Illumina

Chapter Five: Reasons

Chapter Five: Reasons

The bright afternoon light streamed into the room, its harsh and hot ray hit the girl's eyes, rudely waking her up. 

She started to squirm around and covered her eyes with her wrists as the past events started to swirl through her head. Her breakout, the rain, the dogs, the library, the weird librarian, the glowing door-THE GLOWING DOOR.  She bolted up from the bed, wide awake and sober.

The door that sucked her into some kind of strange place that was supposed to hold the answers to all her yearning questions.

The girl stared at her hands in her lap for a few moments, breathing heavily. “Get it together, Naomi, there’s no way another world exists! That’s all just fairytales told by old ladies.” 

Her self-preach fell apart once her eyes scanned the room and she realized much to her displeasure, that wasn’t at the library anymore. Nor was she at that place. Which was good, but it still didn’t mean she wasn’t in some kind of parallel universe or faraway planet.

“Think straight,” she breathed. “Another world doesn’t exist…” She kept telling herself while scanning the room once more. As the minutes slowly passed, her curiosity grew more intense. Her eyes kept travelling back to the wooden door, which was conveniently placed less than five meters away from her. It was taunting her. If she wasn’t at the library or there, she had to know where she was.

Naomi got out of the warm bed and tiptoed to peek through the cracks in the wooden door. 

The other room looked like a kitchen and smelled of tea and pastries, making the girl’s stomach grumble. The furniture was made of various kinds of wood, including the chairs and even the windows, which were glassless. The only thing metal was probably the kettle. Even the teacups were ceramic. 

There were three people in it, playing cards. They sort of looked human, despite their obvious hints of supernatural characteristics.

One of them was really, really short with chestnut curly hair and pointy ears. He had green wings coming out of his back that complimented his green eyes and his feet were bare. He was arguing with a fellow whose hair was all over the place on his head. The fellow’s eyes held mischief and childlike behavior, Naomi almost thought they looked yellow, but decided that they were just light hazel. He was rather tanned and his orange tiger tail was holding his cards. The last guy had a somewhat similar aura as the short boy, though they looked nothing alike. He was a lot taller, slender and his almost white hair was straight, reaching just a little bit lower his shoulders. His eyes were dark, but held warmth. He seemed amused by the argument between the other two.

“I know you did something!” the little guy exclaimed, his face going red from anger. “No one can win poker ten times in a row! You must’ve mixed other cards in!”

The tanned fellow grinned, oblivious to the frustration the green winged boy was experiencing. “I didn’t do anything. I’m just really lucky!” he said, his smile growing as his tail dropped his cards onto the table revealing a full-house.

The little guy groaned irritably and hit his head against the table. “That’s eleven times already,” he muttered in surrender.

The pointy eared guy laughed whole-heartedly at the two, gathering the cards and began to mix them again.

Naomi looked away and sat down on the floor, leaning against the door. She didn’t know whether she should run away or meet those people. If you could call them people. They looked like costume driven freaks. With very realistic accessories, I might add. She thought in slight frustration.