APHELION

FIRST SHADE OF THE RED

They cannot touch you, Charolette. I give you my word."

"Oh, Agnes! I misunderstood you all while. Verily 'THE FIRST' is our real goddess."

A hound of brown arctic, half-starved wolves surrounded the two prepossessing women.

"Use your psychic powers, Charolette."

"Oh sure. Untamed hounds cannot be controlled but their minds can be!....... Aahhh!!! That sound! It is penetrating my mind!!"

"Of course, I promised that you shall be untouched by the hounds. But mind you I didn't say that I would leave my chance."

I woke up. The dormitory was pitch dark. I was nyctophobic. Darkness was an element I couldn't stand. I went to accompany the window illumined by the floodlights of the nearby stadium. "What did you see?" I recognized the voice- silver-toned indeed.

A voice whose recognition would accompany me to my grave for reasons I couldn't decipher. And finally, the face revealed itself near the windowpane.

No eye contact.

"Awake at this odd hour, Reyna?" I muttered looking at the stadium walls.

"Your presence makes me objective to the question."

"Incontrovertibility!."

"What did you see?" Strange question. I guess I had begun to sleep talk. Weirdness was getting stronger in me with each passing day.

"And be kind enough to inform who was the stentor who pronounced my dream to you?"

"Not quite hard to guess. Only visions can provoke one to reality."

Visions. A sophisticated word for my repetitive, vexing, vehement nightmares.

"Not visions just recurring nightmares. Untamed wolves, a lady named Charlotte and..." "Agnes!"

She knew! She knew who was present in my dream. Did she have that strange voice too? Finally, I had found a good company for my next visit to the psychologist. But I was curious and my guesses didn't satisfy me.

"How do you know?"

"Just a cardinal part of forgotten history."

So what I was dealing with was not a play of my mind. Such a relief! But which part of history was this? Which period? Which clans? Maybe I had read it when I was young. Reyna would certainly know. Just when our conversation was on the verge of turning into a debate I saw her gaze shift to her wrist which a shattered window glass had lacerated.

That glass was way too sharp. It had caused many injuries, some serious ones too.

"Let me see! That must be deep."

I caught her wrist tightly to have a close look. The skin surrounding the slit was cold as ice. That worried me. the glass must have caused serious damage.

"It's a genuine cut."

What? Insane! A normal person would be screaming for the nurse! She swiftly loosened her wrist out of my hold and slipped away. I wanted to go after her but I noticed something on my fingers then. At the edges of my fingers was the fibre of a smooth polymer material. What does this have to do with a slit? I wasn't wrong this time. There was more to her. But it was safe to not find out.

'For their sake' I reminded myself.