Mysterious Encounter

Jared stepped back a few paces, his eyes wide with disbelief. I could see what he was thinking. Was it all happening over again? But Loranna seemed to be alone. There was no denying her beauty. She looked like someone out of a fairy tale with a long pale green hooded cloak shrouding her. She had a face which seemed full of wisdom but perhaps it was just knowingness and a over-emphasised sense of confidence. She clearly thought she was invincible, she thought that no other woman had the same power as her. She stepped into the temple and pulled down her hood to reveal a mane of auburn hair.

"You do not have to fear Jared. I have come alone. I knew you were going to be here. You could not stay away from this place for too long." She walked towards him and circled around him once as if to remind herself of his allure. "Come, follow me. There are matters we must discuss."

Jared and I followed her into a separate part of the temple which led out into a small square courtyard. There was only a little shelter here as it partially exposed to the air outside. A small stone fountain stood at its centre which no longer spewed water. It felt damp and humid in here, as if a large thunderstorm had recently passed. I did not remember seeing the rain fall but then, Jared and I had been exploring the temple for long enough to have missed a rain storm. The three of us stood in a circle around this dormant stone fountain. Jared seemed to want to keep his distance but his curiosity was high. The tiny courtyard was heavy with silence for a long moment until Jared finally splintered it with his soft warm voice.

"Why have you come back? What do you want from me?"

"Before you met this one..." Loranna nodded dismissively in my direction. "...you were having dreams weren't you? Dreams of what happened in this place a short while ago."

"Yes and they were all so damn vague and contradictory. I found less meaning with them than I had before. I had to come back and find out for myself ... my memory of this place was lost and yet it was so strong."

Loranna smiled serenely. "We placed those dreams in your mind dear Jared. We wanted you back with us. You were not supposed to leave us so soon."

"How can anyone give a dream to another person? And who the hell is us?" He tried desperately to keep his temper but he had about a million questions. So far, his visit to the temple had failed to answer any of them.

"We are The Sentinels and we deal in dreams. We may offer our protection to anyone who dares to dream like us. We also recruit fellow Sentinels to walk with us, feeding the world and its human inhabitants with images to inspire and motivate other dreams and aspirations. You were to be recruited Jared. We wanted you with us, as a Sentinel. We still do. Ferdinand has the greatest hope that this plan could come to fruition. Even now, he assembles his companions who will come back here and begin the recruitment process once again. You have such power Jared, as an artist, as a man... even you do not fully appreciate your own talents..."

"Why did you choose this island as a place to build your empire?" I asked.

Loranna looked at me sideways, as if I were nothing more than a rat escaped from a sewer. She emitted a high level of disdain but must have felt duty bound to answer my question. "It is remote as you have seen." She said coldly. "The humans do not know about us. It must be kept that way. They fear this place and so do not come here. It is therefore suitable for us to conduct our rituals in private."

"You keep referring to people as 'humans'... does this mean you are not human?" Jared asked.

Loranna smiled at him, showing relief that he had reminded her he was still there. "Half human. We are not of this world nor any other. We live, we breathe, we are not ghosts or angels. We exist among the humans... we help them, we nurture their hopes and foil their catastrophes..."