-Yamin perspective-

  I rested on a cold bed of roses, each with the thorns already clipped. My eyes opened and slowly adjusted to a pyramiding ceiling with a single opening at the very center. Double moonlight peeked in from above, but Darmos had mostly eclipsed Ecla.

  A utopia of beautiful plants graced this place like a garden. Vines climbed all the way up to the opening in the ceiling, flowers budded all over it.

  “Waaah!” cried a little baby next to me with lungs so powerful, yet her body so tiny. A real loud mouth. Her little arms and legs were tied down to a bedding of shimmering blankets and pillows. She was kicking and screaming hard, nearly able to undo her bindings.

  A caretaker with a gold crown that covered her eyes arrived. The caretaker quickly soothed the suffering of the baby, sharing a warm glow over her.

  Behind the caretaker approached two other figures, both male.

  One man had a crown over his head like the caretaker, but the other held a scythe and wore black and white robes.

  The one with the scythe came to me first, painfully dipping his sharp tool into my chest and drawing a black rose with a single thorn out of me.

  He did something similar with the baby, but a star was taken out of her.

  Those odd items removed from our souls were put into the opposite body. I received the star, while the baby got the black rose.

  “This will buy you time,” said the one with the scythe. “But if you fail, I will return, and I will not do so with the same mercy.”

  The coldness I felt when I first woke up faded. Now I was warm instead. It was blissful.

  The baby was more active than ever, screaming for a mothering embrace, which was provided by the caretaker.

  The person of black and white retracted his scythe, holding it at his side and fading with the background. Not long after, I was alone. A void consumed everything between the walls and myself, leaving me floating in a soft sea of morning stars.

  ~☆☆☆~

  My racing heart forced me to wake up from a deep sleep.

  I sat up and let a few cinnamon scented breaths enter my nose. That smell drew my attention to a drink next to the bed. Morning sunlight had just begun peaking through the window, touching the top of a steaming latte.

  I picked it up and sipped the cinnamon drink.

  “Much better,” I smiled, completely escaping that bad dream. What was it even? I didn’t want to think about it.

  A warm summer-like feeling filled me with pleasure. I took a few minutes to savor over the moment, because I hardly ever felt that anymore. It was like being a kid again.

  “Hah, that’s a nice feeling.”

  I knew this room well. It actually was the same one that Adalyn used to let me stay in when I was little. We had tons of sleepovers in here with her little brother Riley, sometimes lasting days at a time. It felt like being locked in a castle all of our own, and we could do anything we wanted. It did help that her side of the family was rich, so their wasn't much of an end to the possibilities.

  If I hadn’t known any better, it almost felt like my life hadn’t taken such a drastic turn the last few weeks, let alone since I became a teen.

  Most of us have to deal with acne and angst, but I had to deal with demons calling me their queen, and witches trying to kill me over it. What the heck was that all about?

  “Yamin, what have you gotten yourself into?” I said to myself. “I really want this all to be over.”

  If there was some magical switch I could have pulled to get whatever the demons were looking for out of me, I darn well would have used it. This was way too much for me to handle.

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  To be honest though, I didn’t mind fighting demons with Yalda and the others, since being a part of the Ecclysian church and having my late father be a priest did train for that a little, but me being their target was the part I didn’t like.

  “Uhg… Now I'm stressed out.”

  It was time to take a mid morning jog and get my blood flowing a little. That always kept the mind active and the weight down.

  Adalyn usually left an unnecessary amount of clothing in these rooms, so I dressed up in something warm and pink and got on the track. That track being the hallways of the mansion.

  Adalyn kept this house as cold as an icicle because she didn’t want to pay for the massive heating bill. Plus, she was paranoid that the heat might damage some of the fabrics and clothing she had stored around.

  Thanks to my experience of running up and down these halls since childhood, I had a particular path I liked to take. It led to these twisty stairs that were always fun to skim down the railing of like a dangerous slide.

  “Yeah!” I slipped down them and jumped off the end, skating my slippery socks across a rug and drawing out sparks of static. “Woops!”

  My hand grabbed a little metal door knob and shocked me.

  “Youchy!” I kissed my finger to ease that zappy pain. “Gotta be more careful than that.”

  This house was always so much fun, especially in the winter time. I loved seeing snow pile up across the flower garden out back. Hey, there was snow there now!

  I took a peek out the window and smiled, glad that a hint of winter had come early this year.

  Here’s a secret about me… I loved winter a lot more than any other season because the cold made the night sky so much brighter. Having snow on the ground as a nice little backdrop for stargazing was just icing on the cake.

  With all the things going on around me, I felt good. I felt really good.

  There was a door to the outside right next to me, so I decided to peek my head out for a breath of fresh air.

  When the door opened, I was surprised to see my bed and the room I’d just left.

  “What?” I uttered, turning around to notice the hallway outside of said room. “How did I get back here?”

  I tried to summon up a mental map in my head to retrace my steps, but I wasn’t Yalda with a computer brain.

  “Alright folks, Yamin is very confused now…” I said to myself, trying to levity the weirdness.

  As much as it didn’t make any sense, I couldn’t deny what I was seeing. I’d gone all the way downstairs only to find myself back on the second floor for some odd reason.

  I might have thought this room was actually different and just identical to mine if it didn’t smell like cinnamon.

  Instead of mentally retracing my steps, I physically did so. Things didn’t turn out any different.

  “One more try!” I said, this time heading upstairs instead of downstairs. Low and behold, things just ended up back in that room. “Great. Is this some kind of trick?”

  No matter which way I chose to go on the stairs, all roads led straight back to this room for some reason. I didn’t try the other way though, so I went along the path to the left of the room.

  These halls were long and tall, filled with lots of fancy decorations on each side. Most of this stuff was from long ago, but not a speck of dust covered any of it. Little busts of family members long gone, mirrors with gold rims, and little seats for those who got tired of marching down the endless way.

  “Maybe it's just me, but I don’t remember this hallway being so long…”

  “This was a big home, but I was walking down here for about a good few minutes. I should have hit the foyer by now, but I hadn’t yet.

  To make things stranger, a lot of decorations began repeating, and I was sure we only had one Gruncle Stinky bust in the family, because nobody was bold enough to make two.

  I turned back to see that the hallway behind me was veiled by the dark. A few tiny candles were lit on their own for a hint of light.

  There weren’t any windows around me, but it looked like it had suddenly become night time.

  “Freaky…” I tensed up, trying to grab for my Seven Star necklace, but I realized it was gone. “Huh? Where’d it go?”

  Did I even put it on this morning? Or was this morning actually a ‘this evening?’ What time was it? When did I wake up?

  Clocks had been placed all over the hallway, but all of them were telling me it was different times of the day. The confusion only grew more and more by the second.

  I felt a strange urge to continue moving, like stopping right now was the last thing I’d want to do, or something was going to catch up to me. But continuing to progress down this hall made me realize that it was looping me back to a certain point, which was right in front of the door to my room.

  That was the moment I realized I must have still been dreaming. This mansion should have been filled with all sorts of souls, mostly maids and servants ready to cater to any needs of the residents, but no one was around.

  “If the dream wants me to stay in that room, that’s what I’ll do, I guess…”

  I walked in and sat down at the edge of my bed. I couldn't see out the window anymore, but I could tell it was night time. Contrary to the dark hallway, this room was very warmly lit by a nice fire in the fireplace.

  For the time being, it didn’t look like I had many options other than just sit in the room and wait for myself to wake up out of this looping dream. The only good part about it was the latte, and that was great, but hardly enough to justify any of this madness.

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