“Treacherous girl, imitating my long loss Queen.” Dante said in a cold condescending tone.

Treacherous? This was all his idea! He dragged me into this nightmare fantasy and made me his lost girlfriend. How the hell was I to blame. I felt myself coiling up like a snake getting ready to strike. There was no way I was going to take this kind of abuse lying down. Dante circled me slowly trying to intimidate me.

“I should throw you in the dungeons to rot or feed you to the dragons.” He said gravely.

“This is all your mess,” I said in a shaky voice bubbling with rage, “I never claimed to be your bride. You dragged me from my family and my world to fill the shoes of your DEAD girlfriend!”

Dante mentally snapped and lashing out and grabbing my hand, for a moment I thought he was going to hurt me but then he stilled. Looking down at the ring on my finger he said, “You are not fit to wear this.”

He then violently yanked the ring off my finger and suddenly the whole room around me became a swirling mist. Dante dissolved into a whirlpool of hazy colours that exploded like fireworks and faded.

I was stood on the moors, Luna was at my feet looking very perplexed about what had just happened. The moon hung above me lighting the midnight landscape in pale silver light. In the distance I could see my little cottage. I wanted to cry. I grabbed Luna and ran barefoot over the moorland moss and heather towards my home, tears streaked down my face. I jumped the dry stone wall and burst into the hallway. Above me I heard my parent’s bedroom door burst open and footsteps come charging down the stairs.

“Who’s there!” My father demanded.

“It’s me Ebony!” I smiled.

“Who?” My father yelled turning on the hall light and looking at me as he would a complete stranger.

My blood ran ice cold. My mother appeared behind him, “I’m calling the police Terry!” Brandishing her phone.

The moisture in my mouth ran dry and I felt my heart breaking. My parents had no idea who I was. Weakly I said tearfully, “It’s me Ebony- your daughter.”

My father pointed at the door, “Get out before I get my gun!” He warned.

“Daddy, please.” I pleaded.

Suddenly the door behind me swung open and a cool calm voice said, “Sorry folks, this young lady escaped the mental unit. I’ll be taking her back now.”

I turned to see Henry dressed up in a police uniform. My parents nodded and Henry took my arm and led me out of my home. Shrugging off his police bomber jacket he wrapped it over my shoulders and ushered me into a smart looking sports car parked on the muddy farm track that led to my house. I got in unable to process what had just happened to me. Henry then got into the car next to me and started the ignition. He handed me a box of tissues and drove away.

“Why don’t my parents recognise me?” I asked.

“Because you ain’t human sweetheart.” He said.

“I am human, Dante did something, he brainwashed my parents-”

“Ebony, love, I don’t know how to make this any clearer- you are a bloody raven. You are NOT descended from apes or this world’s primordial soup. You are descended from the chaos and magic that exists only in our dimension. You do not fit in here, you like the bloody odd jigsaw piece that buggers up the entire picture. When Dante took you, your existence was wiped from this world. No one that you knew remembers you now. Not even mummy and daddy.”

“Why did you do this then? Why did you kiss me? Why the fuck did you bring me back here!” I screamed on the verge of hysteria.

“That’s what I’m about to show you.” Henry said swinging down a familiar road and parking outside a familiar house.

I muffled a sob into a tissue as I looked up at my best friend’s house. Morgan wouldn’t know who I was and that really cut in deep. She was the only person in this crazy world/ worlds that understood me. She was the only person in the world who believed the voice I kept hearing wasn’t some nervous breakdown. Without her, I had nothing.

“Do you enjoy torturing me you crazy bastard!” I snapped.

“Look in the goddamn window and you’ll see.” Henry said pointing at the front room window.

I got out the car and treaded across the neatly manicured lawn and peered in through the blinds at Morgan’s lounge. Nothing had changed- everything remained the same. Turning to Henry I said,

“What, there’s nothing.”

“Look at the photo.” He replied.

I looked at the photo on the coffee table of Morgan’s last family vacation to Spain. I remember Morgan showing it to me a couple of weeks ago- she had moaned like mad because she had got sun burnt really badly. But in this photo she was missing, in fact from all the photos she was missing.

“Morgan ran right into hell after you when you went missing. So why you are moping about in the realm of the mortals, she is running for her life in the world of the immortals. You are the Raven and Morgan your best friend is the vampires sworn enemy- the fox.”