Yura closed her eyes, as if trying to escape everything around her—the noise, the weight of truth pressing on her heart. She felt the heaviness of time pressing against her temples, and her breaths quickened in the silence of the night, as if the entire world had paused for a single moment. When she opened her eyes again, she no longer saw what her heart and mind knew; the place that welcomed her was unfamiliar, as if time itself had vanished, as if the space had been created solely to suspend all the laws of reality.
The sky was a deep, dense purple, translucent at the same time, like a layer of a dream no one dared to touch. The stars shone like pieces of molten gold, silently guarding the heavens with eternal watchfulness. The ground, however, glowed a vibrant green, unnaturally vivid, as if everything around her had been meticulously polished to remind her that this was not her world.
Suddenly, a white figure appeared before her, as pale as snow, tall, standing with a human-like balance, yet something about him was strange; the way he stood, his calm, and his subtle smile carried an indescribable essence.
Yura trembled, her voice barely audible at first, then rising to a scream of terror:
– What am I seeing? Am I dreaming… or hallucinating?
The figure shivered slightly before answering in a calm voice, blending curiosity and serenity:
– It seems you are unfamiliar with our world… I have never seen a creature like you before.
Yura's heart nearly stopped. She felt the figure's words pierce through her body, as if testing her grasp on reality before her soul could fully tremble. She screamed again, sharper this time:
– What… what are you saying? Who are you? And what brought me here?
The figure smiled faintly, a subtle humor in the gesture that seemed to mock her ignorance and fear, and spoke in a tone that slightly eased her terror:
– Calm down… I am not here to harm you. I am merely a resident of this place. I just want to understand… what brought you here at this time?
Yura breathed slowly, as if the very air tried to soothe her. Her lips quivered before she replied, speaking more to herself than to him:
– Where am I?… I feel… as though I have traveled to another world…
The figure nodded lightly, his smile carrying a hint of mystery and cunning:
– You are in Armcastra.
Yura shivered, unable to believe what she heard:
– Armcastra? What are you saying? I have never heard of this place in my life!
The figure's smile widened, now more teasing:
– Simply put, you did not come from our world… you are from the human world. Now, you are in the parallel world… the world inhabited by imagination.
Yura froze in place, as if her body had vanished into the air, as if time itself had decided to hold her there for an endless moment. Her heart pounded violently, her mind screaming to understand this new reality. Everything around her was new, strange, enchanting, and terrifying all at once.
She remained silent, rigid, unmoving, surrounded by the purple sky, the green earth, and the white figure standing before her, watching quietly, as if the whole world had become a moment of waiting—a moment marking the beginning of a journey whose end she had yet to know.
End of Chapter Three