"Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt."
~ Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)

                                                            ______________________________

Our footsteps echoed as the trio of us rushed inside. But I was lagging behind a couple of steps, unable to resist myself from stopping and staring at almost everything that we passed. The first room was a lobby of sorts, almost the size of a football field with a huge chandelier hanging from the mosaic tiled ceiling. A hearth was ablaze with fire at the center of the room but nobody was sitting on the couches and chairs. Pictures, busts of people I couldn't recognize and intricate tapestries decorated the elaborately painted walls of the room.

"That room is deceiving," Vanessa said when I caught up to her and Mr Blackwell. "Makes you think it's an actual palace or something. It's really not." I gave her a confused look. She smirked and said, "You'll see what I mean."

As it turned out, she was quite right. The rest of the rooms that we passed were all equipped with modern electronics and computers and didn't give the general vibe of what you'd expect a palace to look like. Finally, we stopped and entered a room, similar to the others that we just passed. It had floor-to-ceiling windows that provided a beautiful view of the city. Small cubicles with computers in it were occupied with people, some rapidly typing on their keyboards, others just lazing around. The main wall of the room had a large screen attached to it that was divided into boxes – all showing different images of people and places I didn't know.

At the center of the room, a small crowd had gathered, all of them whispering amongst themselves.

"What's going on?" I asked Vanessa while Mr Blackwell was trying to get past the crowd.

"They are crowding over the bodies," she said.

"Do you know the victims?" I asked. She shrugged. "We have yet to identify the second victim. Our job was to gather the bodies and bring them back before the the mortals started interfering. They had already gotten involved before we even came to know about the deaths. The police are going to be a little shocked when they realize the bodies have disappeared. We'll have to look into that too. Anyways, there's a separate team to examine the corpses and all that stuff--"

"Wait mortals? You mean...you people aren't?"

"Not all of us."

What does that mean? I wondered. But I didn't push since I had other pressing questions to ask.

"I don't understand though. Why do you care if somebody was murdered in one of the, er, other worlds?"

"We don't," she replied. "We never interfere with the mortals unless absolutely necessary. But this is a different case. We suspect that a race of demons is behind these murders. They usually are. Plus, one of the victims, the guy Lukas Herrington, was one of us."

"Oh," I said. "But what was he doing out in my town?"

Vanessa shrugged again. "It's normal for us to visit the other worlds every once in a while. In fact, some do it almost every day. Some have even settled in the one you just came from – the mortal world, maybe because they've been assigned some sort of task or maybe because they've just chosen to. We suspect Lukas fell in love with a mortal. So he stayed back and didn't return. That's all we know for now."

I nodded.

After Vanessa excused herself to talk to her mother who called her over to where the bodies lay, I just stood there awkwardly and felt myself slowly losing patience. After all, hadn't we come here to search for my mom's whereabouts? Mr Blackwell himself admitted that she was in imminent danger. But now he was occupied with other job. I knew I wasn't being fair but I was tensed and worried for Mom. 

I was chewing on my bottom lip, restless when someone right behind me said, "Now, who exactly are you? Can't say I've seen you before."

I nearly yelped from surprise. I turned around and found myself standing face-to-face with a boy who looked about my age. He had a round brown face, curly chocolate-colored hair and a mischievous smile with hazel eyes that were studying me carefully. There was something about his face though that didn't seem entirely human. And as if to prove my point, my eyes fell on his ears which were unmistakably pointy.

"Hey, I'm Kace," the boy introduced, a broad smile on his face.

"I'm Ava," I said, smiling awkwardly. His grin widened. 

"That's a pretty name," he complimented.

"Um, thank you," I said, suddenly very shy.

"Well, I happen to think it's a very ordinary, mundane name," interrupted yet another unfamiliar voice. A boy with stormy blue eyes and inky black hair appeared; clad in dark jeans and a loose black t-shirt. His face was scornful as he regarded me with distaste, as if I were an annoying fly buzzing in his ear that he couldn't swat away.

"She's the one who fell out of the sky, Kace," the black-haired boy said, his voice drawling.

