Ending is Another Beginning

This is the end. That is the last thought I have before I jerk the steering wheel to the right, just as the truck smashes into my car, making the car roll over. The impact makes my head hit the steering wheel so hard that I see black spots. The car rolls over again and the impact smashes the windows and the glass shatters. I don’t even want to think about the amount of glass that has pierced into my skin right now. The car continues to roll once again and this time, my head hits the hood of the car so hard that I am on the verge of losing consciousness. The cold wet blood trickles down my forehead. I don’t think anyone will be able to save me now. I don’t have anyone who will even notice that I am missing. This fact makes my hurt much more than my body hurts right now. A few minutes ago I was so happy for I had I finally found the courage to leave my past and start a new life and now I am in the wrecked car with blood all over me. Most people say that you see your whole life flash before your eyes when you are dying. But I don’t experience that. Instead I start to hum ‘Past Life’ by Selena Gomez. I don’t know why I started singing this song but the lyrics of the song match my situation. I don't even try to fight for my life as I give myself to the blackness while humming the song. ……... The first thing I feel is a blinding headache when I stir. What the hell happened? Without opening my eyes, I stretch my arms and legs out. They feel heavy as hell. I open my eyes to get blinded by the sun. The place is so bright that I have to blink a couple of times to adjust my eyes to see where I am. I am in a room which actually seems more like a huge hall. The two walls of the room are lined with single beds draped with white from its door to the opposite wall. The room seems like an ER of some hospital. But the difference is that this room is not painted white. Instead the brownish yellow walls of the room gives it the look of infirmary straight out of Harry Potter. I look above to see a dome shaped ceiling which seems to have a clear glass in the middle or it could be a huge hole too. The sun is making it harder to see. I scan the room once again to find some clue as to where I am but instead I find something more shocking. Are these walls shimmering? Or is it just my eyes seeing things? I am definitely seeing things Walls can’t shimmer, right? I am going insane with all these questions so I try to figure out the last things I remember. The last thing I remember is being in the car and the truck smashing into my car. The way the car rolled, I should have been dead but here I am still alive. This is a freaking miracle! I look down to see that I am still in the same clothes I wore before I decided to run away. The black coloured ripped jeans and grey tee did not show any marks that I was in any accident. I am not wearing any shoes and I can’t see them anywhere near my bed too. This is so confusing. I knew for a fact that my last set of foster parents were too high to figure out or even care that I ran away. I try to get up but I end up knocking the glass filled with water on the side table. The sound of glass clashing to the floor fills the silence in the room and makes me flinch. Just then a boy of my age and a middle aged woman appear at one end of the room and start walking towards me. What the…. where did they come from? Oh God, one more thing to be confused about. Arghhh.. “ I thought you might be up by now. The healing potion would have worn out by now. ” said the woman as she approached my bed. She was beautiful with her blond hair tied up in a loose braid over her shoulder and her green eyes. She is petite looking and her face shows nothing but kindness as she reaches my bed and bends down to pick up the glass. I shift my gaze to the boy. He has black hair that covers the half of his forehead. His black eyes are soft and kind yet sharp and calculating. He gives me a friendly smile that shows off his cute dimples. It is then that I realize that he is cute. I return his smile. Then I register the words the woman said. Healing Potion? Clearing my throat, I voice my thoughts to the two strangers in front of me, “ Healing Potion?” My question makes the woman look up at me and once again I am struck by her beautiful and soft features. “ Yes, a healing potion. You were in bad shape when you were transported here. It is pretty common for people to come here with the amount of injuries you had. So I had to give you the potion to heal your soul of the external injuries.” She explains in a soft voice. But her explanation went right above my head. Soul? Heal? What people? My head starts to swim in all the questions piling up in my head. So I do what a normal person would do. I ask her “ Uh.. Did you just say that you had to heal my soul? What is this place and how did I reach here?” Then a terrifying thought comes to my mind. “Did Jane and Mark bring me here? Is this another group house?” I start to panic. My heartbeat increases till the sound of my heart is the only thing I can hear. My breathing picks up while I think about the last group home I was in. I think the woman is saying something and most probably something to calm me. But I can’t focus on her voice at all. I try to calm myself by focusing on a point on the opposite wall but I can’t. And then out of nowhere a face comes in front of my eyes. It’s the boy who came in with the woman. He is saying something. I can see his lips moving but I can’t hear anything. And then he starts to take deep breaths for me to copy. I take in a deep breath and then release it. I do it several times and he does it with me. I slowly calm down. “ Thank you” I say as my heartbeat returns to normal. He nods,“ No problem. Hi, I am Adeel and this is the one of our healers, Chloe.” He says as he points towards her. Then he extends his hand forward and I take his hand, “ Hi. I am Nyra and sorry for going into panic mode. I am just not a big fan of group homes.” He shakes my hand and then lets it go. Adeel. It is a nice name and definitely a unique name. It makes me wonder what is the