To Lemuria

STRUGGLES

He was right as always.

Sensei motioned to stand up but his frail body was too old for his strong spirit.

I stood up as he did and caught his arm as he fell a bit sideways.

Then we all fell sideways, I needed to brace my arm before Sensei fell over.

He hit the wrist that I had snapped a while ago, I cringed in pain.

Another tremor and we all slid the other way, bits and boulders of marbles slid with us. One was almost hitting Mira when Kim slapped it with his hand and then it disappeared.

It disappeared? Right there and then?

I looked at Kim who looked at me and it didn't a need Seer eye for us to see that the boulder drifted away to wherever we don't know.

But we never had another moment that I didn't have the chance to raise a thumbs up, when we started sliding the other way again.

My shoulder hit a marble when I pulled Sensei out of the way. Everything happened simultaneously and so fast, I think I lost count of the sliding and the trying to get up, losing my balance and falling again. I also lost count of the hit and the bruises that will come up later.

Turned out, it was not an average kind of earthquake. It was not an earthquake in any way.

Meia appeared rising up from the hole where we fell at the staircase, floating ever so gently, looking ever so angelic once again.

Her hair flew at her sides from behind, her dress rippled through the chilly sea breeze air.

The sliding tremors grew slower and slower as I regained my stand and I pulled up Sensei, who seemed to have lost too much energy and was clinging on my arm.

As I stood up, I could see the portal from behind her, giving her again the illuminated lighting, just like glowing globe did down at the crystal glass dome, an effect fit for a drama queen that she was.

When the trembling finally did stop and so did her feet landed on the ground before us.

"I believe this is yours," she said, again with her ever so gentle sweet voice.

She moved her hand forward very slowly that I didn't know how or why, but my cellphone crashed so suddenly at my feet, destroying it.

Great! Thanks a lot, I thought.

"You are welcome," she said and smiled.

I shook my head and raised my hands incredulously.

I looked at Precious, looking every bit the precious that it was. Every bits, literally.

I felt my emotions running high again as I remembered all those years that I spent using it, writing reminders on it and waking up on it. All lost in the broken pieces.

And I looked up at her smiling face thinking, this wasn't any joke any more.

Out of impulse, I started to run for her but she glided away, backwards and backwards.

And for no apparent reason, no clear reason at all why, specifically, was I attacking her, my body lunged forwards and forwards.

It was a slow motion in my head, much more than my body when I realized that when I looked downwards I was at the edge of the epic hole and that for the second time around it was swallowing me whole.

The gravity stopped.

Or so I thought, as I opened my eyes to see that I was floating right above the hole. My arms and legs outstretched, my whole body frozen in mid air.