“Another world, you say?”

Ren can hardly hear his own voice over the cacophony of raucous laughter from nearby classmates. He leans over Penny’s table, head angled, trying to get a peek at whatever she seems to be hiding behind her back. Rather conspicuously, he may add.

A devious smile spreads across Penny’s face. “That’s right. And I’ll only let you see it if you’ll go with me to prom.”

Ren narrows his eyes. “Are you that desperate.”

“You’re going to look like a loser if you go alone anyway.”

“I’ll just stay home and play games. I’d rather be raiding the Crystal Tower than—”

“Okay, fine!” Penny huffs. She slams her hand on the table, attracting glares from the other students. Ren blinks in surprise. That was easy.

“Here.” Penny holds out her hand, a ring resting on her palm. Its golden band is engraved with an intricate design, like vines crawling up a wall, or veins on an arm. Set in the ring is what appears to be a stone of onyx, glinting almost tauntingly in the fluorescent lights.

“You’re spending money on this stuff again?” Ren snatches it, eliciting a cry of shock. He holds it up to the light, squinting at the onyx. This is good quality stuff. Hardly a blemish on its polished surface.

“Give it back!” Penny grabs at it, but Ren only holds it higher and out of her reach. “Give it back right now, you…”

“Or what?” Satisfied with the inspection, Ren flicks it at her. Penny fumbles with the ring, and if looks could kill, Ren would have withered right there and then. But looks cannot kill, so Ren settles for a grin instead.

Penny opens and closes her mouth like a fish. Ren can almost see the cogs turning in her head, but she’s out of ammunition. With a lack of anything better to say, she harrumphs, “Anyway, come with me after school.”

“To where?”

“Big Ben. Where else?”

Ren’s known Penny for his entire life, since they were still in diapers, really, so he knows that look on her face. That twinkle in her eye, the wrinkle of her nose, the upturn of the corners of her thin lips…

Ren does not like that look one bit.

*

Big Ben is not actually the Big Ben. No, Ren and Penny do not, in fact, live in London, but a small town a distance from Nottingham. A small town by a big hill, property of Penny’s family, which she dubbed “Big Ben”. The story behind its name is much too long for Ren to recount, honestly.

It involved an alarm clock and a skateboard. Ren needn’t say more.

“So…what are we doing here?” Ren asks. Although, he has no idea why he asked, because he already has the answer to it.

“The ring, Ren-ren! The ring!” Penny pushes aside a broad leaf, heading for the clearing with the spring they used to play at. The clearing where they camped and watched birds and everything in between. “We’re going to use it!”

“You don’t actually think the ring works, do you?”

“Never try, never know.”

Ren sighs. Mrs Russell never sold anything legitimate, but Penny always believed that every object sitting on that dusty shelf of hers has some sort of power sleeping within. Ren cannot remember the sheer number of things she’s bought over the years, accumulated in her room and wardrobe and wherever she can reach. A lantern housing a Djinn, the leathery skin of a Selkie, the quill fashioned from the feather of a Harpy.

Yeah, right. Ren’s never even heard half of those things before. While Penny constantly scores below average at school (how embarrassing, for the daughter of the mayoress), she’s a walking encyclopaedia when it comes to magical creatures. And mythology.

“Here we are,” Penny announces.

The clearing is the same as Ren remembers (he came just two nights ago, when Penny invited him for a sleepover). Penny strides to its centre, crunching twigs and dead leaves with each step. Ren pauses at the edge of the clearing, merely watching.

“Okay, so the Priestess”—she means Mrs Russell—“said that we can open a portal to the other world if we hold the ring up to the sun, and chant the Sun’s Blessing prayer.”

“The…what? Why’s it the Sun’s Blessing if the stone’s black?”

Penny grins from ear to ear, and whether she’s ignoring him on purpose, Ren does not know.

“Okay, I’ve got the prayer right here.” Penny rummages through her pocket and fishes out a piece of paper. She unfolds it with such care, as if it is the most important thing in the world. “You need to say it at the same time with me.”

Ren resists the urge to roll his eyes. What’s the harm in entertaining her anyway? It’ll just be another failure to add to her ever-growing list.

“What’s that face for?” Penny scowls. “It’ll work this time. Promise!”

Ren exaggerates a sigh and shuffles over to her, pointedly dragging his feet. Penny fixes her gaze upon the piece of paper, mouthing the words, like she’s trying to commit the prayer to memory. Ren scans its lines. It’s simple, but it sounds like something right out of a children’s book.

“On the count of three, we’ll start, okay?” Penny positively buzzes with excitement. Ren furrows his brows at how wide her grin is now, but Penny doesn’t seem to notice. Without waiting for his reply, she begins the countdown.

“One, two, three!”

The duo begins to chant.

“O god of the Sun,

May you bless our lands with a

Bountiful harvest

May you bless our waters

With the sparkle of stars

And may you bless us

With the coming of the Luminaries.”

Right out of a children’s bedtime story, alright. Of that, Ren has no doubt. Luminaries? Really?

Just then, a stab of light pierces his eye, and Ren squints at the glare. He whips his head around, beratement at the tip of his tongue, when he sees it. By the beam of the sunlight, pinched between Penny’s slim fingers, is none other than the onyx ring.

