Chapter Twenty Eight : 

Mirai And The Faery Village / 

In the kitchen, I focused on sitting still as Dolion pulled a few small shards of glass out of my knuckles and fingers. I couldn't watch because it made me too nauseous.  

Afterward, I rinsed my hands in cold water. The blood mixed with the water and turned a pink-ish red, swirling down the drain... And all the memory of my fading away went with it. "Can we go outside?" I asked Dolion. "You're not too tired?" It questioned. I looked out the window at the shimmering moon, hung in the sky like a pendant on a necklace. I twirled my amethyst necklace around between my fingers. "I'm a little tired, but... This will probably feel better than sleeping right now." 

We walked for a long time in near silence, watching the stars and strange planets and clouds churn around in the sky. All the colors were gorgeous, without words to describe them. Looking up at it all, I was a grain of sand lost in the ocean. 

I caught sight of the familiar entity that always made me uncomfortable. Orpheus stared out from the woods, his gleaming blue eyes sorrowful. His enormous black feathered wings helped him blend in  seamlessly with the shadows. I didn't understand why he wanted to lurk around like this - like he was haunting me. But it was the look of distraught in his dragon-like face that made me worry. He motioned toward a section of the woods, like he wanted me to go there. Why, I thought, because I had already been there... That's where the faery realm is. He disappeared shortly after I turned to go into the forest. 

Dolion looked at me inquiringly when I told it that we needed to go into the woods again. "I just have a feeling..." I worried. 

We were only walking for a couple minutes before coming across something that made my breathing cease. 

Mirai lay on the ground, obviously departed from this world. From all the worlds. Her long ginger hair was sprawled out around her, and her hazel eyes opened to heaven. Some kind of silver knife resided in her abdomen. The mostly dried blood was in a puddle surrounding her, and soaked through her dress. Her head was void of the glimmering butterflies, and the flowers in her hair were withered. My voice failed me, my heart raced and my breathing was shallow. My lungs were torn; I tried to draw in oxygen but couldn't. Strange mushroom and fungi-like plants encircled her, sprouting up and out from the grass.

"But... Why?" I whispered, the tears escaping my eyes. Dolion pulled me away from her; I could hardly move. Something alike to shock and panic shot through my body, making me cold. "We need to go see the faery village," I said. It nodded.

The faery realm was a wasteland - all the beautiful houses and magical buildings reduced to ashes. The whole place reeked of smoke; it was obvious that the village had perished in a fire. A dull, heavy fog hung over everything. "Mirai didn't die from the fire... Someone murdered her, directly. Maybe they set up the fire to kill her but didn't succeed? I don't know." My voice was shaky and hardly there; I was talking underwater. 

My thoughts instantly turned to Orpheus, who had been skulking around in these woods since the time the world first changed. "Do you think it was..." I couldn't get the name out, but Dolion knew who I was referring to. "Could be," It agreed. "It could also be anyone that's part of the Corrupt." 

"Let's check her tent," I said. 

Just like the village, it was also a smouldering pile of what once was. All her beautiful jars, scrolls, books and belongings - gone. I couldn't envision again what it once had been. Just like the whole world, I didn't really remember how things were before... Even if I thought a lot about it, I actually couldn't remember how long things had been this way; altered. Days? Weeks? It couldn't already have been a month, could it? 

"Lavender," Dolion said. "We should go..." And I didn't have to ask why, because I felt eyes watching us from in the trees. 

We hurried out of the faery realm, glancing back every few minutes to make sure we weren't being followed.