Two Worlds Part 2
Sarah Somebody

 

**************************

We appeared in an opened field on the top of a hill.

My "keeper" gave me a smile. "Come on." He motioned for me to stand beside him so I did as he asked.

He pointed. "That's our major city."

It was beautiful. Just like out of a fairy tail. There were streams running through and around the city. Castles were every where. There were waterfalls, trees, flowers, and ivy growing everywhere and on everything. It was as if the whole town was composed of nature.

"It's beautiful."

He took my hand and started taking me down the hill.

The inside of the city was even better than it had looked. Every type of creature humans had imagined and ones they hadn't hustled in and out of shops and through the crowded stone streets. There were fairies, big blue creatures with spikes coming out of their heads, unicorns led by dwarfs, green one-eyed alien people, and clear, watery looking blobs. It looked strange seeing fairy tales combined with scifi but it didn't seem to bother the creatures. Although the streets were covered with strange creatures it also held mostly human like creatures like my keeper and me.

"If this city belongs to the Laykians why are there so many other creatures here?"

"Because since this is our main city it's also the main trading post. Most creatures are here for business or to purchase products they can't get on their worlds."

He led me through the crowded streets then brought me around a castle and into a large courtyard.

"Where are we."

"One of the Elder's castles"

"Should we be here then?" He gave me a mischievous smile.

"Probably not but nobody ever has time to check to see if people have broken into their court yards, orchards, or fields."

He suddenly grew quiet and the expression on his face turned sad.

"I didn't tell you this the first meeting we had because I wanted you to absorb where you actually come from first but our worlds are under attack by another race, the Lavalians. They've destroyed one of our worlds and ten of our cities and that's just the major ones. They want to use our people's ability to travel through dimensions but our people refused. Their race wants to use the ability to dominate other species."

He face was grief stricken. I couldn't stand looking at it because it made me depressed. It also made me sad that I didn't feel the same way he did about my own race because I hadn't been raised as one. It seemed more like I was in some messed up dream then actually living it.

"What do the Laykians want to do with the dimensional traveling power they possess?"

"We want to study other races. Find out who has the best resources, who would be our allies and who we can trust."

"I have so many questions."

He smiled which was nice compared to his frown. "Well that's what I'm here for. I'm here to answer ANY question you may have. So what's one of them?"

"A major one is does everyone look like humans? I mean am I just seeing everyone that way through my eyes or if everyone does then how do you send people to other worlds?"

"All Laykians do look like humans but that's just our physical features. Our DNA is far from humans and we have differences like our blood is black instead of red. When we send other Laykians to planets with species that don't look like us, their appearance changes. Both the people on the planet and the Laykian see him as that species. The Elders create an illusion. So usually when they find out that they really look like this they totally freak out."

"Can all species communicate?"

"Most species that are advanced in space travel technology can. Those species have a little chip that they insert into their ear. Our entire race has them before their destination of a keeper or watcher is chosen. The chip carries thousands of species languages. So you can actually speak, hear, and understand over a thousand different languages. The right one taps in with the right species. On most planets they're given away for free since their essential for communication. Which reminds me that I need to give you yours."

He handed me this small round piece the same color of my skin that reminded me of a hearing aid.

"Do I just stick it in my ear and it just suddenly works?"

"Here you see this little silver dot." I nodded. "That goes on the inside like this." He tucked my hair behind my ear and gently slipped the chip into my ear. I couldn't even feel it.

"As soon as you get around different species besides Laykians and Humans you'll notice it working."

I smiled. "Cool"

Before I could ask anymore questions a lady came around the bend in the path in front of us and found us sitting on a bench. She yelped and dropped the clothes she had been carrying.

We froze and just sort of stared at each other for a minute and then she started screaming. We could hear men in the distance coming into the courtyard.

My keeper grabbed my hand. "Come on!" He yelled at me.

We ran to the outside stonewall of the courtyard. He climbed up first and standing on the top of the wall he helped me up then jumped down.

I looked down at the ground. I felt queasy. I was never fond of heights. "I can't jump down there!"

He motioned for me to jump anyway. "I'll catch you. If you don't your going to get us caught!"

"Well it's a good thing I'm wearing pants." I mumbled to myself. I closed my eyes and jumped down and sure enough he caught me....in a way. I ended up knocking him down and landing on top of him.

It took me a minute to catch my breath. "Hi. Well I made it. You okay?"

