There was a faint sound that suddenly brought Mia back to her reality. It felt like the sound of somebody turning pages. Quite urgently. One page after another. Mia strained her ears to listen closely. She was right. She looked around to figure out where exactly she was and how she could get out of there.
She checked her hand where there was a bite mark. It was from her biting herself to silence just a moment ago. It wasn’t bleeding but that mark was quite prominent. It burnt a bit as well.
Her head too, was still hurting a lot but the fact that disturbed her most was not being able to understand what was the thing that had captured her. Why did it look so much like her father? Was it some sort of an evil trying to impersonate? Her mind was racing to derive a conclusion. She couldn’t move as her legs were still bleeding from whatever was biting deep into her skin. She couldn’t even move to check it out properly as any movement made it dig deeper down her flesh. Mia rested her back on the swampy wall. She closed her eyes. This was the only way left to find out more about her surrounding. To get her answers. She needed to connect with the spirit energy around the place for that. However she had her doubts if the place even had any spirit energy. Though she wasn’t as efficient as Lin and her brothers in her senses, she could feel the Chi around the thing, the semblance. It couldn’t have been anything with any positivity, spirituality. But just like every positive has its negative, every light has it’s darkness, this place too would have something contrasting the spirit energies that balanced the known worlds .
She closed her eyes and dived deep inside. It took longer than usual for her to concentrate but when she did she found herself on an open path. It was very unlike the Dream Dimention she had been to previously. But they had resemblance. She found herself on a plank , thin enough to support just her feet. Below it were vapours that surged like fog. There was something boiling down below . The heat was resonating around the place. Mia was starting to feel very uneasy. Usually when she medicated back in the human word , along with her mother, she always was with her inside her trace. She was never left alone. Back at the Sacred Lands, she wasn’t as nervous as there was a warmth to the place. Besides, the place she had woken upto in her trace was that of the Dream Dimention. It was a place she was already familiar with. There was nothing that would hurt her not did she face anything unpleasant.
The scenario here however was very different. It needed her to act. She was physically feeling the agony of the steam touching her from all direction. Mia strained her eyes to look for the end of the road, created by the plank. At first it was clouded by the hot vapours, but then she could make out an abstract structure.
It appeared like a tree. Huge and big. Something shiny was behind it but she could not see it clearly. However the place there seemed devoid of the steam rapidly engulfing her. So without further ado , she immediately started walking, carefully maintaining her balance on the plank. As she walked, it didn’t seem that difficult to crossover. She quickly picked up her space. It wasn’t unstable at all. Mia looked below, then at her back and picked up her space even more and almost started running. But the thing was as she ran the end kept going further and further away. This made Mia panic. She was now desperate to end her race.
The faster she ran the faster the steam started filling. Mia ran and ran but the end was nowhere near. The air began to become thicker and thicker. Mia’s breath got heavier by the seconds. She was already gasping for air when suddenly out of nowhere Nana appeared infront of her.
“Nana? Nanako? ” Mia wondered if she was hallucinating. But realising she wasn’t she called out louder with hope, ” Nana. Nana. I’m here. Mia. It’s me. Nana. ” She yelled and waved her hands.
However Nanako wasn’t even looking at her. Her eyes we’re fixed in another direction. It was towards the end of the path.
Suddenly a glow emitting from Mia’s body, engulfed Nanako and she went up in the air, as if levitating. The glow then turned her towards, Mia, facing her directly. Nanako was still not looking Mia in the eye. She had her gaze fixed somewhere else.
Her lips parted automatically, her eyes grew red and she started mumbling-
“The clenching of the chest doesn’t stop. Neither does the coiling of the blood. The veins seem to be rupturing with force, with no ailment known. The sickness of the being is difficult to fathom, that has left behind it’s roots in another kingdom. How the song ends, how the story goes, is anybody’s guess because nobody knows. The howling might stop, the stars might shine once more, the game of waiting will pass in labour. The question you ask, the truth you seek, might leave you startled, unable to speak. Look carefully, look inside to cope, when home seems like a distant hope. ”
“Nana? Nanako? What are you talking about? I don’t understand. Look at me. It’s Mia. Come close… ” but before Mia could finish what she was saying , the glow came back and clashed against Mia and she was catapulted in another direction. It was so sudden Mia closed her eyes in fear. Everything around her was moving and zooming. Then it all came to a halt as suddenly as it had started.
Mia opened her eyes with caution and looked around. Her heart sprang up in delight as the landscape around her was no longer gloomy . It was bright. It was familiar. She looked around just to confirm that she was correct in identifying the place. After all it was just once that she had been there. But there it was. The Tree of Knowledge, as majestic and grand as ever. Peering at Mia with an air of grandeur.