Slowly opening my eyes, my head pounding like a mad man. What is saw In front of me.. Darkness? I realized I was laying down on cold, hard concrete. Wait. My basement's floor wasn't made out of concrete...
I immediately sat up. Brick walls covered in vines surrounded me. Where the hell was I?! My breathing quickened, my head pounding harder by the second. I grabbed my chest, trying to steady my breathing. My hand brushed against something cold and hard—the necklace. It was around my neck.
I definitely hadn't put it there.
Suddenly, something behind me spoke.
'Hello, Ruby. I've been expecting you.'
I whipped around, my heart hammering. It was the shadow—the one that grabbed me earlier today.
It stood in front of me, its form twisting and rippling like smoke. Its voice carried an otherworldly echo.
'What... what do you want from me?!' I stammered, my voice cracking.
The shadow tilted what I assumed was its head. 'You already know the answer.'
'No, I don't! I don't even know where I am!'
'You're where you were always meant to be,' it said, its voice like a whisper in my ear, though it didn't move closer. 'You opened the box. You accepted the call.'
'What call?!' I screamed.
It extended a tendril-like arm toward me. 'The ruby around your neck. It's not just a necklace. It's a key. You've unlocked the first step in fulfilling your destiny.'
I stumbled backward, shaking my head. 'No. No, I'm just a normal girl. I don't have a destiny.'
The shadow chuckled, a low, hollow sound. 'Normal? Is that what they told you? That you were normal? Oh, Ruby. You're far from it.'
The vines on the walls began to writhe as the shadow's words sank in. My head swam with memories I couldn't place—images of places I'd never been, people I'd never met, but somehow... I knew them.
'You're lying,' I whispered, though my voice lacked conviction.
'Am I?' The shadow loomed closer. 'Do you feel the power of the ruby around your neck? Does it burn? Does it pulse with your heartbeat?'
I clutched the ruby. It was warm—no, hot—like it was alive. The pulsing intensified, matching the rapid thrum of my chest.
'What am I?' I asked, my voice barely audible.
The shadow's tendrils coiled and uncoiled, like smoke trapped in a glass jar. Its presence seemed to fill the entire room, pressing down on me with an invisible weight.
'What am I?' I whispered again, my voice trembling with fear and confusion. The shadow didn't answer immediately, its form rippling and swirling like smoke caught in a breeze. It seemed to be contemplating my question, or perhaps deciding how much to reveal.
'You're not human, Ruby,' it said at last, its voice low and deliberate. 'You never have been. This world—Earth—was never meant to be your home.'
The words hit me like a slap to the face. 'No... No, that can't be right. I've lived here all my life. My family... my mom, my friends. This is my home.'
The shadow seemed almost pitying. 'Your life here was an illusion. A carefully constructed one. You've been living in a world that was never yours. And the truth of who you are—of where you truly belong—has always been kept from you. But now, the time has come. The necklace, the box... they were the catalysts. Your journey has begun.'
I shook my head, my breath coming in quick gasps. 'This... this doesn't make sense. You're lying. I'm human.'
The shadow's tendrils twisted around itself, its presence growing more intense. 'I'm not lying, Ruby. The truth is not always what you want it to be. And you, my dear, belong somewhere else—somewhere beyond this world. Landan.'
'Landan?' I repeated, my mind struggling to make sense of the word. 'What's Landan? Where is it? I don't even know what you're talking about!'
The shadow hovered in front of me, the air around it pulsing as if the very space we were in was alive. 'Landan is a place beyond Earth. A world far from the one you've known. It's where you were meant to be, where you belong. Your journey will take you there, Ruby. And it will be... your home.'
'No. I don't belong in some other world. I belong here, with my family, with the life I've known.' I was shaking now, the ruby at my neck growing unbearably hot, as though it was reacting to my panic.
'You think your "mother" is your mother,' the shadow continued, its voice soft but insistent.' But she is not who you think she is. She has kept you from the truth for years. She isn't the one who birthed you into this world. She isn't even from here. You've been protected, Ruby, but now that protection is slipping away.'
I froze. My heart stuttered in my chest. 'What are you talking about? My mom is my mom. She raised me. She's the one who—'
'Who took you in, yes,' the shadow interrupted. 'But not the one who brought you into this world. The woman you call your mother is a mere keeper of a secret. She knows more about you than you think, but she will never tell you the truth. Because she isn't part of your story. She was never meant to be.'
The words echoed in my mind, refusing to leave. Not my mother? Everything I'd ever known about my life suddenly felt like it was crumbling, the foundation shaking beneath me.
'I know it's difficult to understand,' the shadow said, its voice gentler now, almost apologetic. 'But there are truths in this world that your mind cannot yet comprehend. The only thing you need to focus on now is what comes next. You must go to Landan. You must fulfill your purpose there.'
I shook my head violently, backing away from the shadow, my pulse pounding in my ears. 'I don't understand. What do you want from me? What's in Landan? Why do I need to go there?' My chest tightened with each word, the weight of the shadow's presence suffocating me.