"Yeah except the fact that you're on top of me which isn't such a bad thing considering you're beautiful."

Choosing to ignore the last sentence I mumbled "Oh sorry."

I untangled myself from him and we started walking up the hill just in case they came looking for us outside the castle's parameter walls.

After being silent for a long time we couldn't contain ourselves anymore. We both busted out laughing.

"Did you see the look on her face when she saw us?" He plopped down in the grass on his back and propped himself up with his elbows.

I laughed even harder at his comment. Lying down beside him, I rolled over on my side to face him and propped my head up with my corresponding arm. "Yeah and then when she screamed."

We laughed for a few more minutes and then fell silent again. Finally he broke the silence.

"I don't blame you if you decide to stay in one of the human worlds. It's safer there for you anyway but I will no longer watch over you and I'll be assigned to another watcher."

For some reason the thought of not having him around made me sad.

"But why?"

"Because you would no longer need protection. You'd become one hundred percent human."

"Would I forget about having two lives or all of this?"

"In order to keep you safe without a keeper yes you would. The Elders designed it that way."

We fell silent again. I rolled over to my other side away from him and studied the castle we had run from. It was even more beautiful than father's castle but father's castle was home. Or at least it used to be. What would it be now that I knew he wasn't my real father?

I felt my "keeper" move behind me. He stroked my hair and a wave of longing went through me. His fingers went up and back down my arm and then back up to caress my face.

I tilted my head up to look at his face. It was so calm and peaceful. The next thing I knew I was kissing him. It felt so normal being in his arms, having our lips touch and then the reality of it caught up to me. I remembered Tristin and automatically pushed away. The sweetness from the kiss was gone. Tears were streaming down my face.

"Leslie?"

"Stay away from me." I pushed away from him and began running. I could hear him following behind me. The field we had been sitting in evolved into a forest so I headed into it. Vines and limbs covered the ground and I tripped and fell. I tried to get up but realized I was shaking. When I finally got the balance to get back up my keeper had caught up with me and he caught me by the arm.

I struggled furiously trying to get away from him. Finally he gave up and let me run. I would have kept running but the woods ended and I found myself on the top of a hill. I stopped dead in my tracks. At the bottom of the hill was what I guess used to be a town. There was blood everywhere. Burned buildings, bodies, and wildlife. Bodies were everywhere some even hung from nearby trees.

"Oh my gosh."

My keeper walked up behind me. I no longer cared about getting away from him. I buried my head in his chest. I felt his arms wrap around me and it made me feel safe and protected from the rest of the world.

*************************

He walked me back to the field, where we had sat earlier.

"Who would do such a thing." My voice quavered and was quieter than usual. I sat down in the soft grass and closed my eyes. It was a nice change not switching into another world but to stay in one place for a long period of time.

"It's just the Lavalians way of life. They're very violent and cruel minded creatures. They take their prisoners and torture them to their death."

He sat down beside me and wrapped his arm around me. Instead of fighting or declining I accepted his close company. I shivered at memory of what I had just seen. He pulled me closer to him.

"Where are their armies right now?"

He sighed. "We never know. They're the best soldiers there are. They know all the tricks in the book and they'll kill women and children with no mercy. They have no hearts."

I could hear the familiar sadness in his voice. I looked up at him to see his eyes glazed over. I took his hand and our fingers intertwined

"Close your eyes."

I obeyed closing my eyes. I woke up to find myself in my big four-post bed.

*************************

My eighteenth birthday was in five days. I had to decide either to stay in one world or fight a war in an alien world. As much as I tried to keep those days they went by fast until I only had one day left to decide. Over the past two weeks I had worried my friends and family to death because I had been so distant and depressed now for a month.

Cassandra sat across the table from me. Mom was sitting in a chair by the phone. She was expecting a call from someone up at her work office and it was obviously driving her insane that she hadn't received it yet.

"Can I ask you both a question?"

"Yes!" They both practically yelled in unison. Since I had avoided everyone lately they were practically going crazy trying to get me to talk.

"If I were to disappear or leave what would you both do?"

There was a deep look of concern on both of their faces. They exchanged worried glances.

Cassandra was the first to speak. "Well Elisa I'd be sad. I don't know what I'd do without you."

She said it in a weird voice. It had been an answered she'd obviously practiced saying. I didn't even want to hear my mom's. They probably went to a shrink together to try and figure out what to do with me.

