§Tanya§

These first days in my new school were horrible. I got a B in geography.
I always get an A in geography.

The kids at school are just annoying and the teachers act dense.

Anyway, when I came back from school on Friday, with my wrongly graded geography paper, I decided to play a puzzle game on my phone.

I love puzzles. They help to get my mind off things.
That evening, while I was playing, my phone slipped out of my hands and fell to the floor.

It skidded under the bed.
I knelt down beside the bed and looked under.
Then something weird happened.

From the middle of my palm, a bright beam of light shot out, illuminating the space under the bed.

I withdrew my hands and shook it and the light went off instantly.

I grabbed my phone and hurried out of the room.

This was before I saw Trevor in the backyard the next day, talking to a guy that stepped out of a portal.
I was in shock for the whole scene.

Trevor told me not to say anything before he stepped through the portal.
I didn't.
But he had to tell me what was going on.
He promised after he had his dinner but he forgot and I went to sleep.

He next day, he told me that he was going to see a friend in a bar.
I persuaded him to let me come with him.

There he could explain things and I could even tell him about the light incident.
He reluctantly agreed.

When we arrived, his friend was sitting at a table alone, waiting.

We walked over.
"Hey, Maddie," Trevor called out.

She looked up from her phone and smiled at us.
She was pretty and she had blue eyes and blonde hair.

"Hey, Trevor. Who's this?" she asked.

"My sister, Tanya," Trevor responded, "Tanya, this is Maddie. She's a friend from school."

I waved at her.
When we sat, Maddie said that she had a call and would be back in a sec.

When she was gone, I looked at Trevor.
"Interesting..." I said, giving him a goofy smile.

"Shut up Tanya."

I was minding my own business, just singing a song.
"Maddie and Trevor sitting on a tree..."

Suddenly, Trevor's irises started glowing deep orange in colour.

"I said, SHUT. UP."

I clamped my mouth shut.
His eyes turned back to normal instantly.

"What?" He asked, noticing that I was looking at him.

"Your eyes...."
"What about them?" He reached up to his face to touch his eyes.

At that moment, Maddie showed up.

"Okay guys I'm back." She took a seat.

"So..." she started
Trevor was mute, touching his eyes repeatedly.

"Trevor, you okay?" Maddie asked.
Trevor dropped his hands.

"Yeah...I'm fine. What's up?" he asked.

"Trevor disappeared into a portal," I blurted.
Trevor glared at me.

"What?" Maddie asked.
"Yeah...Chang, he came to my house," Trevor said.

"Who's Chang?" I asked.

"She knows?" Maddie asked Trevor.

"Not exactly," he replied.

"She knows what?" I asked.

"Should we tell Chang?" Trevor asked.
They were literally ignoring me.

"How would you even know where he is?" Maddie asked.

Trevor shrugged.
"Maybe the next time he appears. He does it so much now."

"Oh. So you're looking forward to that?" She raised her brows.

"Well...it's pretty interesting now. Chang talked to me yesterday, like I said before."

"Yeah? About what?"
"GUYS! Yesterday, something happened!" I yelled to get their attention.
I loathed being ignored.

I told them about the light incident.
Just then I heard a bell chime and the door to the bar opened.
A girl in all black walked in. She looked Asian.

I learnt she was a friend of Maddie's.
Apparently, the three knew each other.

The girl's name was Lucy. She was introduced to me.

When she sat down, Maddie suddenly blurted, "Spirit of light!"
We all stared at her.

Then two more people walked into the bar. A guy and a girl.
They looked very alike.

Trevor called out to the guy, who's name I found out then was Alexis.
He looked over at our direction and walked over.

That's when Trevor started acting weird and pointing forward.

When I looked at the direction Trevor was pointing at, I saw a man step out of a portal.

Before I had time to register what was going on, we all disappeared.

***

I mean the six of us. Trevor, Maddie, Lucy, Alexis, the other girl, the strange man and I.

We all saw ourselves in a forest.
The forest was scanty, so I could see the sky through the canopies the leaves made. It was blood red.