The shadow didn't answer immediately. Instead, it seemed to pull back slightly, its tendrils swirling as if weighing the answer. Finally, it spoke again.
'In Landan, you will find your true path,' it said, its voice now laced with finality. 'There, you will learn who you truly are, why you were brought here, and what you must do next. Your time on Earth is at an end, Ruby. But the next chapter of your existence... that's where you will truly begin."
I didn't belong here. This world wasn't mine.
With a deep, shuddering breath, I asked a question that felt right in that moment: 'What do I do now?'
The shadow drifted closer, its form pulsating as it whispered, 'You have already begun. You've opened the box, Ruby. The journey is in motion. But there are still pieces to place, still paths to walk. The first step is always the hardest.'
The air around me seemed to grow heavier, thick with a strange, unspoken promise. 'But you're not alone,' the shadow added. 'There are others, waiting for you. They know who you are. They've been waiting for you to come home.'
I felt a strange pull in my chest, a force that urged me to move forward, even as my heart raced with uncertainty. But there was something else, too—an undercurrent of something that felt both terrifying and inevitable. 'Who are they? Who's waiting for me?' I asked, barely able to keep the tremor from my voice.
'The people of Landan,' the shadow answered. 'And the College of Landan. That's where you'll go. That's where you will learn. Your true purpose, Ruby, lies within those walls. You'll be trained there. It will be your new home.'
'College?' I repeated, my voice thick with disbelief. 'You mean, like a school?'
The shadow chuckled, the sound like a dry wind rustling through leaves. 'In a way, yes. But not like any school you've known. The College of Landan is more than that. It is a place of power, a place where beings like you—like us—are taught what they need to know. A place where you will be prepared for your future, the future you've been running from all your life.'
'Power?' The word felt foreign on my tongue. The way the shadow spoke of Landan, of the College... it was as if it was preparing me for something grand, something beyond anything I could imagine. But none of this made sense. I had always been a normal girl. Now I was supposed to go to some magical school in a world I had never heard of?
'The College of Landan will teach you everything you need to know,' the shadow continued. 'It is where your kind and others belong. It is where you belong.'
A chill swept through me, and I instinctively clutched the ruby around my neck. The warmth it emitted seemed to intensify, pulsing against my skin like a heartbeat. 'What if I don't want to go?' I asked, more out of instinct than genuine desire to refuse. But the pull toward Landan, toward whatever awaited me, was undeniable.
'You don't have a choice,' the shadow said, its tone gentle but firm. 'The ruby has chosen you. The College has chosen you. You were always meant to find your way there.'
My chest tightened as the shadow's words settled in. I wasn't human. I wasn't meant to be here. I wasn't even meant to be on Earth. Everything I had known, everything I had believed, was wrong.
Landan. The College of Landan. It sounded like a dream. But it was my reality now, whether I liked it or not.
A cold shiver ran down my spine. 'What happens if I don't go?' I asked, the fear in my voice betraying me.
'The longer you stay here, the more you will forget. You'll forget who you are. You'll forget where you belong. You'll lose everything, Ruby. Everything.'
The threat hung in the air, a chilling promise that paralyzed me. I wasn't sure what was worse—the idea of staying here and forgetting everything or stepping forward into an unknown world that would tear away everything I knew.
'Who are you?' My voice trembled.
For a long moment, the room was silent. Then, the shadow spoke, its voice soft yet penetrating, filling the space around her as if it were woven into the very air.
'I am part of you,' the voice said, its tone deep and ancient. 'A shadow cast by your fate. Not an enemy... but something else entirely. We are bound, though you do not yet understand how.'
My pulse quickened as I stepped back, unable to look away from the place where the shadow seemed to pulse and breathe.
'Why now?' I whispered, my voice fragile with uncertainty. 'Why are you only now showing yourself?'
The shadow didn't answer immediately. Instead, the temperature in the room seemed to drop, the air thickening with an invisible weight. The voice that came next was quieter, but the words still rang through her like a haunting echo.
'Because we are at the threshold,' it said. 'The moment is upon you. You will not walk this path alone.'
I felt the air shift around my body, a strange pull tugging at my senses. My eyes darted to the corner of the room, where a faint light began to flicker, like a spark in the darkness.
Suddenly, the shadows seemed to ripple, and before I could react, a swirling portal of soft, glowing light opened up in front of me. It wasn't like anything I had seen before—its edges were fluid, twisting and changing, like the very fabric of reality was bending.
The shadow's voice filled the space again, a quiet command that she couldn't ignore.
'Go now, Ruby. The path awaits. Landan calls for you.'
I hesitated, my heart racing. I had no idea what awaited on the other side, but something deep inside urged me forward. There was no turning back.
'Landan...' I whispered, stepping closer to the portal, feeling its pull. The shadow, still present in the room, felt like an unspoken promise, a part of my fate that could not be ignored.
The air hummed as I took a deep breath and stepped into the swirling light, the world around blurring as the portal consumed me. The last thing I heard was the shadow's voice, soft but insistent.
'We will meet again, Ruby. And when the time is right... you will understand.'