"Forget it!" I yelled. I jumped up from my chair and ran across the house into my room. I locked all the doors leading out and sat down on my bed. My life as Elisa was falling down around me. It was no one's fault but my own. I had pushed them all away lately. I could hear my mom and Cassandra calling my name and trying to get the door open.

"Goodbye mom. Goodbye Cassandra. I love you both."

I reached under my pillow and pulled out a bottle of pills. I had put them their a week earlier just in case my decision was to give up this life. I knew in order for me to stay in the other world that I had to die in this one. I closed my eyes, tears running down my cheeks, and tilted my head and swallowed ever pill in the bottle. It didn't take them long to work. I saw the world began to spin around me. I laid down on my side and looked out the window and watched the sun go down one last time as Elisa. At the last moment I had a moment of regret and then everything started going hazy and it was gone. Elisa was gone.

**************************

I awoke under an old oak tree. My mind felt ripped in half. I immediately closed my eyes and when I opened them I was still sitting under the tree. My heart filled with sorrow. I would never be Elisa again. I would never see Mom or Cassandra ever again. I would no longer have a movie night with mom or have talks with Cassandra. They were out of my life and now I was Alexandria. The thoughts that filled my head made me cry and I cried until there were no more tears.

The sun was now setting. I hadn't seen Tristin in a long time now and the worry was getting to me. I ran through the fields to King Henry's castle. I walked across the mote and up the path to the huge wooden doors. I stepped inside and suddenly felt uneasy.

"Hello?" I yelled

There was no answer. I searched through every room but I found no one. There wasn't even a servant in sight. Heart pounding I went back over the hills to my Father's castle. There was a strange carriage I had never seen before in front of the castle. I ran inside knowing Father was on business but hoping the owner to the carriage could give me some answers.

"Hello? Is anyone here? Marie? Nancy?"

Marie came rushing into the room. "There you are"

Her face was blotched with tears.

"What's wrong Marie?"

"Honey sit down" I did as she commanded. "Honey three days ago King Henry's castle....someone put... poison in the wine. They don't know who did it but… but everyone's gone. The doctor's couldn't do anything to help them...they were already gone by the time discovered them."

"What?! No, no! You're lying. Tristin is not dead. He can not be dead. No! I gave up Elisa and now this...."

New tears fell down her cheeks. "Honey it's true." I was hysterical now. I pushed past her and ran up the stairs and into my room. I was shaking so badly I couldn't stand so I slouched against the wall sitting on the floor.

"No! What's the point? I've lost the one person I loved most. There's no point staying Alexandria. Without Tristin this life is going to fall apart just like Elisa. I can't have either one."

I ran out of my room, down the stairs, and out of the castle. I ran across the closest field and stopped at a stream. Without hesitating I jumped into the water. I knew the current was too strong and I didn't resist it pulling me under. I felt the water fill my lungs. I had my last gasp of air. I could feel Alexandria leaving my body as Elisa had. My mind began feeling hollow. There were no thoughts. There were no emotions, just emptiness.

I watched myself for hours. I saw me, Alexandria, lying on the shore and I saw the horrified look on Marie's face when she and the servants found me and I knew Father's would be a thousand times worse. I had been his little girl and now I had also left him as mother had.

**************************

I'd been asleep for a long time. I'd never slept before. I woke up feeling someone beside me. I rolled over to see who it was and was face to face with my keeper. We were lying on the top of the hill that overlooked the city.

I study my keeper for a moment. He was defiantly good looking. His hair was a soft brown and he had lightly tanned skin to match. From the last time I had been with him I remembered his eyes being gray-blue. Everything about him was masculine but that and his tallness just seemed to make you feel protected around him. He really wasn't that different from Tristin in the means of physical traits except that Tristin had sandy blonde hair.

My attention turned from my keeper when I heard a purr. I lifted my head up to see what it was. On the other side of my keeper was Avalon. I didn't know how Avalon had gotten there but I was happy to have something from one of my lives.

My keeper still slept so I laid my head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat. The rhythm finally put me back to sleep.

**************************

I woke a second time to find my keeper gone. My heart began to beat fast until I looked up and saw him sitting in front of me looking at the city below. I got up and sat down beside him. He had Avalon in his lap, stroking him.

"How is it that Avalon is here?"

He gave me a small smile. "I wanted you to have something from one of your old lives. I wanted it to last."

