[Friday 30th October 2010]

With a fake passport and plane ticket in my hand, I slung my backpack onto my shoulder and watched Cole lift my suitcase out of the boot of his car. He had generously brought me the ticket because I did not have nearly enough money to afford a flight to Europe. After a mild argument, Cole had persuaded me to immigrate to Germany to live with my father’s elven relatives. I was flying to Amsterdam, and from there, I would be picked up by my cousin Elia and driven the rest of the way. We had gotten relatively close, and she had agreed to let me live with her and her husband in their quaint countryside cottage.

Cole had driven me two hours to an airport that was not local to the city in the hopes of throwing off anyone who might be tracking me; that was also why I was not flying directly to Germany. I had not officially dropped out of uni’; I just did not attend any more lectures or show up on campus after the night of my attack.

Cole deactivated my phone and brought me a new one so that I could not contact any of my friends in a moment of weakness. Lindsay, Theresa and Benjamin would never know what happened to me. Any investigation into my disappearance would be inconclusive. By design, it would seem as if I had vanished into thin air. To the world of mortals, Ana Speckhart no longer existed.

Queued at the checking desk, Cole had accompanied me into the terminal to help me with my luggage. So far, we had talked about everything other than the fact that it was highly likely that we would never see each other again. A few times during the drive to the airport, I sat staring at him. Trying to commit as much of him to memory as possible because it hurt to imagine that I would not be close enough to love him anymore, never mind be his friend.

Eventually, my luggage had disappeared down the conveyor belt, and I had been checked in and given my boarding pass. All I had to do now was go through security; there would be no turning back once I was past that barrier.

Cole stood looking up at the large screens, checking for my flight schedule. “Looks like your flight is still departing on time. Call me when you’re with Elia, just so I know you got there safely, okay?”

“Okay.” I looked down at my boarding pass, feeling despondent.

“It’s about time you got going,” Cole said, tilting his head to try and find my eyes. When I eventually did look up at him, I did not even try to disguise that I was crying. “Don’t cry. It won’t hurt for long. Remember, this is for the best, Ana.” Pulled into his chest, I nuzzled into him and savoured how his arms felt around me for the last time. He stroked the hair over the back of my head until he pushed me away by grasping onto my upper arms. “I’m glad I met you.”

“Me too.” I forced a smile as I looked up at his. I’m going to miss that smile.

Reluctantly I walked away from him. I had wanted to ask for a kiss goodbye but decided against it. Being refused by him at that moment would have hurt too much. Handing my boarding pass to the desk attendant, I was allowed access and walked onward to the security scanners. I looked back over my shoulder, but he was already gone.

Everything went to plan. I arrived in Amsterdam, and Elia collected me at the airport. The phone conversation I had with Cole on my arrival was brief - he wished me well and hung up. The next time I tried to call that number, it was inactive. ‘The number you have dialled has not been recognised. Please check and try again.’

Cole Wright was no longer part of my life. It took me the first ten months in Germany to get over him enough so that he was not always on my mind. It was another twelve or so until I considered finding someone new. That time on my own was difficult, but I had gotten to a point where I had to admit that flitting from one man’s bed to another to escape how much I pined after Cole was not healthy.

At some stage, I was going to find out that natural sexual chemistry had a lot to answer for and that the lovers I would take after Cole would never quite live up to him. The intimacy between us had been phenomenal, so much so that I would probably never find the likes of it in any relationship I entered into with anyone else.

Once I opened my eyes to the possibility of love again, though, I was quickly distracted by a crush and brief romantic entanglement with one of the residents of Elia’s tiny village. He wasn’t anything special, but at least the ‘relationship’ hadn’t been just about sex, even if we were never ‘official’.

When that flame died, I met Callen. He was beautiful in an almost androgynous way that I discovered was sometimes the case with elves, but he made it very clear, very quickly, that he was interested in women and mainly me. His pursuit of me was relentless even though I deflected all of his advances, especially his physical ones, for about a year. I didn’t want my next serious, long-term relationship to start with a sexual encounter like it had with Cole. It wasn’t because I thought my relationship with Cole had meant any less because of how sexually charged to was, I just needed to know that Callen valued the woman I was with my clothes on, as well as the person I was beneath my skin because he seemed so hellbent on getting me into my knickers. The rumours about him bothered me too because they didn’t paint a pretty picture. When he showed me that he did actually want me, I gave in and entered a romantic relationship with him - I guess we were happy...

EPILOGUE

Six long years passed before the Mortal Mythical War reached the haven I called home. Mythicals had finally given in to the pressures of being attacked despite their non-violent defence. The time had come to meet the opposition with an equal thirst for the utter annihilation of their nemesis.

My elven kin were peaceful people and wished to have no part in the bloodshed and carnage that was to come. They didn’t want to stick around to see their Earth destroyed. Since we're all fully elven, they had decided that it was time incite some old magik and use their combined power to transcend to another realm. Elia had tried to explain it to me, but it mostly went over my head. I still had some trouble getting my head around the fact that mythicals existed and that the world I had grown up in was not real, or at least was no longer there. I had lived as a mortal for so long it was going to take a little longer to adjust and come to terms with the fact that the social structure, I had grown up in was rapidly disappearing. The basics of transcendence sounded like reincarnation to another place to me. Of course, I would be left behind; I could not enter the other realm because I was only half-elf.

My life had become chapters of goodbyes since the world had changed. It was not clear if I would ever see my uncle, cousin or Callen ever again. To come back to this world, they would have to refine their power again, and that could take hundreds of years, and they couldn’t guarantee that I would live that long or that the way time passed in the other place was anything akin to how it did in this realm. My uncle still wanted to ensure my safety, so he got in touch with an old friend who was currently residing in a town called Alabaster.

Alabaster - I like the sound of that. To me, the place name sounded safe. Yes, I think I do like that. I guess it’s time to start over. Maybe I can do that in Alabaster.