Shifters

Chapter 5

Somewhere in Time

Blackness turned into blinding light as they flashed out of the warehouse, and into a small room as bright as the sun.

"...ride?" The question slowly died on Sharra's lips.

She squeezed her eyes shut against the intensity of the light, as her brain struggled to understand what had just happened. The air felt different. Blinking furiously against the glaring light, she took a quick glance around. The circle of wood, cat carrier, and human hands remained unbroken. The strong grip on her hand felt real, as did the warm body attached to it.

A wave of dizziness swept over her. She swayed on wobbly legs, and fell into the chest a few inches from her face. Lazarus caught her before she dropped, and wrapped a protective arm around her trembling body. His arm was strong, but tender, just like the way her father used to hold her and comfort her when he was alive. She had forgotten how much she missed it.

"Give it a second," he said as he held her. "It will pass. I promise."

He was right. As quickly as it came, the dizziness left. The trembling of her body stopped soon after. Feeling foolish, she lifted her head from Lazarus' chest, and stepped back.

"Am I dreaming?"

He dropped her hand, and smiled. "No, this is real."

She turned around, and blinked. The warehouse was gone. White light bombarded her from every direction; walls, ceiling, and floor. It even filled the air itself as if the atoms were diffused in light particles.

"We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto," she said in awe.

"No, we're not," Lazarus chuckled.

Nor were they in Charlotte. Instead, they were standing in the middle of a white sterile room where the seamless walls ran up to join the ceiling in one smooth line, creating an illusion of endless continuity. Made from a strange material like crushed glass, the walls radiated light from within. It reflected back and forth, amplifying its intensity as it bounced from wall to wall, and floor to ceiling. It filled the room so much that even the tiniest of air molecules were affected. Like a cloud of tiny specks of light they swirled and danced around them. Under normal circumstances, that much light would blind the human eye, but for some reason it didn't. Instead, the intensity lessoned as the brain adjusted the eyes until it was manageable.

That wasn't the only strange thing. Underneath her feet, imbedded in the white floor, pulsed an intricate silver pattern. The gentle throbbing of the swirling silver design touched the soles of her feet, sending a tingling response up her legs. Her eyes filled with questions as she looked at Lazarus in wonder.

"How did we...What just happened? "

"No wizards here," he said with a smile. "Come. It will all be explained later."

Sharra lifted the carrier off the crate, keeping a death-grip on the handle as he guided her around the stack, and out of the small room through a wide archway. In the hallway, the warm earth tones of the walls gave her eyes a moment's reprieve. The cloud of light stayed behind as if an invisible barrier kept the particles contained in the room.

In the hallway, a row of spiral-shaped sculptures, three on the left, and three on the right, ran from floor to ceiling, in front of the strange bright room. Delicate flat plates of silver metal spiralled up the center axis of each, like fancy drill bits. Starting in a tight curl at the bottom, they rose up in a gentle spin like symmetrical corkscrews, graduating in diameter from four inches at the bottom to a foot in the center, decreasing back to four inches at the top. They moved, rotating on their axis like a slow moving fan, stirring her auburn hair.