The trees had tall, charcoal black trunks and branches, like they were set on fire but only charred.
Their leaves were dark orange in colour but they looked healthy.
The ground was black sand.

The place gave me Halloween vibes.
We all stared in awe at our surroundings.

"Where are we?" I asked to no one in particular.
The man that stepped out of the portal turned to us.

"We're in Shu," he said, his eyes lighting up in surprise to see me.

"Shoe?" I said to him. He looked familiar.

The man chuckled. "No. S-H-U." He said, like it made any more sense.

Then suddenly I remembered who he was.

"Shu, the kingdom of death?" Trevor said from behind me.

"Death?" I asked, horrified.

Then I turned to the strange man.
"You're that guy I saw at my backyard."

His eyes widened in humor.
He turned to look at Trevor promptly.

"Spirit of light," he said, "always a character."

"Spirit of light?" I asked. Maddie had said that moments before.

"Hello, spirits of Reina," he said to everyone.

"Hello, Chang. Why are we in the 'kingdom of death?'" Alexis asked with pursed lips.

"I need the spirits to be conversant with the kingdoms. Very important," Chang replied.

"Can someone tell me what's going on?" I asked.

"Follow me," Chang said and walked deeper into the Halloween forest.
I sighed in frustration.
We followed him in.

"Why are we in a forest?" the other girl asked, her face scrunched up as we moved.

"Diviners of Shu can detect a spirit of Reina easily. Here is safest."

"So...what if they find us?" Maddie asked.

"Oh...that'll be bad. But don't worry, they won't," Chang assured us as we trudged deeper into the woods.

"This place is horrifying," Trevor pointed out.

"Why are we really here?" Lucy asked, making us startled a bit.

"We're here to talk about a lot of things," Chang replied.

"Trevor, tell them what I told you yesterday. Then I'll take over when you're done."

"Okay." Trevor coughed like when was getting ready for a speech. Then he began.

"Spirits of Reina..." Then he just got attacked from every direction.

"Oh...please don't."

"Dude...you look dum."

"You think that's funny?"

"Call me a spirit again–"

"What the hell are spirits of Reina?" I finished for them.

"Jeez! Yesterday, Chang told me about the four kingdoms we apparently have. There's Reina, the kingdom of balance, Shu, the kingdom of death, Horei, the kingdom of life and ankor, the kingdom of foundation. The kingdom of foundation is the mortal world that we live in.

"Chang also said that all the kingdoms were made by the supreme being of the world, Buda. He controls timing and seasons and basically everything in the... kingdoms. Chang please take over from here," Trevor finished and stepped back.

Chand stepped forward.
"Speaking of Buda and the seasons of the year, I need to tell you how the cycle in the kingdoms operate.

There are four seasons every year. Winter, summer, rise and bloom."

"Rise and bloom?" I asked.

"It's called the fall and spring in ankor, I forgot to mention. Now, every bloom all the kingdoms well...bloom! All plants are fruitful. The sky is always clear blue. The waters are cold and still.

"The synamore trees of the forest in Horei produce syne which energises the people of the kingdom all throughout the bloom season. There's slight confusion here now.
In ankor the seasons cycle like this: spring, summer, fall then winter. But in the other kingdoms it's bloom, rise, summer then winter.

"Now, the rise season. During this season, all the trees of the kingdoms shed their leaves. But before these leaves reach the ground, they rise up to the atmosphere and disentigrate.

"Their particles spread around the kingdom, replenishing everyone's magic. This season is the best season of the year especially in the kingdom of Reina. Everybody is stronger and healthier as a result of breathing in the air that is magically enchanted.

"The thing is, if you pluck any leaf from any tree, that leaf loses its source of nourishment and therefore doesn't have any magic in it again...Summer! God, I hate this season. It's all work, train, harvest, prepare–"

"Prepare for what?" Maddie asked.

Chang paused for a moment.

"...The annual war..."

--------------

I love magic and I wish it was real...
😌

Have a magical day!!

~Ash.