Chapter 1 – The Other Side Part 1

After a normal boring day of the usual college work, I had finally found the time to just go home and breathe in the air. I had only been attending the college for a few months, and it was an amazing wonder that what family I had left was able to pay for it. My old grandparents on my mother’s side were kind enough to pay for the college tuition as well as the single room studio I inhabited by myself. I didn’t have much family, but what I did have made me cherish it more than anything, much like my old past with Sakura. “I still love her.” I murmured to myself as I changed into some more comfortable clothing, much more comfortable then the school issued uniforms. “It may only have been a couple years, but I keep waiting for the time I get to see her once again. I just was to have another moments wi-“ I cut myself off as something in the corner of my eye caught my attention. Walking into my incredibly small bathroom, I stood in front of the mirror as I tried to see what I saw. As I searched for whatever the thing was, I couldn’t help but look at my figure on the reflective surface.

“You haven’t changed a day Hana, your just the same as ever.” I told myself as I ran my hand through my shoulder length white hair, the one thing on me that made me stand out from the crowd. Most people asked me if it was even real or if I just dyed it that way, but I just normally told them it’s always been that way. Back in high school I got the nickname “ice queen” simply because of my white hair and blue eyes, and the very fact that I kept to myself. Even thought I was finally twenty. It felt like years since I was that inner sheltered teenager that always turned friendships down and being a normal person. “Whatever, the past is the past. No matter who or what I am, I will prove I have life inside of me.” I was about to turn and leave when I saw what looked like a ripple on the surface of the mirror, almost like a bulging. “That’s strange.” I said aloud as I placed the palm of my hand to feel the smooth surface. Feeling just regular old mirror, I began to lift my hand away from it, but no sooner that I had, the mirror’s surface melted to grab my wrist. “What’s going on?!” I shouted aloud as I was being pulled into the mirror against my will. I tried to struggle, bit it was in vain. The mirror fully sucked me up and I closed my eyes tightly, fearing what lay ahead for my future. Feeling whatever had taken ahold of me disappear, I opened my eyes and gasped.

“What in the world?!” I shouted at what lay before me. In front of my very eyes was a massive gothic city, with endless buildings of various sizes sprawled out. “Where am I?!” I shouted loudly into the air, afraid of where I was and what had just happened. “You are in my world Hana.”

I turned slightly to the sound of a familiar voice, a voice I hadn’t heard in years. I had fully turned and saw a girl with black hair and violet eyes smiling at me with an angelic look. She wore a long gray trench coat and some tightfitting clothes underneath. I instantly recognized who she was, as the one person who was closest to me. Running to her, she fully embraced me softly as I began to cry tears of joy. “Is…is it really you Sakura?!”

“Yes Hana, it really is me. It’s been a long time huh?” She said as she stroked my hair with a loving hand. I looked up into her eyes as I cried, overjoyed by seeing her face. “It’s been so long…why you were never-“

“Because terrible things had begun to happen here, and I didn’t want to get you hurt….”

“What happened? What was so terrible that we could never see each other?”

“Well Hana…” She began, trying to find the right words to tell what had happened. She was about to continue when the voices of men interrupted her. ‘There she is! Get her!” I broke away from Sakura’s loving embrace to see a small group of men clad in full body armor charge their way to us. Looking back at Sakura, I gave her a puzzled look. “Friends of yours?” I asked, to which she shook her head. “We have to get out of here, it’s not safe with them after me…us Hana!” She instantly grabbed my arm and began to run away from the armored men with me.

“What do they want?” I shouted at her as we ran, not getting a single thing that was going on anymore. “I may have stolen something from them before you got here Hana. But we better evade them before we discuss what I stole!” We ran down a street and made a quick turn down into a side ally as the men following us picked the pace up. I was about to complain about what we were running for when she genteelly placed a finger over my lips.

