Lucid_Dre@mer_: Supernatural Worlds

Author's Note:

Hey, guys! This is actually not a story about someone trying to complete a goal before the end of the year, but before four days are up. It's set in March, because that's when the previous one left off, and besides, I didn't want it to be cold and snowy, and heat waves are improbable and unlikely in December, so...

Here it is! Please don't get angry or not like it because of the twist in the prompt.

Thanks to Litlover for providing the character Luke, Celeste Shinobu for Celeste, (duh) Priyamvada Deshmukh for Olive, and Kate Reynolds for Katri! 

1.

"Holy cow! this is crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy!" Sarah gasped, looking into the deep, smoking crater, in which a pink-tinted space rock (they thought) lay.

"I don't know what it is, but... I think it might be the comet we saw," Amara said shakily.

"That would be huge! the crater alone would be three times as big as your yard, and that's after it burned up in the atmosphere! This isn't a comet, though, it fell to the earth so now it's a meteorite."

"Does it matter what it is? How are we going to hide this from my mom? She'll have NASA on our lawn in no time, and we won't be able to leave the house for all the scientists!"

"Yeah... I don't think we're hiding this," Sarah said, adjusting her red baseball cap, tugged over her snarled blond hair.

"We could bury it."

"Nah, your mom would see the fresh dirt, and grass seed doesn't grow fast enough. I'm not even sure we have grass seed around here!"

"We could say we were gardening..."

"At one in the morning. In a big, circular patch of dirt."

"Well, what if we put a tarp over it after filling it?"

"Don't know where they keep the tarps around here."

"We could fill it up and put a tent over it!"

"What?"

"We say it was for the 'role-play game'," Amara made finger quotes, meaning when we got lost in the woods for days and came back in hours.

"I think I get it..." Sarah said, a plan formulating in her fast-working mind.

"And we leave it out, saying we'll resume the game! Then, after it's been out for a while, we move it, throw a little bit of dry grass on it to make it look like there might have been something there and say 'gee, Mom, sorry about the lawn', and buy some grass seed to cover it up!"

"That's great!" Sarah shouted.

"Wait, what will we do when we want to see the meteor?" Amara questioned herself.

"Meteorite," Sarah corrected.

"Whatever! What do we do about the meteor?"

"We had a test last week, Amara. How did you not remember that it's called a meteorite?"

"We have too many tests! I can't memorize every darn fact!"

Sarah rolled her eyes.

"Wait."

Amara stood at the edge of the crater in her pink Pusheen pajamas. A breeze blew her blue hair, silver in the moonlight.

"There's something..."

An eerie prickle trailed up Sarah's spine as she stepped back, away from her friend, who also felt a tingle in her arms and torso.

"It's calling me," she said softly.

The moon shone on their backs...

And Amara leapt into the crater, skidding down on the heels of her slippers.

"Wait! it could be--" Sarah didn't have time to finish.

Amara laid her hand on the smooth surface of the perfectly circular meteor, or meteorite, or comet, or whatever.

It was whitish, sparkling pink in the light of the stars. It could be the remains of an alien planet, built up out of the dust of ancient stars... it wasn't blazing hot or icy cold, but gently warm, and... pulsing?

"I believe in magic," Amara whispered.

And there was a blinding flash of pink and gold and white and blue light, a ball of glowing energy blasting outwards, eclipsing Amara's form, growing and expanding across the yard, coming closer and closer to Sarah, who was running away from it, but with a cry she let the light touch her...

The girls were standing in a giant snow globe of light and sound. High, ethereal, harp music echoed around them, in a pearly ball of glow. The ground wasn't visible below their slippered feet.

"What happened?" Amara asked.

"I don't know," Sarah said. "You touched the thing!"

Amara shrugged and said "hey, what is that?" What looked like a weird, golden chest was in the center of the orb, which swayed like it was floating on waves.

"Please don't touch it," Sarah began.

I never thought Sarah would crash the party and tell me not to interact with MAGIC, Amara thought, but Sarah laughed and continued.

"You touched the meteorite, I get to check this out!"

She ran forward and laid both hands on the chest, but only after careful examination.

It glowed bright, sapphire blue.

Then, a jet of violet light, the same color as the headphones around Amara's neck shot from the keyhole and hit Sarah in the chest, giving her skin a lilac tint, making her glow vivid purple.

Then, in a whiz of indigo, she dissolved and was gone.

"SARAH!" Amara shouted, running towards the chest. She tripped on it, falling to the ground. Her chest shook as she tried to keep breathing, but what happened to Sarah...

What if she never came back?

What if she...?

Amara choked out a sob, a tingly, sparkly feeling filling her body.