"Thank you." I sensed that something was wrong. "What's wrong?"

"The Lavalians have destroyed another city. They killed over a thousand Laykians. They're working there way to Ivilan, another major city, and then they're coming for this city. If they get it they'll have control over us all. We don't have enough time to train the military we need to stop them."

He paused then slightly changed the subject.

"I see you made your choice. I'm happy you decided to stick with me even though our kind is at war."

"What about back up from another species?"

"We're working on that but it took us a while to find someone willing and it might take too long to recruit them to our world."

He let Avalon go. I watched as the cat wondered around and then laid down a few feet from me. I looked over at my keeper's face and saw the distress. I reached over and laid his head on my shoulder. I stroked his head and at the same time intertwined my other hand with his.

"Everything will work out. Love conquers hate. Their empire will fall even if its thousands of years from now."

I felt the tears roll down my cheeks as I thought of Tristin.

"I never got to say goodbye."

Our hands still intertwined he lifted his head and brought mine down to lay in his lap. He wiped the tears from my face.

"I know."

I knew that he felt my pain. He was just like Tristin. They both always came out stronger in the end.

**************************

My keeper had gone into the city to find something to eat. I had decided to stay on the hill. It was quiet when I heard a noise behind me in the woods.

"Hello?"

It was silent. I turned back around but then heard another noise. I started to turn around again but someone grabbed me from behind. I tried to scream but a hand went over my mouth.

I saw my keeper coming back up the hill. I began to struggle. I bit his arm and elbowed him in the stomach. His gripped loosen and I broke free.

"Help!"

My keeper looked up and saw the thing behind me. He started running towards me. I tried to run towards him too but the creature on the ground grabbed a hold of one of my feet and I fell to the ground. Another guy came up and yanked me up by my hair. My keeper had made it up the hill to me but as he tried to approach me, the creature holding me pulled out a knife.

As the creature began to talk, it took me a minute to figure out what he was saying but the language chip in my ear automatically tuned into the right language within seconds.

"Come any closer and I'll slit her throat."

My keeper stayed in place as the creature had commanded.

It was silent for a few seconds then my keeper spoke.

"What do you want in trade of the girl?"

I could feel the point of the knife poking against my skin. I looked away from my keeper and down at my stomach where the creature had the knife positioned. He had dull colored skin. But a color I had never seen before on Earth. From fighting earlier with the creature I had bit, I had found out that there skin was extremely tuff except for the underside of their arms. The creature holding on to me now was almost three times my size. I looked back at my keeper as the creature responded.

"Nothing. We have what we need. With the use of her we'll bring this entire empire down at its people's feet."

"Take me instead of the girl."

The creature sneered.

"No Lavalian warrior is stupid enough to make such a trade."

My heart skipped a beat. All the air went out of me and I couldn't seem to get enough back in my body to breathe. I gasp for air as I remembered what my keeper had told me about the Lavalians. How they had no hearts and would kill anything and everything that breathed. I breathed in a lung full of air and found my voice.

"Why would you want me? I don't know anything about the Laykian Empire or the war going on in it."

The Lavalian growled and poked the knife harder into my stomach. I felt blood began to trickle down. I winced in pain as he pressed the knife even more into the new wound.

"You will not speak." He lifted the knife away from me and used that hand to motion for ten more of his men to come over. They arrived in a matter of seconds and the Lavalian holding on to me gave instructions.

"Take the girl to our camps and chain her up. No harm is to be done to her. The Emperor wants her in good condition." He looked over at my keeper. "Take him and lock him in one of the torture cells. We can't have anyone interfering with our plans."

What I suspected now was the commander of this troop handed me off to another Lavalian holding a kit. I study the Lavalian up close. It was big, tall, and bulky. All of its skin was that odd pale color and I could now see that it was ruff and bumpy. Its face was flat with little slits for its nose and ears. Its eyes were huge with no color in them and its mouth was filled with three rows of teeth, top and bottom. It had no hair but excessively long nails on its fingers, which it only had four of. The only clothes any of them wore were pairs of worn pants.

 While that one searched through the kit another pushed me to my knees. I looked over to where my keeper stood. Five of the Lavalians had moved in on him. He struggled but they easily over powered his strength. I watched as they began dragging him towards the forest, a ways across the field from where we were.

