaps going back was impossible.

"What do you want to do?" Miguel continued. "Sleep, eat, or..."

"I..."

Before Raegan could answer, a shuffling sound grabbed both of their attention. Even though it terrified the pair of them, there was a welcome feeling to having something else to focus on than just each other. They couldn't deny that things had become awkward ever since that kiss, and neither of them quite knew how to overcome it.

"What was that?" Raegan hissed.

"I don't know, but I think that just answered our question for us. We need to get out of here..."

Raegan nodded sharply and went to move, but couldn't. Her legs were stuck. She tried to call out to Miguel who'd gone a few steps ahead of her, but her lips were stuck together too. She felt ice cold, as if she'd been frozen, but was still aware.

For one heart stopping moment, that's what she thought had happened.

"Who are you?" a bold. yet incredibly feminine voice boomed. "What do you want?"

Raegan couldn't even see who was talking, her neck remained stuck in position.

"We...we..." Miguel simpered.

The pain in her chest wasn't just for herself, she didn't just want to be free so she could defend herself against whatever threat had come her way. It was for Miguel too, painfully so. A part of her would die if anything happened to him.

This is why I shouldn't get attached, she thought sadly. But it's too late for that now.

"What are you doing here?" the woman yelled again. "What do you want with us?"

"N...nothing. We came here by mistake...it wasn't supposed to..."

"Shut up!" She cut Miguel off. "I do not want to hear your lies. "You have come here to take things from us, to steal our way of life. Which will not happen!"

The next time Miguel spoke, he had a trance quality to his voice. This almost tore Raegan apart. If any of her could move, she would've fallen apart.

"Our world has ended. War destroyed us," he said as if his voice box no longer belonged to him. "The fabric of time and space split apart to save some of us from the nuclear blast."

Save? Was that possible? Raegan had never thought of it like that before. She simply viewed it as bad luck.

"We travel through exit holes in an attempt to find our world again, but I fear it will not happen. I am afraid that we will travel until we die."

"Hmm, that must be the truth," the woman continued. "Because you are under my magic which has never let me down before. But why keep running? Why not settle somewhere new? A nuclear blast will have torn your planet apart. There is nothing to go back to."

Those words caused a sob to freeze in Raegan's throat. She hated how accurate they were. She'd been clinging to this hope, pinning everything on it, but it may not be right. This might be a fight not worth battling.

But Dad, she reminded herself. I still need to find Dad.

"It is not home. We need home."

"You clearly destroyed your home. This is all your fault."

"Humans did make mistakes, but we will learn a lesson from this. It won't happen again."

All of a sudden, Raegan felt herself falling uncontrollably. The ground rose to meet her face and she lay there in a heap. It hurt, but she was too relieved that she could move again to care.

"We just...we just want to leave," Raegan gasped out through a ragged raw sensation in her throat. "We don't want any trouble. This isn't our home. We just want to move on."

She darted her eyes upright to see the most stunning looking woman she'd ever seen. Long blonde hair cascaded around her curvy waist, her cleavage popped up nicely by her sweetheart shaped face. Her plump red lips curled into a smile, and a little black dress skimmed the tops of the longest legs Raegan had ever seen.

She was gorgeous and a little too close to Miguel. It was all too much.

Raegan gulped back a bitter ball of bile that lodged itself in her throat. Jealousy wasn't useful, it wasn't needed, there were so many better things she could feel...but it was as if this woman had brought out the worst in her and now she couldn't switch it off.

"You see, don't you?" The witch pointed a finger at Raegan. "That's why I froze you at first. You can see right through me. You know that I do not speak your language, it's simply how you perceive it, and you know that I am not my usual form, but I am pleasing to your eyes. You know more than you let on."

As soon as those words left her mouth, Raegan knew that she was right. She had ascertained that much with ease. Her years alone had taught her always to be careful.

"Yes," she jutted her chin out. "I knew."

"Exactly." The woman's form began to change, but the whole world became too dark for Raegan to work out what she was becoming. The deep chill in the pit of her stomach was enough of a warning though. This wasn't going to be good. "And that is why you pose such a danger to us, why you need to be controlled."

Raegan looked at Miguel and he stared right back. Both of them knew it, this could be the end.

If only they'd said all of the things that they really needed to say.