meaning of his name, if he has one. I am gonna surely ask him this question later. I notice that Adeel has a soothing presence. Him being here calms me down. That’s odd seeing I am not at all a people’s person. “ Now that you are calm enough, we will answer your questions one at a time. I have to warn you beforehand that you will find everything we tell you hard to believe till you actually see it. But you have to trust us.” Chloe says as she takes the chair beside me. “ Well that’s comforting.” I reply back in a sarcastic tone. Sarcasm has always been my defense against the world. Some people like and many don’t. Most do not approve of my sassy and sarcastic attitude towards everything and consequently assume that I am a major b***h and stay away from me, leaving me alone to do as I please. Others who like my sarcasm are mostly those who use it as well or do not mind some jokes about the situation. But sarcasm helps me cope with everything in a way that other things can’t. Judging from the smiles on both Chole and Adeel’s face, I can see they both lie in the latter category. The fact they don’t find my sarcasm appalling makes me ease a little more but I don’t lower my defences entirely. “Okay. So as you know my name is Chloe and I am healer here. This is infirmary in the Raefiya: the school for souls.” She says. “ Say what now? School for souls?” I was confused as hell now. What is school for souls? “ Is this some school where you guys teach me yoga and meditation for enriching my soul and all that bullshit?” I ask them. They both start laughing at the same time, making me more confused and even angry at them. Why the hell are they laughing? “ That’s the first,” Adeel manages to say between laughs. I don’t understand what is so funny that both of them could not stop laughing. I wait for them to finally stop laughing so that they can give me an explanation. Chloe recovers first and then explains to me “ Nyra, you are dead.” Chapter 2 “ What the f*****g hell!” I almost yell. I get off the bed and start pacing back and forth in front of them. Are they kidding me? I mean I know I should have been dead with that kind of accident and the fact that no one was there to save me. But this is insane. Totally insane. “ How is this possible? If I am dead, how am I alive?” Even my question does not make sense to me. “ It’s because your soul left the body you got in your last life and it came here, to the city of Ellesmere.” “ Huh? God! It is so confusing. Are you telling me that I am in a city known as Ellesmere and I died and this is only the soul?” I had so many questions and I could not wrap my head around the fact that I was dead even though it was logical. I turn around to pace more but I hit a hard chest. The impact makes me lose my balance and I start to fall backwards before a strong pair of hands wrap around my waist to steady me. I look up to find friendly soft black eyes staring back at me. God!! I did not realize he was this handsome. I was getting the nerdy vibe from him but I had eyes and could see that he was cute and even handsome. His balck eyes were... sexy. That was the only way I could describe it. I pull myself into the standing position and create some distance between me and Adeel. Adeel is cute and even handsome and if I don’t pull myself away from him, I might start thinking about him and right now I can use less amount of thoughts, for you know, my own sanity. “ Relax Nyra. You need to sit down and then listen and understand. Me and Chloe are here for you the whole day. We will try to answer all our questions, but first you need to sit down.” Adeel interrupts my train of thoughts. I look at him and then at Chloe and find that they both have similar friendly and inviting expressions. I take a deep breath and decide to trust them because honestly what other option do I have? Even if this is a huge prank, I don’t have anywhere else to go. “ You’re right. I am sorry. It’s just… It is hard to believe that's all.” I say as I walk back to the bed and sit there cross legged with my back leaning on the wall. Adeel takes his seat across from me at the end of the bed. “ Okay. So I need to ask you guys. Is this place like heaven or hell?” I ask them when we are settled again. “ Yes. I mean kinda.” Chloe says. I give her a quizzical look. “ Let me start from the beginning. Soul is energy, a power. So it cannot be destroyed. And soul is the one thing that makes the body alive. So when a human dies, the body stops functioning because the soul leaves the body and comes here. So far, you good?” Chloe stops to ask me. “ Yes. I am following you.” I reply back so that she can continue. With every word I am more and more curious. “ So when the soul leaves the body it is transported here, to Ellesmere. Ellesmere is the city that lies in the heart of this dimension. It has Heaven on one side and Hell on the other side.” She continues and my mouth drops like a bag of stones. Chloe sees my expression and knows that I need some time to digest her last sentence. “ Holy s**t! Hell and Heaven are real. So is Hell like what people think it is and is Heaven a place where God lives?” It was a valid question. People are like if you do good, then you will go to Heaven and be peaceful, otherwise you will rot in Hell. I started thinking back and counting the number of bad things I have done. I did not murder anyone but I did steal a few times. What? Desperate times call for desperate measures. “ No no no no. That is not how it works Nyra.” Adeel interrupts my thoughts. “ The souls have powers Nyra. They can control elements. There are four elements- air, earth, water, fire, and then there is healing ability The souls have power to control at least one of these elements or they can have the ability of healing with or without elemental powers . But many souls have the ability to control two or even three elements according to the amount of the power they have.” “What now? This means I have these powers too.” I bring my head down to my hands so that it can stop spinning from all this new information. “ You know, people should already know this stuff so that we