"No!" The Lavalian who was holding me down on my knees obviously wasn't focused on the task because I was able to jump up without struggle. I began running towards my keeper. My keeper turned his head around and saw me.

"Leslie, run! Get out of here!"

One of the Lavalians beside him punched him in the stomach making him lose his balance but the group continued dragging him. I stuck to my course and kept running towards him wanting to reach him but the three Lavalians standing by easily caught up to me and knocked me down.

"No!" I was crying now. Trying to struggle but no longer had any strength. The Lavalian with the kit came up behind me with a needle. My keeper turned his head one more time to look at me. I saw the pain in his face as he saw the Lavalian behind me with the needle fixing to stick it in my neck. With tears still streaming down my face, I closed my eyes. I felt the prick of the needle as it entered into me.

I watched high above as I had watched Alexandria on the banks of the river. They carried my limp body in the direction of the forest. I felt emptiness inside of me I had never felt before.


**************************

I woke up in a stone cell. I couldn't move very far because as the commander of the Lavalian troops had commanded, I had been chained to the wall. It was dimly lit so I couldn't make out much. At first I thought I was in the cell by myself but then as my eyes adjusted to the darkness I made out a figure across the cell from me.

"So your it." The voice startled me.

"What?"

"You're the person, the main tool. Your existence is going to bring the whole empire down." The voice hesitated as if to think a second. "The Laykians had it coming for them anyway."

The figure began to laugh but the laugh soon turned into a wheezing cough.

I began to get angry. "How could you say that?" I yelled. Suddenly the creature leaped forward. His face was an inch from mine. His eyes were a strange color blue and seemed to glow. Now with him so close I could see the skin on his arms. It was like the skin was covered with thorns that you would find on a rose.

"Keep it down or they'll come." he hissed.

I shivered as he moved away and back to his spot across from me. As hard as I tried to keep it steady my voice still trembled.

"What do you mean they'll come."

He's tone now had somewhat friendliness in it. "If there's any noise from the cells they haul us off and take a hot metal rod and run it down out arms, backs, and even sometimes faces."

It felt like my heart was in my throat.

"Oh, you have nothing to worry about. They're not going to harm you. They need you but they'll sure do it to me."

I was desperate to change the subject so I could get the picture of a hot metal rod burning away the skin on my arm out of my head.

"Why do they need me? Why don't they just raid the city?"

"Oh didn't you hear? The Laykians finally got help from the Icarians. Their troops landed around Laykia yesterday."

"Then what use am I going to be?"

He chuckled. "I guess your keeper didn't tell you did he. He probably told you instead that the Elders create an illusion in order for the watchers to go among other species unnoticed. Keepers are trained to say that or your empire would have already fallen a part by now."

Some how he knew I was confused so he continued on quickly.

"All Laykians have the power to jump from one dimension to another but only watchers have the power to morph. They can morph into any thing that lives."

I sat there silent for a moment thinking. In a quieter voice than before I replied "So the Lavalians want to use me to morph into someone."

"But not just anyone, the oldest one of the three elders. With you as the Elder they can control all the decisions the council makes. One slip and the Lavalians will have overruled the whole empire. They can kill the council, raid all the cities, and the race known as the Laykians will be extinct in the entire universe."

"How did they know?"

"What?"

"How did they know I was a watcher?"

"It's simple. Your eyes are blue. Keepers are green."

Now that everything had been made clear I suddenly felt a rush of emotions. I felt rage toward the Lavalians but I also felt anger against my keeper for not telling me. But most of all I felt sorrow for this empire which seemed to be destined to fall.

I heard a door at the end of the hall outside the cell creak open and then two pairs of heavy footsteps walking towards our cell door. One Lavalian opened and stood at the door, as one stepped in and unchained the creature across from me.

The one by the door grunted something to the other. The creature didn't make a move to struggle as one of the Lavalians began ushering him out of the cell.

Right before he was pushed out the door he turned to me. "It's time for my execution. It was good to have chatted with you. Don't let these pieces of scum take over Laykia."

The Lavalian began pushing him out the door again. "If you survive try and find my wife and tell her I love her. Will you? The name's Kryaten!" He yelled his name as they dragged him down the hall.

"I will, I promise!" I yelled back. Then I heard the door at the end of the hall close. The coldness of the cell crawled along my skin and I suddenly realized I had a responsibility. I had to save my people's empire.

 

 

Copyright © 2002 Sarah Somebody
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"