The Bride of Chrysalis

Chapter 2

Nothing she is saying makes sense or even sounds legit in any way.

“Ok what sort of sick joke is this?” I say.

I am not stupid. This is such a silly prank. Aurora then looks at me with raised eyebrows.

“Dawn, are you able to explain to me what happened right before you ended up in a completely different forest in a matter of seconds?”

I think for a moment and realize I have no explanation for any of it. Wait, this is real. She is being serious, but how is any of this possible?

“Dawn, as confusing as everything may seem right now, we really don't have time for you to stand around and process everything. I have got to get you back to your world now”

My attention is dragged back to Thomas who suddenly speaks up. It is only then that I actually get a good look at his face. He is one of the most handsome men I've ever seen. He has light blue almost silver eyes and dark brown wavy hair. His features are so defined and unique. It's almost mesmerising. Wait how on earth can my brain be noticing such a thing at a time like this? I mentally slap myself for thinking such a way about a guy who literally just kidn*pped me. What is wrong with me? He then speaks up again

“You see this Dawn” he lifts up his hand which is holding a dark wine red stone “this stone enables us to travel from our world to yours and back again. Humans from your world are unable to travel through worlds using this stone unless they are making physical contact with a human from our world” He then looks at my arm before gently grabbing my wrist “I am going to teleport us back to your world and once we get there we will figure out the next steps ok?”

I nod slightly at him to show that I understand.

“Ok” he says before squeezing the stone tight in his hand which starts to glow. We stand there like that for a few seconds before Damien suddenly speaks up.

“That's strange” he says as he heads towards us. I almost forgot he was standing there. “Let me try'' he says to Thomas. He then turns to me with a grin “looks like it's my turn to hold your hand” he says playfully.

I just stare at him. I can tell he is trying to make me feel better but I feel so overwhelmed that I can’t bring myself to smile at his joke. He then takes the stone from Thomas before grabbing my hand. Just as Thomas did he squeezes the rock which starts to glow again but just like with Thomas nothing happens. They all exchange concerned looks between each

other.

“What is wrong?” I say trying to keep the tremble out of my voice. I can tell something is not right. It is Damien who answers me.

“Well Dawn it appears you are stuck here” he says “generally when we travel between worlds it takes no longer than two seconds which i'm sure you remember from when Thomas brought you here. This rock is not supposed to just faintly glow when we use it. It usually emits a blinding light as it opens a door between your world and ours and I am sure as you can tell, it did no such thing” he pauses a moment “now this is quite alarming as i've never heard of the stone doing such a thing before” he says very casually, but I can see the tension in his jaw as he thinks.

“Are you bloody joking?” I accidentally blurted out without thinking. “I can’t seriously be stuck here”.

“Ok hang on a second” Aurora says “let me try and travel to your world by myself so that way we can see if the problem has to do with the stone or with you. If the problem is the stone we can just go to the council and request another stone. That will also work in our favor as we can say that the reason we don't yet have Helena is because the stone isn’t working”.

Who is this Helena person they keep talking about? She then walks over to Damien before taking the stone from his hand. She squeezes it tight and within two seconds my vision is obstructed by a blinding light. When the light fades away I see that Aurora has disappeared and is no longer standing in front of me. My stomach starts turning as fear settles itself in the pit of my stomach. The problem has nothing to do with the stone, the problem has to do with me. Without thinking I look at Thomas who is also already looking at me. I could tell from his expression that he was able to read exactly what was on my mind. He suddenly takes a step towards me before stopping in his tracks. It looks like he was about to reach out for me but thought better of it.

“It's OK” he says “this is my fault and so I will do everything in my power to make sure you get back home".

Again I was able to make out slight guilt in his otherwise serious expression. Suddenly Aurora appears in front of us again. She looks directly at me but doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to say anything. She just gives me a pitiful smile. She knows as well as me that my journey in this world has only just begin and we have no idea when we will reach the end...