She looked at her hands, finding them to have a light green tint, an emerald halo surrounding her body. There were flecks of gold in the halo, and--

With the same feeling she felt when she was on the DangerDrop rollercoaster, a mix of sickness and excitement and fear, a dizzy sensation took over her body. Amara fell over, gripping the first thing she could find...

It felt like a handle, but where was a handle in this bubble? It was just smooth walls and a freaky, BFF-vaporizing chest...

All became darkness.

2.

"Hey."

Amara felt a surge of life whiz through her body. Never before had she woken up feeling like that...

The voice didn't belong to her brother Malcom, or her sister Ashwin.

It was high and dreamy, and almost seemed to be made of chiming bells.

“Are you the heroine Amara?”

“I’m Amara, but I don’t know about being a heroine.”

“But you touched the pod containing Her Power! It’s been transmitted to you! And your weird friend, but mostly you, for some reason, maybe you touched it for longer?”

“What in the name of pineapple pizza are you talking about?”

“Is pineapple pizza the name of the god your world worships? Your prime leader?”

“No! Pineapple pizza is a food.”

“You eat your god or prime leader?”

“No way! Pizza is a food and nothing else.”

Amara strained to open her eyes. It was like someone was shining a bright pink flashlight beam in her face. 

She opened her eyes, squinting through a green haze that soon faded. 

“Your new aura might make it hard to see, considering the length of your eyelashes.”

Amara screamed and closed her eyes one more.

In front of her there was a girl, looking a lot like an anime chic from the show Ashwin liked. She actually looked like one brought to life, with big, outlined eyes, a cute smile, and, weirdly enough, an outline like she was an illustration. 

Her hair was pink, her eyes were rose. Her skin was white as snow, but glowed a pale pink color like the petals of the well-raised orchid that was Amara’s mom’s pride and joy. 

“Get away from me, weird anime chic!” Amara shrieked. She tried to crawl away, but found that her wrists were strapped to whatever she was lying on with some kind of narrow, silk-soft cord that almost tugged gently on her skin. 

“I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry we had to tie you down with starstring, but some other races with heroes or heroines have attacked innocent Celestials and other supernaturals, and some of them immediately discover their strength, and can break free from ordinary restraints. Starstring is unbreakable, so please don’t try to attack our village.” 

 Amara wondered if she was dreaming. 

“It’s not a dream. Your friend, the heroine Sarah, asked me if she was dreaming, and she is not. You aren’t either.” 

“Look, I’m not a heroine. I’m some girl who touched a meteor or maybe a meteorite and somehow got in this stupid magic palce. You’re magic, right?”

“Celestials are the definition of magic.”

“Oh. could you pleeeeeeeease untie the star-string or whatever it is?”

“Starstring. And you can’t tie or untie it, that’s why it’s unbreakable.”

“Great. I’m stuck here forever.”

“No, it turns to stardust when whoever it’s holding is worthy of escape.”

Amara opened her eyes slowly. She closed them again.

“Wat’cha doing?” a boy’s voice asked. 

Amara slowly opened her eyes. 

The boy didn’t glow like the girl, but he had the same outline, the same big eyes, the same anime grin. 

“Oh, you’re the heroine Amara! Yaaas, I was wondering when you’d show up! I predicted it, of course. I’m Luke; I’m a Sage, not a Celestial, that’s why I’m not a lightbulb like Chihiro over here.”

“Hey!” the pink girl shouted. But she smiled at Luke like he had made the world’s best joke. I think I ship Luke and Chihiro, Amara thought with a smile. 

Luke had big, silver eyes, soft, wavy brown hair that fell in his eyes, and was dressed in a gray-purple cloak and hood. He had a wide smile and thick eyebrows. 

That was when Amara saw that she was in a tent, made out of a thick, gray-green material. The flap was across from her, and it was pushed open by another two figures. 

The first was another anime-looking teenager with long, dark-brown hair, falling in front of her emerald robe in two loose-tied pigtails. Her (she was likely a girl, but it was hard to tell with her hood) eyes were huge, green orbs in her head with no pupils. A tattoo of flowers and vines curled up her cheek and down her neck, across her chest. 

The second was a purple-haired girl, shorter and with a purple tint to her skin, as well as a purple aura around her body like the northern lights. Her eyes were a rainbow of different, glittering colors. 

“I’m Celeste Phoenix and I’m Princess of the Celestials,” the purple-glowing girl said. “This is Olive Faye, my bodyguard. She’s a Nature Mage. Half human, from the realm Islara. She used to be an assassin, but that’s illegal in our time of peace.”

“Uh, the starstring is fading,” Olive said. 

