the Forest of Emmitaenu

Kaleidoscope Eyes

Lara awoke indoors. As she sat up to inspect her surroundings she noticed the beautiful hand woven rug beneath her on the floor. It was round and intricate, infused with tiny little details that she could only see when she took a closer look. In the weaving she thought she could make out tiny unicorns patterned in sandy beige on top of a midnight blue ring, which was caught between two violet rings broken by ruby red spirals.

Directly in front of her was a heavy wooden door, what looked to be the other side of the front door she'd been staring at from the outside of the hut. Shuffling around so that the sturdy door was to her back, she looked over the rest of the room. There was only one window, on the wall to the left facing inward. Directly across from the front door was another door. This one looked to be half as thick if even that much. There wasn't any furniture.

Slowly Lara started to remember her afternoon from the time that she fell in the garage to the moment she fainted outside. Lara had to give Jade more credit, when she thought about the shocking vision of a man coming through a wall; perhaps the old nomad had been right about more than one thing after all.

On the heels of Lara's latest revelation, she looked up to see the same man walking toward her from the direction she faced. Instinctively she stiffened, but was inexplicably relaxed just by watching the door he'd entered from swinging back into place after he had walked through it the normal way.

He was carrying a smoothly sanded wooden mug containing water. He kneeled down next to her and offered her the drink. Peering up at him Lara noticed how youthful and handsome he looked. How had I missed that before? She wondered. If she hadn't fainted as soon as she saw him the first time, she would have noticed his face was smooth and unburdened by a beard or mustache.

When she looked into his eyes she saw that they were different, instead of one color they were many, where every shade of the rainbow whirled and melded together in a collage of lively colors. He was still holding the mug out to her and she felt rude for staring. A blush started to work its way across her face and she tried to hide it by reaching up and French braiding her hair into a single plait, blocking her face from view with her elbows.

He sat the mug next to her, easily within her reach, and took a seat on the rug just behind her back. It was a curious thing to do, and Lara was confused, but only momentarily until he gently removed her fingers from her own hair and picked up the braid where she left off. Lara occupied her now vacant hands with picking up the mug.

"Hello, I am called Zeftx," he introduced himself in a gentle voice over her shoulder. "Jade tells me you are a mortal. Is it true? I actually mistook you for an Immortal Princess at first glance," he questioned and confided in the same breath. His voice was light and relaxing like a lullaby. Lara turned to face him once the braid was finished and admitted as much was true. The look of awe on his face mirrored the one Jade had given her and she found it very perplexing. Taking a deep breath, Lara realized she had some questions she wanted answered too.

"So," she began slowly, "you walked through the wall...Jade says you can help get me home, and...you are so pale. Excuse me for asking, and this might sound dumb but, are you a ghost?" Lara felt silly hearing the words herself but she remembered how Jade said ghosts knew everything and he had walked through a wall and he did look like a ghost, but still she wondered how he was able to touch things. She had seen him hug Jade, he had carried the mug to her, and he even braided her hair.

"Oh," he laughed quietly, "No I'm not a ghost. I'm very much alive," he reached for her hand and flipped over his wrist for her to check his pulse. Tentatively she pressed against his skin with two of her fingers, feeling a strange beat underneath. It was hard to tell the individual palpitations apart, since it felt more like a thrumming, buzzing sensation. That, like his eyes, was not normal.  Lara looked up at him again.

"If you're not a ghost, then how did you walk through the wall?" She lowered her voice as she said it and glanced around nervously like she was embarrassed and didn't want to be overheard. The words sounded crazier coming out of her mouth the more she second guessed having ever seen him do it in the first place.

"Well that part's simple," he told her casually with a shrug, "all demons can do that." Of all the things he could have said he was, that was certainly not one she would have expected.  When she heard him say demons, alarms went off in her skull and her eyes locked on his face waiting for some sign that he was joking. Quickly he tried to recover their earlier composure. "It's not a bad thing, being a demon, we have souls too, or at least...uh...I do?" He tried to soothe her but his voice grew weaker toward the end of his sentence.

She just stared at him.  Surely she had heard him wrong.  Right?  Unexpectedly his rainbow eyes began to swim in pools of salty tears, threatening to spill out. Before he let that happen in front of her Zeftx got up and walked away.