Lands Unknown

Chapter 9

Amaira

It's 7:30 a.m when we finally start our 'trip'. Aariq and Rix glare at me for reasons I don't understand.

"If you both continue looking at me like I'm a rotten potato, I swear I'll bury you alive."

"You took 48 min to bathe." Rix stared at me.

"What? A girl needs her time to dress up!"

"Seriously? Forty eight minutes to dress?" Aariq asked, incredulity written on his face.

"I-"

"Continue that sentence, and I swear you'll wake up every day with green hair and spiders in your mouth."

I shut my mouth, believe me when I say this, nothing is worth facing Aariq's wrath.

"Sooo, are we taking a taxi or are we taking the telly?" Aariq directed the question to Rix.

"Orion manor is a...protected place from the beginning. Victor didn't like visitors. Only I, mum, he, the trio of ministers know where it is. And it is impossible to find because...You'll see. Victor got the house constructed exactly fifteen years ago, only months before I was born, and Victor was a techy guy."

"Dude, what are you trying to tell us?"

"We can't travel using a public method. We have to travel using a private telly."

"Private telly?! Those are super expensive aren't they?"

"Yes, they are. But I happen to own one," He pointed at the glossy black band around his wrist, the one I've never seen him without, "This one is one of the only four tellies in the whole universe that can create a telly passage to Orion manor. And no public transport is allowed to know the location, a rule set by the ministers. Also, you'll see a lot of stuff that you don't see in normal houses. Just prepare yourselves for that. "

"You have a weird house constructed by a psychopath that normal people cannot find. Got it."

"What's a telly?" I blurt. I had that question for 2 min 13 sec. I can't keep a question to myself for longer than that.

"A telly is a transportation method, which involves us teleporting from one place to another. We can't jump large distances. You see this needs a lot of energy. No place has enough energy to create portals that can be used to jump large distances." Rix explains.

"Except that garden with the trees bearing jewels. You know the one we landed in when we exited earth."

"The Garden of Emporium. Exactly."

"So what do you do when you need to go to a place that's far away?"

"We jump to the nearest tellyport. There's always one nearby."

"So if the place is really far away, we jump to multiple tellyports?"

"Ya."

"Wow." Earth is so under-developed.

He flashes a smile, "I know."

"Let's go! I'm done waiting. I wanna see the psychopath mansion!" Aariq whisper-yells.

Rix rolls his eyes, "Fine." He clicks something on his band and shoots a mirror-like hole into the air. The hole expands and brightens until all we can see is a blinding white light. I watch Rix walk into it. Then Aariq follows. A little nervous, I take baby steps towards it. A hand grabs my elbow and pulls me in. I hang on to my dear life as I am engulfed by the searing light.

𖠁𖠁𖠁𖠁𖠁𖠁𖠁𖠁𖠁𖠁

I expected to float in a void, feeling feather-like, like the way characters feel in books when they teleport for the first time. Instead, I walked through the light in a second. It felt like passing through a layer of warm air, nothing special. Technically, it was my second time telporting , but I don't remember how it felt like on the first time since I was too focused on keeping myself from becoming a wet mess.