spellbound | book #1 | completed

V I I I

edited: 27/06/2017

Remy had thought that the journey to the city had been strange, but it still hadn't prepared her for what she faced now as she limped her way into a metropolis. She had never even been to a city in her own world, never having the money to travel, so the sheer chaos of it was enough to overwhelm her, never mind the pedestrians, with their vibrant hair and eye colours and their strange clothes.

She stopped as the boy, whose name she still did not know, began to walk directly into the madness, barely able to breathe. She wanted to run away, or wake up and realise that everything had been a dream, but she knew she couldn't. She had tried pinching herself several times, and she knew that the pain from her leg wouldn't be so awful if this wasn't real.

He stopped and turned back, tilting his head expectantly. "Are you coming?"

"Just give me a minute," she responded unnecessarily harshly. "You might be used to this, but I'm not."

He pursed his lips but nodded anyway, his arms falling limply to his sides, as though he wasn't sure where else to put them.

She eyed the buildings in front of her, each with towering pillars and sculptures of different creatures, some like angels and some more like monsters. People were emerging from them each second, and even more people were entering them. Remy couldn't even begin to guess what purpose they held, the signs all in strange markings that held no relevance to her, but for the fact that they reminded her of her key, which she clutched tightly now. With the lilac glow of the darkening sky casting eerie shadows along the streets, it seemed even stranger and more surreal. She found herself wondering how she had been living under a grey sky all of her life when somewhere like this existed at the very same time as her world. She knew for sure that this wasn't her sky, that the now materialising stars, illuminating each dark space of sky like a million different torches, were not her stars.

It was frightening, of course, but wonderful too. She couldn't fight the unexpected desire to go home, but she couldn't fight the desire to stay and take every millimetre of this place in before she left either.

"Okay," she breathed finally, wrapping her arms around herself as though it would protect her from the scrutiny of the strange people around her. The boy almost looked normal compared to the crowd surrounding her.

He nodded and led her into the mass of people, nodding to a few of them as if he knew them. He probably did. These were his people, and this was his home. She supposed somebody as beautifully unusual as him could only live in a place like this. Her eyes danced distractedly around the square she was in now, not knowing where to look. There were the street lights lining the pathways, drowning everybody in a sickly white glow; the water fountain that spewed out the clearest water she had ever seen, so clear that Remy couldn't help but lick her lips and imagine how it would feel to drink it in her dehydrated state; the stained glass of older and more intricately designed buildings that reminded her of churches. It was as though she was wearing lenses over her eyes that had magnified everything in her own world to make it richer and more well-defined here, despite the way the colour of the sky reflected itself onto everything in front of her and created a strange and lingering haze. There was the smell of copper, too, that stung her nostrils every so often, though it wasn't particularly unpleasant.

She couldn't help but notice there were no cars or roads, only people and cobbled footpaths. It was nice not to have to hear the constant blare of horns, though it made her feel hollow and uneasy. She could hear the passersby whispering, the same word echoing in her ears over and over as she passed more poeple: 'mortal.' So it was obvious, then.

The brilliance of it all almost caused her to forget about her injury. Almost. She stopped as a particularly painful ache shot through her leg, feeling as though it was piercing through her muscle and bone. "Are we almost there?" she said, disappointed at the sound of her own desperation and weakness.