The Other Side of Darkness

Dawn to Dusk

Episode 5: Chapter 5~8

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"Hehehe, I bet you can't catch me~"

Lev groaned and opened her eyes. She quickly realized that she was inside the Dream Realm. However, she wasn't back at the weird cloud palace. Instead, she was laying on the grass behind a large purple clock tower. The tower was made up of two large, intricate separate towers with an enormous, equally intricate clock connecting them.

On the other side of the clock tower, she could see the sun rising over a small town. Everything was bathed in a deep purple color.

There was something awfully...familiar about the town that Lev couldn't quite put her finger on.

"Slow down, Youngest Miss!"

"Hehe! You can't catch me!"

Lev turned at the sound of a child's voice.

Behind her, in a field of flowers, a child wearing a white-silver robe ran around, happily outrunning two older figures. Because of the robe and long veil of silver-blonde hair covering the child's face, Leg couldn't see anything interesting about the child except for it was female.

The two older figures both wore heavy robes decorated with small crystals and silk scarves that wrapped around their necks then up around their head. They also wore animal-like masks that covered half of their faces. One was a panther while the other was a fox. The one in the panther mask seemed to be male from the sound of his voice, and the fox sounded, acted and looked like a woman.

"Please!" The male was begging. "Stop running!"

"The Master and Young Mistress are going to be furious if they find out you've been out for this long!" the girl added.

"Furious if I find out what?"

The two froze and turned. As Lev followed their line of sight, she realized another person was walking up to them.

Like the elder two, she wore dark, heavy, black robes with a long scarf wrapping around her neck and above her head, securing a black jackal mask to the upper portion of her head. Her mask and scarf were slightly more decorated with silver and gold thread then the other two's, implicating that she was of slightly higher status.

The girl paused her gleeful running and dashed toward the new girl.

"Elder Sister!" she shouted. "Look at what I found!" She held up her tiny hand, which was clenched in a fist, and opened it to reveal a small white and blue flower.

The jackal-masked girl bent down and took the flower.

"It's beautiful," she said softly. "But, we need to go inside now. It's not safe for you to stay outside this long."

The child made a disappointed sound. "Please, Elder Sister," she begged. "At least let me show Laurium. I want to make more flowers like these, and he's great at making flowers! Plleaaaaase."

The two young adults looked at the 'Elder Sister' with confused looks.

The girl chuckled. "Not today, Little Sister. Maybe tomorrow, if you're good."

The child seemed to brighten up at that. "Okay!" she shouted before dashing away in the direction of the tower.

The girl in the black robes began to follow, but she was stopped by the other two adults.