Rift

Chapter 4: Questions

I approached the girl — not before sheathing my knife — and crouched down beside her while keeping my eyes on the entrance of the edifice in front of us. Despite its small size, it had a double door, which was made of a dull, transparent material that let us foresee what was inside. The two silhouettes that I saw before were still there, barely moving.

"Hey, I was looking for you" I said after some seconds, unsure whether she noticed me or not.

"Eek" was the first sound she made in response. Then she coughed a little, pretending nothing happened, clearly trying to hide the fact that she got startled.

"Why? Did you want to apologize?" She then proceeded to ask, while looking me in the eyes and raising her head a little, putting on airs.

Now that I was so close to her, and she was looking directly at me with her light green eyes, I noticed two pointy ears springing up from her long wavy hair. Of course, that wasn't the weirdest thing I noticed about her, after all she was originally a mouse.

Even her question just now was weird. What did she mean by that? What would I want to apologize for? But, leaving the oddities aside, she was really beautiful and reminded me of an elf from fantasy stories.

"Sorry? I don't understand" I answered honestly.

"Don't try to fool me, I know you understood what I said, because I understood you" she retorted.

The more I talked to her, the more confused I got. I mustered my patience and went for a second try.

"That's not what I meant, I speak English just like you do, I just don't know what I should apologize for."

"English? So that's how your language is called. Anyway, did you forget when you looked down on me from up that tower and left me to be eaten by those undead? Is this place already taking a toll on your mind?" She asked, looking serious, despite her seemingly mocking words.

She doesn't know she is speaking English? No, there's something else going on here, but this is not the most pressing matter at the moment.

"My mind is fine, but most importantly, you don't happen to know what place this is, do you?" I asked, glossing over what happened at the tower.

"I do" she answered in short.

"Care to explain?" I probed further.

"Listen, not only do I know what place this is, but as a matter of fact, I even know that we want to get out of it as soon as we can, the explanations can come later" she replied, with a hint of anxiety in her tone.

"Fine, by the way, I'm Christopher Moore" I said, while extending my arm to shake hands with her.

She looked at my hand, confusion written all over her face.

"I'm asking for your name" I continued, drawing back my hand.

"Oh, I'm Celara Faeriuth" she replied, mimicking the motion I just did, extending her arm and then retracting it back.

I am beginning to understand what kind of person she is, in fact, I think she is not a person at all. The name she used to introduce herself doesn't sound like a name from any country I can think of, she doesn't know what a simple handshake is, added to her pointy ears and the fact that she could turn into a mouse, the only conclusion I can come to is that she is not from the same world as me. It wasn't my first thought after seeing her shapeshift because I've heard of people who developed powers after the Apocalypse, some of whom even underwent minor physical mutations.

Then, could it be that even this world is not my original one? That would explain everything I've seen so far, and her urgency to leave this place.

"So... just to be sure, are we by any chance in another world?" I asked, a little embarrassed by the fanciful theory.

"Technically, this isn't a world, but let's keep things simple and consider it as if it were, to return to your world we need to find the rift in this place."

My world, uh? Looks like at the very least, she isn't planning to hide her identity. Could it be that this 'rift' she is talking about is the egg-like object I found in that building?

"So this rift is what brought us here, correct?" I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.

"Correct" she confirmed.

"Can't we just go back to the first place we ended up in after touching it, then? In front of that wall?"

"No, first of all, you saw the wall, you know the rift wasn't there, and even if it were, we probably wouldn't be able to go back there, I don't know if you noticed, but this place is ever-changing, and on top of that, the rift itself changes location unpredictably" she explained, condescendingly.

She was right, there was no way I would have missed it if it really was there.

"Great, so what's the plan? You are not going to tell me our only prospect is to just keep walking until either we stumble upon the Rift or we die from hardship, I hope."

"No, luckily for you, I'm here, and it so happens that I already located the rift, but we must be quick, or it could shift again."

"That building that you were so attentively watching, is the rift there?" I asked, afraid to hear the answer. My eyes shifted again to the two silhouettes, my instincts screaming at me to not get any closer to them.

"It is, but fear not, I have a plan that you can help with, just follow me and do as I say, and there will be no need to fight" she announced, smiling for the first time.

At that moment, I even smelled a floral fragrance coming from her. It's weird that I only perceived it now, but it made me feel calmer.

"Now please, enough with the questions, I know you must be confused, but every second we waste here brings us closer to losing ourselves, besides, this is the right time to act, the guards are gone."

I just nodded, wondering what she meant by 'losing ourselves'. Then she began running toward the entrance of the building, and I just followed her. Unlike before, she wasn't trying to be stealthy, so I didn't bother to do that either.

We ran all the way to the doors of the edifice, the two figures from before nowhere to be seen, and stepped in as if it were our own house. What we saw inside was just a small room, the only thing there being an elevator, we got on it and took a look at the few buttons that were inside.

"It should be this" Celara said, uncertain, while pressing one of them.

We went down and ended up in what looked like a supermarket, with lots of long shelves. On top of them there was food of all kinds, but most of it I couldn't really tell what it was supposed to be. I kept following Celara, the shelves looked like they would never end. She was some steps ahead of me, but suddenly stopped walking and turned to look at me.

"The rift shifted" she said, annoyed. "Let's get out of here."

"How do you know that?" I couldn't help but ask.

"I'll tell you, but not now, we don't even know if we are being listened to."

I was tired of all these mysteries, but sticking with her was the best course of action to escape from this place. We went back to the entrance, but this time, after the elevator reached the upper floor, there was someone in the small room.

They were the two silhouettes I foresaw before, which I could clearly see now.

The two were humanoid in shape, but their transparent, jelly-like 'flesh' made it possible to see through them, there were no visible organs, though. They were more than two meters tall, and their arms and legs were abnormally long and spindly. Lastly, their faces lacked all kinds of somatic traits, they had no eyes, nose, mouth, or ears, not even hair, just a blank face, similar to that of a mannequin. There was no doubt they were alive though, because one of them started coming towards me.