Araceli

25- Echoes of the Wasteland

One thing I've learned through my career as a journalist is that time waits for no one and it is as mischievous as a monkey. It takes a toll on you, it makes fun of you with its constantly changing abilities. One minute, you're stable, and the next minute everything is taken away like it never belonged to you. One minute you're sane and the next minute you're wandering like a mad person without knowing a thing in the world.

And how does that relate to being a journalist, you ask? In a world of following celebrities, we are often faced with rejection. Sometimes rejection comes after acceptance. Rejection of the story itself or rejection of your magazine company as a whole. I have had my fair share of rejection multiple times, most of them, however, came from the Chief himself as I begged for 'total coverage'. My world has turned upside down, or I thought it turned upside down on many occasions but now thinking about those said occasions seems petty. The occasions were petty and so were my feelings. Because the true meaning of having your world turned upside down, is being held captive in a parallel universe. Or something along the lines of a parallel universe.

This aligns perfectly with my situation except for the fact that I was schooled about something that I knew for sure didn't exist. Time's way of teaching me was very vivid and physical. It could still be something that doesn't exist if I were to wake up in about two minutes. I knew for a fact that my life was not very colorful. Every day was a simple pattern of constants. Waking up, begging the chief , sulking, and going back to sleep. What I didn't know was that I would soon have my world shaken and that I would be kidnapped, and brought into a fantastical realm that merely existed between the pages of a fantasy book wedged between other books on my bookshelf until yesterday, by a magical entity whose name I've only heard one time. Literally one time.

I stood in the middle of a landscape that stretched endlessly, vibrant shades of amber and orange blended perfectly causing spirally patterns over the sky that felt way closer. Soft sand slowly rose above my ankles as my feet sank due to the oppression of standing in the same place. The very air crackled with whispers of something that felt like the hiss of a snake as wisps of ethereal dust floated in the mist.

I was internally freaking out but I calmed my nerves with the only possibility that kept me sane against Gizem and now I'm counting on it once again, which is the possibility of all this being a dream. I did lose consciousness, and maybe I have still lost consciousness, right? I turned to Joshua, "This is interesting," I spoke. Joshua was keenly observing the scene in front of him.

"I've been here," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"I've walked endlessly over this very scorching sand. I feel it throughout my body like it's calling me," he racked his eyes around as he said that. It was a haunting way of saying something so terrifying.

"If it's calling you, I don't see a reason for me to be here because I'm clearly not being called. Even that lady knew you, isn't that kind of concerning? Me being here could be a mistake and I---" My words were cut off by the rumbling of the ground beneath us. It moved.

"Did you feel that?" Said Joshua. Yes, I felt that. I felt that throughout my freaking body. I nodded slowly without speaking a word. Joshua came closer to me and clenched the scroll in his hand as tightly as possible. We waited for something to happen.

"I think we just imagine--" and it happened again. The ground shook almost causing me to lose my balance. It felt like an earthquake, the entire world was shaking. Then at that moment, somewhere far away, the sand started rising. It rose to a point of visibility as something emerged from the pit of the earth. A pair of glowing eyes stared at us. The sand in front of us was in silent, subtle ripples that increased with each passing second as something linear emerged against our feet and thrashed against our shins. I and Joshua lost our balance and landed on the ground.