I hope that you all liked the new way that I am writing in. From now onwards, everything will be written in Lesley's point of view. If you don't like the way I am writing in now, please tell me and I will change it. I hope you like this chapter!
Chapter Five: Zara explains
“Urrghh…” I moaned as I woke up. I looked around and……….whoa! I might have seen a lot of beautiful places but none of them were as nice as this. This place looked more beautiful than anything I had ever seen before. There were many trees near where I was laying. There were beautiful flowers dotting the leaves of the trees. I was lying on grass. The sky was very blue. There were big puffy white clouds wandering around in the sky. I don’t think pollution thought of coming here. The air was fresh and had a smell of salt. There were many animals too. But, the really strange thing was, you would expect a lion to kill a deer than sleep with it! Well, that was what they were doing right now. They were sleeping together in the lion’s den.
Was I dead? Earth couldn’t be this beautiful, with all that pollution, definitely not. So it had to be some other place; but where? This was very confusing. This was when I noticed that something was sitting near my head. I looked. That something was a cat. It had long whiskers and sleek black fur. One ear was bitten. It looked like an alley cat like the types we see roaming around dustbins searching for food scraps back at home.
Back at home. Where was I?
The cat was washing its hand and staring at me in a very proud way like it was cleverer than me. Ever since I was an eight year old, I had this kind of affection for cats. I sometimes used to give most of the times, the alley cats some scraps…well, only sometimes. Most of the times, they just yowled and spat at me if I came any closer. The cat had strange purple eyes. There was something really strange about this cat and I didn’t exactly want to know what it was. It was the kind of strange that you mostly feel uncomfortable around and that was pretty much how I felt right now.
Then, the cat did something surprising. The cat opened its mouth. The first thought that came to me was that the cat might meow at me like all cats do, but boy was I wrong.
The cat spoke.
“I expect your name to be Lesley Adams?” It asked staring at me. It’s voice was male. I gasped and jumped to my feet. I took a few steps backwards, towards a pine tree.
“Y….y…you can t…talk!” I shouted. “But how? Cats at home don’t talk, so how can you?” I said, getting over my surprise.
“Why? Did you think that only humans could talk?” It asked; it’s piercing purple eyes staring intently at me. I thought about it. Couldn’t only humans talk?
“Well, yeah.”
“Oh, really,” It said sarcastically. “That’s just like humans. They don’t believe. If they see something different or unusual, they usually kill it. That’s the main reason why cats don’t speak in your languages. Your languages used to be how cats used to talk before humans heard it and decided to use it. It isn’t fair at all but it isn’t like us cats can do anything different. So we decided on a new language. We don’t use the strange language but we cats use it in the company of humans so that they might not think us different and kill us. Have you ever seen a cat speak in English before?”
“No, not really,” I muttered. “We don’t have a pet cat at home.” I added.
“That’s nice to know that one more cat is free to speak the proper language and not in the risk to be found out.”
There was a long silence after the cat had stopped talking.
“What’s your name?” I asked feeling that I should make some conversation at the very least.
“Lucifer,” It looked at me. “That’s my real name. Everybody else calls me ‘Grease’.” It sighed.
“Why?” I asked feeling surprised.
“That is not your business.” The look on its face made me feel uncomfortable.
“So, where are we?” I asked changing the topic on purpose.
“We are in the ‘Island of Sophie’. It was named after her in respect. She was a great person, but some people just don’t appreciate her enough and they say that she didn’t really do anything special. Ah…but that’s people for you. We cats never do stuff like that. We treat a person with respect whether he or she is a cat or a person.”
“But, what did she do?” I asked Lucifer feeling very stupid.
“She was a great person.” It repeated.
“Urn, I think I already know that.” The cat glared at me.
“When we were preparing for the Great War between the Laramies and the Myrons, we had many battalions of soldiers. Children had to join the soldiers. It was the only way for us to win. One of these battalions had a young girl in them. She was around twelve years old in human standards. She was a good one in archery. Then, one day, the king of the Myrons and his soldiers arrived to our peaceful world and then attacked us. Sophie lifted her bow, took a kitchen knife and let go at the king’s chest. It hit him and the next thing we knew, he was dead. So, his soldiers got scared and ran back to where they had come from. We conquered the places that were taken by the Myrons and had been ours. So, this all happened just because a young girl shot a kitchen knife at the king. The Myron queen agreed to be allies and became friends with us. But, she needed a next ruler but she didn’t have any children. So, Sophie was made the queen and she still reigns today.”
I listened to all of this in silence. Then a thought hit me. Laramies? Myrons? Sophie? That was impossible. I couldn’t have had the diary of a queen! Lucifer must have been talking about something else. It couldn’t be possible that he would be talking about the Laramies, Myrons and Sophie from the book. Nah, that wasn’t possible.
“So what do I do now?”
“You wait.”
“Wait?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You are going to wait for Laura.”
“Who’s that?”
“Who’s Laura? You don’t know her yet?”
“Um…well, no.”
"Really?"
“Well, is she nice?”
“You will know, when you see her.”
“Did you bring me here?” I asked.
“Yes. I used a transport crystal because that was an order from Laura.”
“Well, you appeared just in time. If you had come any later, I would have been in big trouble with Arual.”
“What do you mean by Arual?”
“Arual used to be my neighbor but then she turned into this large ugly monster which attacked me.”
“Ah. She is a Myron.”
“What?!”
“A Myron can take the look of anything it wants to look like but the only problem is, it should have the same name of the person who she or he it is supposed to look like. But, they should twist the name so that in the end you get another name but it should still be the real name.”
