Ember of Hope

Raegan slowly opened her eyes and immediately felt her head swim. Groaning she shielded her eyes from thankfully a very dim light or surely her eyes were gonna bleed out of her face.

When she was finally able to open her eyes fully without the fear of going blind she took in her surroundings; a vast room with ridiculously high ceilings and pale green walls. Next to her bed were two chairs and a side table. It looked like a hospital room the size of a ball room. She cursed while taking it all in – alone in an unknown place with no recollection of how she ended up here – plus she was heavily bandaged.

“What the hell?” she frowned and tried to sit up – curses flew like galloping wild horses from her mouth when her whole body felt like it had been trampled by a hoard of rhinos. She gave up sitting and settled on hollering “Hello” with an awful croak.

Not even a minute later a girl dressed in a plain white skirt walked in – with a kind smile on her lips that made Raegan smile in turn. “How are you feeling?” she asked softly.

“Like I was just run over by a freight train”, Raegan replied.

She gave a light chuckle “sadly you will be feeling sore for a couple days more. It’s a miracle really that you pulled through”.

“Pulled through what? What happened? And where am I? This doesn’t look like a hospital”.

She sat in one of the chairs next to Raegan’s cot and with a serious but not an unkind expression; asked “can you tell me your name?’

“Uh yeah sure, I’m Raegan – Raegan Turner”.

“Well Raegan you had a very bad accident while I guess you were hiking. You fell. You had a very nasty fall and many bones in your body were broken plus you had a concussion. When you were brought here you were barely alive. As I said before – it’s a miracle you pulled through – do you remember now?”

Yes. Yes, she did remember now… the fall… the agony… the feeling of life slowly leaving her body… and then finally; ‘the acceptance of death’ – and just before darkness claimed her; the hope to meet with her family once again. She remembered it all. She shot up in bed seething in anger, “That bitch actually pushed me off a cliff”, and fell back down groaning in pain. “So I’m not dying anymore” it was more a whispered statement than a question to which the girl replied anyway, “no, you’re not”. She had that beautiful calming smile set on her face. The only thing a bit odd about her was her cat like yellow eyes. Maybe lens, but something in Raegan told her they were natural.

“Who are you? And where am I?” she asked again.

“I am nirvana. I’m a healer of Evreux. Raegan! What I’m about to tell you, I want you to keep an open mind about it. Can you do that?”

Raegan nodded, now a bit weary of her. But guess her expressions belied the nod of her head making nirvana smile even wider.

“Trust me when I say that I have no reason to lie to you. So what I’m about to tell you might not be readily acceptable but in time you’ll see”.

“Okay” Raegan blew out a heavy breath “I promise I won’t freak out on you – please continue”.

But she was freaking out internally – which the pretty girl sitting in front of her didn’t need to know. So se schooled her features as best she could and held her breath for what was to come.

“When you fell”, nirvana started, “you were almost dead with injuries and blood loss and apparently no one knew because you lay there till night fall. Luckily, that was when…” she cleared her throat “when – um – someone found you – and brought you here”. She stopped to look at her, probably gauging for her reaction.

“Here? But where exactly is here?”

“Oh for God’s sake” nirvana mumbled, and then sighed heavily. “Look, I’m just going to rip the band-aid off okay?”

“Yes please do. I’d appreciate that”.

“You are in Evreux – which is a parallel dimension of your world. You were found by our king Dragomir D’evreux who scented human blood on the wind while he was heading home from visiting his wife in your world. He searched for the injured human and found you, barely alive. He couldn’t take you to the hospital because it was far and you were in no condition to make it there alive. So he flew you through the portal of our world and brought you here to the healers”. She looked like she wanted to bolt before Raegan could blow. But when she didn’t freak out nirvana sighed with relief.

“So what you’re saying is that I’m not on earth anymore? And you people aren’t humans?”

This was so not happening. The girl was clearly delusional, believing in what she was saying. May be she was under some influence or something, or maybe she belonged to some kind of cult. In any case, Raegan didn’t want to spook her so she decided to play cool and collected.