“Shush. We’re about to disappear now.” I thought she was insane, thinking it was impossible to just disappear as we stood by an ally wall. She just smiled and pulled a smallish object out of her jacket, an object that looked like an oblong ring with red wires running through it. She held it up to me and I stared in wonder at it, amazed at what it could possibly be. “This,” She started as she pulled it down from my eyes, “Is a little device I made with a mix of magic and technical skills.” I looked back at the end of the ally and saw the group of armored men begin to stream into the ally, their swords pointed at us. Sakura roped an arm around my neck and held me close, making me blush as I felt her bodies warmth. With the other arm, she threw the small object with a silent grin. The men rushed towards us now, not knowing what had just been thrown. Just as they were about to reach us, the ring like thing clicked onto the ground loudly. The men skidded in their tracks and looked around the ally as they yelled loudly. “Where the hell did they go?!” One of the other men yelled even louder, not amused at what happened. “Fan out and find those bitches, or it’s our heads!”

I was hurriedly forced to move as Sakura held my arm tightly again. We ran out of the ally and into the main street, speaking no words until we had made it much farther away from the men with the swords. Finally as we came to a stop, I pulled away from her grip and shouted, clueless over what had transpired. “What was that back there?! First I get sucked into a mirror, land here, and now we just vanished without them noticing?! What’s going on Sakura?!” She leaned her head back and slightly growled into the air, sounding slightly annoyed, but none the less returned with a smile.

“Calm down hon that was only a small device I made, nothing special. Not like how I got you here….” She looked at me happily as she spoke in her unmoved voice, the voice I had always heard in the past. “You see Hana, you and I share something in common. You and I both have a certain magical power within us.”

“What? I don’t have any such powers….” I said slowly, as it was true, I never had one instant of magical powers. Sakura brought a hand to stroke her chin as she spoke to explain. “You remember when we met in dreams, right?”

“Well yeah, but how is that relevant to magic?”

“Because that was a very basic magical power that allowed us to meet. It’s called “dream seeing” and only dream seers can meet other dream seers, like,” She looked at me with her angelic smile and continued. “Like you Hana.” I responded to her first by taking ahold of her hand and smiled. “So that’s how we were able to meet all of the time we slept? But why am I here now? How is that possible?” She just started to walk again with me and turned it into a brisk jog. “I will tell you that once we make it to my makeshift home Hana!”

xXx

We had finally stopped running and were now standing in front of an old iron door. Reaching into her tank top breast, Sakura fished out a key and inserted it into the doors lock. With a loud click, the door swung opened and she gestured for me to enter. As I walked inside, I was greeted by the sight of a room not to unlike my old home, furnished with just a single bed and a few books strewn about. Walking in behind me, Sakura loudly shut and locked the door. She ushered me over to the bed and I sat down on it. She stood in front of me and pulled her coat of, revealing her slender clothed body. As she came to sit next to mem she spoke. “Welcome to my temporary housing unit honey.” She brought a hand around my body and lowered her face to meet mine. With a soft and delicate kiss, I cried in happiness, overjoyed to touch her again. “I’m so happy that I’m with you again Sakura!”

“I am pleased too, but now…” She moved away and looked at the ground. “You need to know how you got here, right? Well it’s really simple, I may have wished and used something stolen to get you here…”

“That thing the men were yelling over?” I inquired, just guessing that may be the very reason we were chased by a bunch of armored men. “Yeah, that thing they wanted back from me. But it was never theirs to begin with…”

“What is this thing?” She bent over and pulled something out of the acted she previously wore outside. What she pulled out was an incredibly old and broken down sword, rusted from the ages of being left alone. I raised an eyebrow at her, and the notion of how this blade got me here. Sensing that I was still confused, she dropped the blade in my lap. “This blade is a very old relic of an equally old legend. It was your blade from an untold millennia ago Hana.”

“What?!” I exclaimed at hearing those words, sounding impossible. “How can a sword that’s older than me be mine?

“Because someone called the Princess God told me so. And we need to take you to her before we get caught here.”

I was about to ask what she meant about a Princess God, but my thoughts were interrupted by pounding at the iron door and the shouts of men from outside……

End Chapter 1