SELENE EIN 👁 🌙

Tajmahal

"Madamji, dupatta le lo" the street vendor's voice snapped her into consciousness, various other street vendors voices echoed through the streets.

Ein looked around startled, she was standing in the middle of a street market. Did the portal take her here? Did none of them notice a human materializing from thin air right in front of them? Where were the others?

The last question made her more worried than as to where she was. They must have been separated by the portal and somewhere close. She only remembered the flash of bright blue light as she stepped into the portal and nothing at all after that.

The vendor who was selling the dupattas mistook her bewildered face as lack of proficiency in their language.

"madam tries out this dupatta, it will suit you" he translated in a strong Asian accent. She just grinned at him in reply, while her mind was pushing her to ask which place was this. What if the people thought she was mad? She must look like a tourist to them and which tourist doesn't know where they have come to?

She tried to find any clues from the language they spoke, but it felt similar to many languages. Atlast she took her opportunity and asked the vendor.

"actually which -"

Before she could finish off another voice interrupted her

"Welcome to India madam, you are really beautiful. We have the right accessories for you at our shop.please do visit our shop" with that he gave her a flyer and walked past giving her a crooked smile. He was wearing a bright red kurta and his eyes were twinkling.

"Do you know the person?" she asked the vendor.

"no there are a lot of vendors in the street we only know people near to us" he explained. She nodded.

So this must be India. Ever since she was a little girl she loved traveling and India was one of the countries she badly wanted to visit but couldn't. Always enticed to the palaces, architectural wonders and charism of India. The streets were filled with all kinds of cute things making her want to stay there, explore each one of them but she had a mission to accomplish. First she should find the others and she had no idea how much time was left till the portal will close.

She started to walk into the streets despite the street vendor's calls. She looked down at the flyer in her hand. It looked like a shop advertisement written in Hindi ( Indian language), whatever she caught the side of it shining and vanishing. She bought the flyer closer and noticed something written in crawled handwritten. She was caught in surprise as she recognized it as irikumze. How could it be in an Indian flyer? She looked around for the weird man but he had vanished completely. She focused on the writing and pressed her hand on the writing. The whole page let out blue light and became blank .

Slowly words began to appear.

"to the brave ones who are in search of the guardian,

The portal will vanish when the flow of the sand is complete in the hourglass."
and with that, the words disappeared and an image of the hourglass appeared.

"once you enter the abode of the guardian the hourglass starts. Clues to the abode will be given as soon as you join with your allies" the words disappeared as soon as she read through it.

So the time has not yet started she thought in relief. The allies must mean the other three. She walked through the streets in search of the others. It was a vast country how would she find where the portal took them.

"Ein" someone called out. She turned around.

The sight made her laugh Oliver was standing there with a bright-colored turban on his head and feeding a stray monkey on his shoulder. He looked like new generation Aladdin. She could barely catch her breath.