“Not exactly, no”. Nirvana searched for the right words. “There was a time once when the doorways to our world and yours were open and humans had access to this dimension and both our people moved freely between two dimensions. We lived in harmony with humans. But as is the human nature – no offense – they started hunting us because we were different and powerful and they were scared of us – so there was no choice than to separate ourselves from your world. In order to do so a barrier was made with the power of the collective magic of our people and we got our own dimension away from those who meant us harm, and we’ve been living here ever since. We still have access to your side of the barrier but humans can’t see the barrier and they can’t cross it on their own. From the outer world the barrier is as good as air. With time the human race of your world forgot about our existence – may be intentionally – so to them we’re not real anymore. But here in our world; we are not the creatures of myth. We are real”.

Whoa! She had the whole story made – and she clearly believed it. Whoever these people were, they were dangerous.

“So, what are you exactly? You said he flew me here?”

“Yeah about that – uhm” she hesitated, “please don’t freak out, okay?” she looked nervous.

“I’ll try my best”

“Okay – well – here goes nothing” nirvana blew out a breath “I am a healer as you know by now. Our world has some other kinds of species as well. King Dragomir – he uh – he is a dragon shifter. So we have dragons here – mighty and powerful creatures like your world used to have dinosaurs, right? Well dragons have huge wings” Raegan stopped her rambling with a raised hand.

“I know what a dragon is and what it looks like nirvana. We have movies and books and myths on them. And I kinda like the idea. But the real question here is that do you really expect me to buy all this?”

“Well that would be ideal, but as I said before that you might not believe me. We’ll see about that later”.

“Ookay” Raegan replied wearily.

“Now where was I? Ah yes, the species. We have some other shifters too but they tend to live deep in the woods. Then there are the witches. They don’t live in the kingdoms anymore but dwell in the no man’s lands between the kingdoms’ territories. We have healers who are also seers, but they are far and few between. There are also druids, but they are very secretive people so even in our world they live in a place no one can access without their will. And the rest are simply humans, though they are different from the humans of your world in strength and life span. They tend to live longer than your species. Other than that they don’t have any abilities or powers”. She took a long breath and smiled, “so, there you go. That’s all we have to offer here”. She laughed nervously, waiting for Raegan to go off like a bomb any minute.

Nirvana had no idea how she wanted it all to be true. To somehow fall into a fantasy land where all the creatures nirvana had just mentioned and then some, roam freely. Where magic was no myth and vampires weren’t hated upon.

“Well? Aren’t you going to say something?” nirvana asked then added, “You are either shocked into silence or are completely cool with everything”.

Raegan blew out a breath ready to answer but as if on cue two loud male voices interrupted them.

“You stay here Damien” one of them said.

Nirvana stiffened. “Well I suggest you brace yourself. That is Valiance and Damien”.

“Who?” Raegan asked looking in the direction of the doorway.

“Whoa whoa WHOA… Dude what the hell is that?” Raegan screeched when a huge creature appeared in the doorway. She couldn’t even get up she was so stunned. She closed her eyes so tightly they appeared to be non-existent. When she opened her eyes back again and didn’t find anything in the doorway she sighed in relief that maybe she had just hallucinated.

“Hello!” a deep voice said next to her. Raegan did jump then and instantly regretted it. Groaning loudly she settled back in her bed, astonished at her own lack of fear from the creature that now sat on its haunches near her bedside. It was huge… black as night with eyes like raging blue oceans. She instantly felt drawn to it… to a dragon… a freaking huge black dragon.

Nirvana chose that moment to speak, “now do you believe that I’m not delusional?” she smirked.

Raegan’s eyes went wide.

Nirvana replied without her asking. “Yes I know what you were thinking. No, I’m not psychic it was just written all over your face”. She grinned, her beautiful teeth on display. She was really pretty.

“Don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you”. The dragon spoke rather gently this time and slowly she turned her head in the direction of the voice – or more specifically the dragon – the most magnificent creature she had ever seen – and nothing like those hideous creatures they showed in Harry Potter or The Hobbit.

“Well that is the thing; I’m not scared. I know I should be but I’m not”, she said “and you speak” she added rather lamely making Valiance very amused.

“Of course I speak. How else do you think we communicate?”

“I didn’t think” she confessed; embarrassed.

“Clearly” he chuckled. A dragon version of a chuckle – that in all its hideousness was rather deep and manly – or dragonly, whatever.

“You were serious. They are real.” She said to nirvana.