Kace's eyes widened in recognition. "Oh, no way! Why didn't you tell me before?"

I shrugged. "I don't see how that matters."

"What? Of course it matters. Do you-"

"Kace, my boy," the rude black-haired boy interjected again. "We have work to do. Let's not waste our time here talking to ignorant little girls."

I fisted my hands in anger. "What's your problem, huh?"

His eyes narrowed and there was so much raw...hate in them that I recoiled in surprise. "You wanna know what my problem is? My problem is you," he said in a low dangerous voice. He stepped forward until we were nose to nose. If the proximity wasn't intimidating enough, his voice, sharp and quiet, certainly was. "You, a girl completely ignorant about her own kin and people, suddenly show up when shit goes down to take charge when we were the ones who were actually doing all the hard work here, fighting battles and doing quests while you were out there, probably licking ice creams and--"

"Whoa, Josh. Chill, man," Kace said, carefully pulling the guy away from me. This guy, who now had a name, was breathing hard as he looked at me with contempt. For a moment, I just stared at him, my mouth opening and closing, like a fish out of water. I probably looked like an idiot but I couldn't seem to form a coherent sentence.

"What?" Josh said scornfully. "Are you a mute now?"

And that was it. "What did the hell is your problem, you punk?! Firstly, what you said makes no sense whatsoever. I just came here for God's sake! Why would I want to take charge? What does that even mean? And it's bloody unfair for you to say that I'm ignorant about my kin and people! Excuse me but I was not the one who decided that I should be kept in the dark about who I truly am for 16-freaking-years!"

By now, I was breathing like I had run a marathon. I wanted to slap his face but I summoned all my will power and somehow, stopped myself.

"What's going on over here?" Mr Blackwell's voice cut through the brief tense silence that had settled between us. I turned, feeling a flood of relief. I wasn't sure I could stand to see his face for one more second. But my relief was short-lived. I frowned when I saw Mr Blackwell's expression. Exhaustion lined his face and his shoulders seemed downcast as if he was carrying a burden that was getting heavier every passing minute.

"Are you okay, Mr Blackwell?" I asked, concerned. I spotted Vanessa standing behind him along with a red-haired lady who was unmistakably her mother, looking sullen. I raised an eyebrow at her direction but she just avoided looking at me in the eye. "Mr Blackwell? What is it?"

"Ava, I..." he trailed off, sighing heavily. "I'm sorry."

I felt a bad feeling bloom across my chest as he gestured helplessly behind him. That same awful knot in my stomach squeezed tighter as I walked towards the direction in which he pointed. As I walked ahead, I saw the people that were previously crowding over the bodies, parting, all of them looking dejected. I saw the tables and then I saw the bodies lying in them, covered in white sheet. I frowned and hurried my pace, looking behind to see Mr Blackwell following me.

I looked at him questioningly when I reached the bodies. "I'm sorry," he repeated and then his hand was hovering above the white sheet covering one of the bodies, hesitant and unsure.

"She needs to see it, Mr Blackwell," Vanessa's mother said. I wondered what that meant. Maybe they were worried I wouldn't be able to stand seeing a corpse. Maybe I should tell them that I've already seen Lukas Herrington's body, so seeing it again really won't make a difference. But my trail of thoughts went haywire when Mr Blackwell completely pulled off the sheet.

It was a woman with a shock of dark hair and a pallid face. Her clothes were torn and tattered and I could make out those same symbols etched on her skin that I had seen in Lukas Herrington's body. Her face was completely bruised and wounded, almost beyond recognition. But yet...there was something familiar about her. Maybe it was the curve of her jaw or the shape of her lips or maybe just her wavy dark hair, but I suddenly knew who she was.

I felt the breath knock out of me and I stumbled backwards, almost crashing into Josh who thankfully, he didn't try to make any smart remarks. He steadied me but I quickly wriggled out of his grasp and moved forward again, just to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks with me. It couldn't be, right? It couldn't...

But there she was, lying on the table, eyes devoid of any life.

I touched her face lightly and whispered, "Mom?"