“Okay, good, that means you’re trustworthy.”      

There was something about Olive that was familiar to Amara, but she couldn't put her finger on it…. 

“You’re part human, right? Do you play Xbox using the game name Olliyay?”

“I do.” Olive looked at Princess Celeste. “She’s onto me,” she whispered hilariously. 

Amara sat up, looking at the stardust floating around her. She touched her wrist, looking at the weird lime-green glow around her, that Chihiro had called her “aura”.

Amara’s skin had a greenish tint, like she was a goblin or an elf or--

She looked like her elf avatar in her favorite video game! 

“Am I a… whatever you are?” she asked Chihiro.

“Well, you take the form of a Celestial when in your heroine form, but on earth you’re a human.”

This was too much for Amara.

She fainted. 

3.

“Amara, you are the only girl in history to faint when she learns about magic powers-- well, no, there are likely others.”

Sara’s voice rang into Amara’s ears, shocking her out of slumber. 

She opened her eyes. Sarah was standing over her, but… 

There were streaks of purple in her blond hair, streaks that she hadn’t had before, and three lavender circles balanced under each eye, which had turned deep violet. Her skin was pale, and she too had an aura. Her’s was like morning mist, similar to Celeste’s. 

“Come on. Katri says that we have about 35 hours to get to earth, so…”

Sarah leaned against a staff, made of gold with a swirly metal sun on the top. 

“Get to earth?’ Who's Katri?”

“She’s in charge of getting us back to our world. We had four days, but I was out for day 1 and you were out for day 2, and day 3 is almost over. We'll have to get moving.” 

A few hours later after growing accustomed to moving after two days unconscious, and walking without being distracted by her aura, Amara left the tent, marveling at the black, empty void around the otherwise flat, multicolored world. It was all a whirl of color, and was kind of overwhelming.  

Katri was a blue-haired, blue-aura’d Celestial, with blue eyes and a gold clip in her bangs. She had many swords strapped to ehr, back, and Amara, who had just figured out walking, could hardly tell how she could move with so much metal on her back. 

“Come on, you two,” she said, standing in a town-square looking place. Amara, trying not to fall, walked over to her carefully. 

“CELESTIALS AND MAGES! HALF-HUMANS AND SAGES! WE’RE LEAVING NOW, SO YEAH! BYE!” Katri shouted. 

A crowd of glowing, rainbow-eyed people waved as they walked away, across the surface of the flat world. 

“Are Luke and Chihiro and Princess Celeste and Olive coming?” Amara asked.

“Too dangerous for figures of their stature. Luke’s a powerful sage, there are people out there who would want to capture him and use his powers against out part of the supernatural world, or all of it. Celeste’s a princess, and Olive has a bit of a past, lots of supernaturals who aren’t from our side of the universe have grudges against her and things she’s done. Chihiro… She has a secret power. I’m expendable. I’m just getting you to the pod.”

“The pod?” Sarah asked.

“The pod. How you get to earth. It’s safer than most other pods, it's the kind royalty use. The fate of a world is in your hands, you know.”

 Amara shuddered. 

The pod was a blue, sleek-formed oval that looked featureless, save for a small white circle on the side. Katri tapped it, and a hidden door slid open. 

“You have to get to earth before the next 30 hours are up. That seems like a while, but there's a time difference that makes it even shorter. It already takes 20 hours for the journey to be completed.”

Amara stepped into the padded, cozy inside. Sarah did the same, clutching her staff like it was a part of her.  

“You’ll be asleep for most of the journey, so be sure you’re prepared,” Katri said, touching the door. It closed, but they could see through the pod and into the blackness of the universe around them, off the edge of the flat world; see as Katri programmed the pod to fly to its destination.

“Ready for liftoff?” she asked them.

“Ready,” the girls said, not feeling ready at all… 

The pod flew off the edge of the world. Sarah and Amara would have screamed if it weren’t for the fact that they were falling asleep. 

4.

Amara woke up in her yard. She was still wearing Pusheen pajamas, and Sarah was next to her, but the crater was gone! She looked at her wrist, glad that she didn’t have that bothersome aura in her face, noticing a green sword-shape on the back of it. 

 So it hadn't been a dream.

“Let me guess,” Sarah said as she rose to her feet. “It’s, like, three hours later instead of four days later.”

Amara laughed and brushed the dirt from her pants, standing up and noticing something on Sarah’s wrist. 

It was a golden bracelet with a little swirly-sun-shape in it, like her staff.

“Is that…?”

They didn’t bother saying anything else; they exchanged a silent wave and ran back to their houses. 

by Jade Kingsley

(There will be a part 3!)