don’t have a headache when you guys break all this to us.” Adeel lets out a low chuckle and Chloe smiles and shakes her head. “If everyone already knows that if they die, they are gonna have elemental powers, then tell me who would want to live their life? Everybody would be committing suicide.” Chloe explains while standing up. “ You need to rest and let the healing potion do its work. Rest of things will be explained to you slowly. Digest this information and you will have the whole weekend to yourself. You can explore the school and your classes will start from Monday. Adeel will show you to your room.” Chloe says and starts walking towards the door. “ Come on. Let's go and you can ask me questions while I show you the way to dorms.” Adeel says and I realize how much I want to sleep. So I get up and then I remember that I don’t have shoes. “Ummm. my shoes?” I ask pointing to bare feet. Adeel’s gaze follows my finger and then back to me as he realizes that my shoes are missing. “ Oh. Your shoes were broken and tattered up and we could not restore them like your clothes. So we had to throw them away.” He says and walks to the cupboard that I apparently missed when I was looking at the room. From there he brought me a pair of black canvas shoes that appeared to be brand new. “Here you go” He says as he keeps the pair in front of my feet. I quickly put on my shoes and then together we leave the infirmary. The corridor that we exit into is deserted and is as lit up by the sun as the infirmary. The infirmary door is huge in length as well as the width. It takes up almost half of the wall on one side of the corridor. The opposite side of the corridor is covered with glass or some transparent shimmering thing. I walk towards the transparent windows to feel the shimmering wall. I am pretty sure this time that my eyes are not playing with me and this is not the play of sunlight. I extend my hand forward to touch the wall to see if it is even real or not. My hands meet a smooth surface when I touch the shimmering wall. It is completely transparent and I know that it is not an ordinary wall because the texture is too unique. I am amazed by the wonderful rainbow colours that are swirling before my eyes. The colours are so faded that I would not have seen them had I not have been standing so close that my nose is practically touching the wall. “ What is this?” I ask incredulously as I am unable to keep the question inside me. “ We don’t use brick and cements to build the buildings here. We use energy barriers for walls.” He explains as he comes right beside me. “ The shimmer that you see in each of the barriers is because of the charms placed on them. Like this barrier has been charmed with protection spells and the barriers inside the infirmary have special spells on them to make the process of healing better.” “ Why is this barrier transparent and others not?” I ask as I notice the pattern made by the swirling colours. “ The barriers are made according to the place. We devised the way to make the barriers of any colour of our choice so that we can decide the vibe of the place and also have the privacy which these transparent barriers don’t give us.” I can’t stop looking at the colours as Adeel explains to me everything about these barriers. Then for the first time I look past the swirling colours and my breath gets caught in my throat. The landscape before me is unlike any other place on the Earth. It is so beautiful. The building is apparently on some kind of island and stands on a cliff because it is surrounded by clear blue water and lush green mountains. The water body has a few scattered tiny islands that are more like pieces of land. Some are joined to each, while others are totally isolated. The mountains seem like that they originate from under the water and maybe they do. The sunlight falling on the trees on the huge mountains in the front makes their leaves reflect different shades of red, yellow and orange instead of green, making the scene more stunning and breathtaking. “ Woww!” This is the only word I can say while staring at the beautiful photogenic area before me. “ It is beautiful, isn’t it? I can never get used to this place.” Adeel says in the same breathy voice like me that makes me turn towards him to notice his reaction. He has that same dreamy look in his eyes that I am sure I had mere seconds ago while he is staring outside. “ I am pretty sure I am never going to get used to this place as well. By the way, what is this place?” I ask. My question pulls him out of whatever thoughts he was lost in. “ This city is called Ellesmere. The city is at the heart of our realm and is neutral. It is also the biggest and the most beautiful city in the whole realm. It has the school one side and the other side is for those who either live here or have their businesses here.” He explains as he starts walking down the corridor towards the stairs. I follow him because I wanna learn everything about this new place I am in and the more he explains, the more questions I have regarding this city, this realm and the way it works. But I swallow these questions so that I can listen to him first and grasp everything I can. “ The school is huge with its own grounds for physical training and the campus. The school is mainly divided according to the age groups so that the souls can have some familiarity and they can adjust well. And it is easier to teach and accommodate them.” “ So this must be the area for the teenagers, right?” I ask as we start climbing up the stairs. The stairs are steep and in spiral shape. We are apparently climbing up a tower. “ Yes. This building is specifically for the people aged between 14 to 18 years of age. The age however does not define which level of the classes you will be attending.” he says as we go higher and higher. “ So where are we going?” I ask breathily. I have got to start working out if I have to climb up these many stairs everyday. “ We are going to the dorms so that you can rest.” He says as we reach the top of the stairs. The spiral stairs end in front of the huge double doors. “ Here we go,” He says.