No longer is it just a black gem, but it now shines with all colours of the rainbow. Penny shields her eyes with an arm over them, head dipped ever so slightly, ever so—

The flare of rainbow gets ever stronger, so bright that Ren has to squeeze his eyes shut. Suddenly, Penny shrieks. Ren forces his eyes open for a fraction of a second before closing them again. It’s much too bright for him to see what’s going on, too bright to—

Agony rams into him like a freight train, searing through his veins, setting his blood on fire. A scream tears from the pits of Ren’s chest as his throat seizes. Mouth open wide, screaming for who-knows-how long. Screaming till he grows hoarse, till he isn’t even sure if he screams still.

“Kill them all!”

“They must not be allowed to live!”

What…who are these voices?

Images flash before Ren’s eyes like a movie. Soldiers decked out in full chainmail armour and running to face the enemy team. Flags of red, blue and yellow waving in the stormy gales. The ground grows redder with every fallen body, every life lost.

Then, the images leave him as readily as a candle flame would in the wind.

When Ren next opens his eyes, he’s staring up at drifting clouds against a crimson sky.

What just happened?

What was all that? What did Ren see?

He winces at the pulsing throb of a headache assaulting his temples. Ren rubs at his forehead, hoping to soothe the ache. He glances around him, at the grassy plains that became his bed. Grassy plains as far as the eye can see, with nary a tree in sight.

Where is he?

Where’s…Penny?

Ren looks down to the grass at a pained groan, breathing a sigh of relief. Penny is right next to him, the onyx ring still in hand. She lies on her side, breathing steady as if in deep slumber.

“Penny?” Ren shakes her shoulder. “Penny? Wake up.”

Penny stirs and swats at Ren’s hand. “Five more minutes, Mother. I promise…”

“Wake up! Penny!”

It is only at that that Penny shoots bolt upright, slamming Ren full force in the chin. Pain splits Ren’s skull as he falls back onto the grass, now confronted with another source of fire.

“Ren? You good there?”

The audacity of this girl. Ren whimpers out a pitiable reply. Penny hops to her feet, surveying the area with her hands on her hips, a troubled expression on her face.

“Where are we?” Penny asks, more surprised than anything.

“Who knows?” Ren picks himself up as well, not quite sure whether to massage the smarting crown of his head, or his tender chin. Either way, he would look like an idiot. Not that he should care, really. The only person here’s Penny.

“Well, this isn’t Big Ben.” Penny turns to Ren with the most maniac grin. “We’re in…we made it!”

“Made it…to where?”

“The…wherever that portal was supposed to take us! We made it!” Penny whoops. She jumps on the spot, footsteps nothing more than quiet thumps upon the soft grass. Not quite thumps, but rather…cracks?

With every smack of sole against soil, the green crumbles away to grey. Blades disintegrate into ash, dissolving into piles of dust. But that’s not the only strange thing about this place.

Ren licks his finger and holds it up above his head. No wind blows. He stares up at the sky, back at the carefree clouds. A gentle white against stunning red. No sun shines.

Where is this place?

“Uh, don’t you think we should go back?” Ren asks, gesturing at Penny’s ring. “Your ring works. We know that now. You can take us back, right?”

That snaps Penny from her trance. She looks back at Ren, then at the ring in her palm. Ren stares, unimpressed, at the dazedness in her eyes.

“O-Oh, yeah. Get back. Right.” Penny holds the ring up to the sky and begins the chant. Anxiety gnaws at Ren, like a creature on the in his chest trying to claw its way out. When Penny finishes the prayer, they are met with silence.

Silence, and a whole lot of nothing happening.

“Uh…Penny?”

Penny ignores him, opting to repeat the chant again. The words flow from her mouth like she’s been saying it her whole life, like she knows it by heart. Even after the second time, the ring remains unresponsive. They remain trapped in this strange, strange world.

“Maybe…maybe we both have to say it,” Penny says, once more holding the ring up to the sky. The onyx shimmers, almost in jest. No, not jest. Mockery. “Come on, Ren. Say it with me.”

Ren repeats it, trying to match Penny’s pace. He doesn’t quite remember the words, but he does his best to keep up.

Still nothing.

“What are we doing wrong?” Ren asks, grasping Penny’s shoulders. “What was the ritual?”

Penny shrugs his hand off. She stares at the onyx ring, an artifact that Ren really wants to throw to the bottom of a ravine right about now. “U-Um…it was…to say the Sun’s Blessing prayer while holding the ring up to the sun…”

The sun. Of course.

The sky is crimson, the colour of roses, the colour of blood. No wonder the ritual doesn’t work.

There is no sun.

Ren throws up his hands in defeat, turning his back to Penny. He stares out into the distance, at the whole lot of nothing. “That’s it. We’re dead. We’re never getting back.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t be a spoilsport,” Penny says. “The ring worked! It took us to this place. We can explore it and—”

“Explore what?” Ren spins to face her, mustering the most furious expression he can manage. Knitted brows, narrowed eyes, lips pulled back in a snarl. “What’s there to explore here? Looks like one of your zombie apocalypse movies.”

“Oh, don’t be such a coward.” Biting irritation weaves its way into Penny’s voice. “We can just keep walking and see if we find anything. A village or something.”

Ren opens his mouth to argue, only to be interrupted by the clop of hooves. A wailing neigh rings out the in quiet of the plains. Ren glances up, only to see a cloud of black sailing against the red, a team of horses galloping across the sky. Astride the leading equine is a knight in armour, a man with a sword raised in the air.

“W-What is that?” Penny grabs Ren’s arm. Ren stands, frozen to the spot, as he fixes an unbreaking gaze on the legion.

Ren cannot answer her question. He cannot speak at all, really. All he can see is that knight with their sword.

Because that legion of horses is headed right for them.