"See you again and again and again..."
The wind blew hard and cold, along with the cold droplets of rain getting past the confines of her yellow umbrella. The black-haired lady pulled and readjusted her umbrella to prevent anymore water droplets from invading her chilly walk back home.
"Brrr..." Rose huffed and croaked while looking down at her shimmering mobile screen. "Dear readers, thank you for reading my work for so long, but after two years of continuous serialisation, the webtoon has decided to go on an indefinite hiatus. We'll be back soon with "The Duke's Liebling"– Little Drifter."
After reading out the message, she let out another yelp of disappointment, and said, "I'll probably miss you, Archibald, but I should get home fast!" She hurried after remembering the stack of chores she had to complete, making her rush home.
Amidst the storm, she held the umbrella up like a warrior holding his sword up in triumph and pushed through the heavy wind — just like the warrior carrying the weight of victory and loss on his back.
Then, it all happened too fast.
"Huh?!" she gasped out, but her eyelids dropped, and her legs too gradually lost strength as she slipped down on the ground, finally motionless.
Her umbrella was blown off by the wind, and at the same time, her mobile phone bounced off, and the screen turned blood red, displaying the words: "Host has been found – transportation complete!"
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Feeling her throat get lodged with water, her eyes flooded by darkness, and the tight grip of fear around her, she tried to move and grab hold of whatever she could find nearby. However, contrary to her expectations, she couldn't find anything, and drowned further below.
"Graahhh!" her voice bubbled up, but there were no signs of her descend slowing down, in fact, she was being pulled down faster!
As time passed, her expressions faltered as she sunk further, and lost her breath. With each passing moment, she was closer to not breathing.
Then the following second, a pithy shimmer of cyan illuminated, lighting up the very surroundings of darkness. The light got brighter, and brighter, burning loudly. At the same time, she regained her lost breath, and felt her life force return akin to shattered puzzles being put back.
Rose swiftly got up panting, "Ah!"
Placing her hand down on the mattress, she felt her arm sink in on the wet patch of sweat around the area she'd been laying. It took her sometime to gather her thoughts and get back up as the dream had left her in a chokehold.
"Where is this?" she thought and started to look around. Her eyes were taken aback at the sight before her: a very different room, starting with her own bed that was very large — at least a king size!
Confused, she took deep breaths to calm herself and continued to swivel and skim the room. Her eyes moved fast, but her expression remained indifferent, although her eyes were full of fear.
"Candles, a large wardrobe, the two large windows that paints my room white with the moonlight, and this large bed," Rose thought. "My apartment is far from this, it's small, maybe half the size of this ginormous room, and candles for fragrance...?"
Rose got off her bed and looked around the strange place with scepticism slightly tinged with fear. She had reached two conclusions right now: one – She fainted on the middle of the street on her way back home and was taken in by some "rich" stranger, or two – She fainted on the middle of the street, but was kidnapped instead of being taken in for care, again by the "rich" stranger considering the very large and posh aesthetics.
Taking slow steps to calm her head, she tried to recollect herself even more, but Rose came to a swift stop right before the burnished and ruminative mirror.
"Huh?!" her left hand by instinct went up to her soft cheeks and slid a finger across the pale and supple skin. It was smooth, so unvarying and velvety that her troubles almost vanished for a brief second. "Wait! Who is that?!" she yelped out quite thunderingly.
At the time, she understood it, but her judgement and wit said otherwise, forcing her to stay unaccustomed to the strange idea. So, she decided to look back at the mirror once again to reassure herself that it was nothing more than a moments hallucination.
Pale skin, and red ruby like eyes, blonde hair with negligible flock of onyx, a not too thin build, no rather it was healthy with a little bit of fat around her arms and her waist, but her figure wasn't round either, she was in-between the two. Although the night gown covered most of her, she could still make it out.
"Phew... you know, let's not jump to conclusions," Rose said, but her face held no signs of calm. "Well, what if this is a dream, right? Like one of those super realistic dreams? I'm definitely not the "Princess" from my favourite "webtoon", "The Duke's Liebling." So, who are you kidding, just go back to sleep and you'll wake up as Rose Morris—"
—Knock-Knock!
"Are you alright, Princess? Is everything alright in there?" a young lady's voice came from the outside.
"Fuck my life."
