The Laws of Paxia

23. Everything's Black

Chapter Twenty-Three

  Everything’s black.

  I’m lying on the smooth untouchable ground, confused over what just happened. I held the key against the pink shimmer of the portal and ended up here. Wasn’t I supposed to be brought back to Paxia? It’s probably another one of my naïve moves to expect that it isn’t a complicated process to travel through worlds. I had the key and the portal and just ran off.

  My poor Dad probably knows what I must face and I wonder if this is another test that I must go through. I haven’t been given many instructions so far. I should have asked him more, but I honestly never believed that I would end up stranded in a place like this.

  Tarih is deactivated and doesn’t work no matter how many times I twist my necklace. I am feeling slightly panicked and have no idea what to do from here. I point the key in several directions before I understand the hopelessness. I guess I can’t do anything besides wait it out.

  I crawl forward in hope of feeling anything at all, but it’s just the same emptiness. I’ve never been scared of the dark, but the more time I spend here, the more uncomfortable I get.

  I give up and just lie there for what feels like forever. I gaze into the blackness and my eyes are hurting so much. I didn’t know that it could cause pain. I’m stranded here and I can’t ask Tarih for help. I don’t even know where I am! Maybe I ended up somewhere in Paxia, like an underground cave.

  Maybe I should keep crawling to find out?

  I put my arm over my eyes and it immediately feels better. It’s like something is blinding me in here and I’ve become temporarily blind because of it. I remove my arm and I squint with my eyes in a try to get a glimpse of anything at all. It’s still the same blackness.

  I sigh deeply. Waiting it out it is. I’m so hungry and weak, but this I’m already used to.

  I lie there for what seems like hours. My eye-lids are starting to fall and I yawn. I’m so tired; a nap will do me good. The faint blinking glitter all around me is soothing and makes the atmosphere fairy-tale like. I just need to give in and let myself fall into deep sleep.

  Suddenly I’m wide awake. I sit up, astonished over the sight. How long has the glitter been sparkling?

  They’re small buds that look white at the first look, but sparkle with colour the more I inspect them. I realize that it’s my eyes that are changing. I’m not sure how to quicken up the process, but I try to calm down since it worked so far.

  Step by step, the colours are growing and a lighter tone is brought to the whole dark surrounding. It takes even more hours, but sleep is no longer forcing me to give in. Finally it reaches its peak and it feels like a click inside my head.

  There’s no prominent colour. From head to toe and even below me, the place is filled with spaghetti like threads that glows in all kinds of colours. Each thread has their unique colour and I wonder what all this is. They entwine through each other in a messy way, without any logic.

  I finally let my hand choose a desired pile in front of me and they are soft like vines. It’s the weird thing. I can only touch them if I know exactly what I want to touch. It’s like a defence system is kicking in against strangers in here. It doesn’t make much sense.

  What am I supposed to do with this?

  The vines are smooth and looks like leaves would grow out of them any second. This really looks like a fairy-tale land. Stuff like this can only exist inside a Fantasy story, but since this is real it must have a more logical explanation. It doesn’t have a smell and I can imagine what Carolyn would say if I ever told her about the luminous vines that is surrounding me.

  I wish I could ask Tarih what I should do next, but it is still not responding. I guess that means I must explore my options and experiment. The thought makes me grab the Key hard inside my hand. My heart beats a little faster and I don’t want to mess up. I have no idea what might happen if I do something wrong. I can’t even see how I ended up here in the first place. There’s no way out.

  I choose a vine and lick my dry lips as I concentrate on deciding the colour that is sparkling through its long thin body. The bottom colour is definitely a deep rusty red. A hint of orange is stretching out through it and a dull white colour is slowly pulsating like it’s connected to an energy flow.

  Are these things supposed to reflect the worlds in the universe? In that case there are hundreds of millions of options to choose from. How am I supposed to find Earth or even Paxia from here?

  I decide that it doesn’t matter. None of those worlds are holding the reason to the existence of the Key.

  My instinct tells me that I’m holding the right thread in my hand. I decide to trust it and let the Key touch the smooth surface. Nothing happens, but I’m sure it must be a way to make it work. I twist the rusty vine around the Key and suddenly it feels like I’m falling through time and space. Fear goes through me and I land roughly on a sandy pile of orange mud.