“This is confusing.” But Lucifer ignored me.
“So, the monster was probably imitating Laura.” I gasped.
“How can you tell?”
“Well, Arual is spelt Laura backwards. Have you noticed yet?” I was surprised. That was so obvious but I still hadn’t thought of it.
“No.”
“Hmmm…”
“So does that mean Laura looks like that?”
“Yes.” I thought of how the monster looked.
“Yuck! I don’t want to see her!”
“The Laura you saw was supposed to have oily, black hair.”
“Oh. So, she’s not the monster?”
“The monster was a Myron. Myrons have to turn back into what they look normally when they are going to do anything vicious.”
“Oh. Thank goodness!”
Lucifer walked towards the pine tree and sat down next to it.
“Laura or Zara might come. Zara is somewhat her maid or something. She might be the one to come to you. Laura is just going to track you people and then she tells Zara and me to come and find you. Zara isn’t as powerful as Laura though. She’s mainly a person who does odd jobs.”
“So, do you know when Zara is going to come?” I asked.
“Yes. Do you have a watch?”
“Yes.”
“Can you read the time?”
“Well, Of course!”
“Good. Then she is probably going to appear behind me in three minutes.”
I waited. Then in the next three minutes, nothing happened. But then suddenly, there was a rustling sound and a hollow appeared in the tree trunk. Then Zara’s face appeared.
*
When I had seen Arual for the first time when I was a normal kid living in a normal home, I hadn’t liked her at all. But when she had just arrived, I had been optimistic and done everything to find the good parts of her character. But I shouldn’t have wasted my time. She was horrible and made it harder for me. So as usual, I gave up. I began becoming mean to her and in the end we became enemies. There was one problem. She was an adult and could complain to my parents whenever she wanted to. As for me, I couldn’t really do anything.
When I first saw Zara right now standing in front of me frowning thoughtfully, I had gotten the wrong idea. I had remembered all the bad parts about her and none of the good (maybe because there weren’t any good parts about her).
But as usual, I was wrong. She was this tall lady (taller than Arual), with shoulder length, silky black hair and turquoise eyes. She wore a clean white robe like Arual but the robe had collar and the collar was navy blue. She looked weird, weirder than Arual for some reason.
“Who are you?” I asked wanting an explanation.
“How rude,” she muttered angrily. “And by the way Lucifer, didn’t I tell you to explain to her what all of this is about?”
“I did,” Lucifer lied. Then, he looked at me. “Tell her I did.” I kept quiet a long time because Zara and Lucifer were staring at me.
“He didn’t.” I declared finally.
“Thought he mightn’t,” said Zara. “He never does what I tell him.”
“Then, why did you tell him to bring me here?”
“I was too busy then. There was trouble...”
“Where ‘was trouble’?”
“There was trouble in the Seer’s palace in the clouds, why?”
“What on Earth are you talking about?” I asked astonished. Where was this conversation getting? Zara sighed.
“We have a lot to talk about. Now, do you promise not to interrupt me when I say this?”
“I won’t.”
“You’d better not. I will tell you. There is a palace in the clouds. It is the home of the Seer. The Seer changes every five billion years. The current Seer is very powerful and will live up for another two billion years. He or she keeps the balance of magic and everything. To help him, there are the Old Ones. I am one of them.
“Everything was peaceful until one day, something bad happened. The palace was attacked by an unseen force. Nobody knows how this happened, but it did. Somebody wanted to hurt us. So we hid on Earth. Then, when we were gone, something hit the palace. When we went back, that something was a huge rock. It was larger than anything I had ever seen before. It was nicknamed the Corex stone. It was so powerful; we could use its magic to protect the palace. So we did. The Corex stone produced a powerful shield that protected the palace. Then, it was stolen. I don’t know exactly how or when but it happened. The stone cracked and somebody came and stole the pieces one by one. And now, there are only five pieces left.
“So the Old Ones and the Seer decided on something. We would hold a meeting to see if there was anything we could do to protect, catch the thief and get the pieces back. The Old Ones and the Seer were needed for the meetings and to keep the security and the shield working. So, we thought of guardians.
“We decided on the seven elements of the guardians. They were Water, Fire, Earth, Air, Lightning, Darkness and Light. We found out that you were a guardian. You were the guardian with the element over darkness.”
I gasped. “What do you mean?” I asked shocked.
“Sit down, Lesley. Enjoy a sandwich.” Zara answered.
“What?” I asked puzzled, but I sat down and folded my legs. The moment I sat down on the soft grass, Zara touched the ground and with a lazy flick of her finger, a picnic basket appeared near my legs. It had pastries and sandwiches inside. I stared at her, open-mouthed in shock.
“Don’t be too surprised. Zara is very boastful.” Lucifer sniffed.
“Keep quiet! I don’t remember anyone asking you to say anything.” Zara snapped.
“Right you are. Nobody told me. I spoke on my own accord.” Lucifer replied.
I picked up a chocolate éclair and bit into it. It was delicious. The chocolate inside the éclair oozed into my mouth. I tried to say something like “Wow, Zara! Your éclairs are awesome!” but it came out something like “Mmmm mmmm, mmmm!”
Zara just smiled and her eyes twinkled.
“I can’t make sense of what you said but it sounds like you like the éclairs. Well, if you want to know what the éclairs are made of, I can tell you! The chocolate is made from human earwax and the crust is made of garbage!” I choked.
“I am just kidding! I bought all of the food from a bakery.” Zara reassured me.
Well, how did you people like it? Please review!