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"Uhhh...! Uhhh!" The boy twisted and groaned. He shifted more and more, until he came to rapid screaming halt. "Ahhhh!" The same child was brought to life, bellowing at the top of his lungs.
"What the fuck was that!" still shook by the number of strange dreams and the strange surroundings he was in. But his hysteria did not top here. "Whe-where am I? What the hell! I was just fighting for my life..." he paused as more images, fragmented and shattered came in flowing, "...and succumbed to the wounds I'd gotten after fighting the Ebon Demise Tarragon..."
"In the nightmare I just had, I was fighting a Ebon Demise Tarragon with my best friend Archibald, and suddenly... what is this sorcery," he gripped his temples, unable to understand the situation. At this moment, he realised something peculiar, and had another gasp of disbelief, "My-my left hand! I thought I lost it in my battle against it! And why are they so skinny? Did I survive? I don't understand anything!"
Just a twinkle ago was he fighting the dreadful and pernicious Ebon Demise Tarragon, an "Eonborn" constructed out of the darkest of human desires, and the exceeding fear over control — a true catastrophe, wild and untameable.
According to the nightmare he just had seen and experienced first hand, the Ebon Demise Tarragon was summoned by a group of fanatic cultists who thought it would be their saviour. The Tarragon was far from it, since the first to fall prey to its vicious and predatory fangs were the followers, specifically the bishop that had summoned it.
And to prevent the Tarragon from spreading far and wide damage, both him, and his friend had fought it. Unfortunately, he had fallen in battle, and had left his friend alone.
He could still hear Archibald's last words to him: "I'll take care of your sister."
"Wait... what sister?!" Finn came back to his senses and found himself flooded with an overwhelming amount of memories, some from his past which he recognised, some from his future, and the time that had yet to reach, yet to pass.
"...I had a sister?" he thought with the plagued memories and a grimace. As far he could remember, he'd been a single child raised and took care of by his grandfather after the death of his father, which his grandfather never elaborated about. His mother too had died when he was young from an unknown disease which left the orphaned boy under the watchful eyes of his mother's father.
After the pain had passed, Finn got up from his simple bedding and made his way over to anything reflective, he had to make sure what happened right now was...
He found the mirror, and as soon as the reflection was glimpsed at, he felt his own two brown eyes stare back at him, albeit a little young, no! A little would be an understatement, since he no longer bore any resemblance to the 43 year old man he was. Right now, he was no older than 15, maybe 16, but his slender figure made it seem as if he'd been younger.
"I can't believe it, but there has to be some sort of mistake here... either my eyes are deceiving me or I've been trapped in an illusory formation, but then again, the mashup of these memories of mine from the future, and the past," Finn massaged his temples slowly as he concluded, "...can I say, I've returned to the past?"
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"I think you should quit drinking beer, you know, it's starting to show," Vlad said to the brown haired individual, a regular here at "Iron Tavern", the local pub. "Addiction is not a great addition, you know?"
At this, the brown-haired middle-aged man spoke, his voice coarse, yet smooth and soft, almost mesmerizing, "Come on, Vlad. You wouldn't want to lose a regular such as myself, do ya?"
"I wouldn't mind losing one," answered Vlad who placed the stein glass filled with the foaming amber liquid. "Still, just cut down on it a bit. Listen here, I know you can't get drunk even after 10 shots, but it's a different story when you're doing it constantly. You know, I've read about something —"
The brown-haired man suddenly interjected peacefully, "Its nothing I haven't seen before. Besides, a shaman once told me my death would be valiant and heroic, so I'm pretty sure I won't die to a few shots of alcoholic beverages."
"Phew." He breathed an exhausted sigh knowing any further attempts at trying to convince the man would end with no progress being made, and as such, he gave up, although, he was going to try this again the next day. "Anyways, haven't you been getting a lil way too out of shape, Jack?" he asked, pointing at the small flop of belly that did not go together with his well built and stocky upper body.
"Hm...?" placing the glass of beer down on the table, he looked down at the sloppy belly, and said, "...maybe. Not like that's gonna matter, I am but a humble lumberjack trying to pass through this mundane life peacefully."
"Whatever, I feel like I just wasted both our time." Vlad turned to attend the other customers who were far less peaceful than Jack.
Jack sighed, looking down at the amber liquid with solemn eyes, "Well, the death wasn't as heroic nor poetic for me... but, I guess that would be when this miserable life of mine would come to an end."
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