On the grounds of the old stronghold laid thousands of corpses, staining the ground with crimson blood. Alongside, blood-soaked weapons and countless debris filled the land. Most of the surroundings harbored chaos and destruction as the moon illuminated the surreal scene.

In the middle of it all, stood a woman surrounded by four men as they pointed their weapon at her with murderous intent.

The woman solely stood there, her entire body soaked with blood. Her clothes shredded and wounds seen in all parts of her body. Half of her face was melted, showing her burnt face and a small part of her teeth. Her dissevered right arm oozed blood, falling down as if droplets of rain.

Essentially, the woman was defeated.

But her spirit was not.

The woman chuckled, and eventually, it turned into a maniacally intense laughter. She widely grinned at her enemies; her face looked as if the devil manifested itself to her. Her fiendish eyes were as wide as the moon above and it brought fear on her enemies.

Two of the men charged at her, but soon, they lifelessly fell to the ground. The woman now held two hearts while standing on the same exact spot. To provoke the remaining men, she slowly ate the hearts while smiling devilishly. After she ate it, she sucked her fingers, tasting the blood of the two fallen men.

The remaining two men didn’t flinch. No, they weren’t afraid. They looked at the woman as if she was already a thing from the past.

“Neuin, Menien, Sokra, Hashim, Lemore, Miria! Hands from the Depth!” One of the men, a mage, chanted as he simultaneously drew a magic sigil in the air with a pen.

From the ground, three black hands came to hold all her remaining limbs. It held her so tight the limbs of the woman started to decolor and shades of black and blue appeared. “Dark magic…I see.” the woman’s eyes bulged a bit but then laughed maniacally as it echoed on the battlefield. “I see it now…I wonder who sent you. Is it Monia? Or perhaps, Nata?” She kept laughing and laughing.

As the black transparent hands kept her in place, the other man thrusted his elegant sword in the insane woman. The woman screamed in pain but it soon turned into another manic laughter. The man continued to relentlessly stab her with his sword, his indifferent eyes never blinked once as if savoring the moment.

“I will be back!” The woman said in much pain as the man repeatedly thrusted his sword across her entire body. “And when I do, I will kill and eat your entire family, King Gyoro.”

The King, Gyoro, looked at her in anger. “Begone…Witch. Your time in this world is over.” With one more thrust directly on her heart, the witch screamed for the last time.

They sighed in relief as the battle was now over.

The Witch’s body was cut off into small pieces and her head was kept as a prize. They placed the head on a pike, planning to parade it into town while the rest of the body was burned in a fire, the only thing remained of it was ashes.

“It’s finally done…” The mage sighed in relief. He looked towards the covered lifeless bodies of his comrades. “She had taken so many of us…”

“Indeed, she has. But it’s far from over.” With a powerful stare on the moon, The King continued. “We still have one more Witch to burn.”

*

I walked from the convenience store to go and buy snacks. I checked my phone and saw the time. It was midnight. I put my hands in my hoodie pocket and enjoyed the cold breeze of the night.

As I entered the convenience store, the clerk nonchalantly greeted me and proceeded to continue what he was doing. Only a handful of people were at the store, which was what I expected. I grabbed a few snacks and candies. I paid it, put them in my bag and quietly leave the place. It was the same exact routine every night.

The moment I passed by the automatic doors, I felt a fleeting, intense headache. I grimaced and closed my eyes. It was followed by a sudden change in the atmosphere.

It suddenly felt hot. The cold breeze faded and was replaced by a sweltering air. I immediately opened my eyes, only to be blinded by light. I instinctively blocked it with my hands. At first, I thought it looked like the light came from a flashlight but as my eyes adapted to the abrupt changes, a terrifying realization dawned on me.

It was the sun.

I was being bombarded by sunlight when it was supposed to be night.

Aware of my surrounding, I panicked. Consequently, my eyes went crazy. I looked everywhere to find answers to what exactly happened, only to be smacked in the face with more questions.

The scene looked surreal. I didn’t even know where to start or how to process what I was looking at.

The once quiet parking lot beside the convenience store had turned into a plaza, brimming with all kinds of noises. People walked on the paved streets slowly while wearing what seemed to look like medieval clothes. I received many stares and glares from passersby because of the big difference between our clothing.

People?

I tilted my head as I questioned myself whether these were people. Many of them had ears that looked like ears of an animal and most of them had a tail while walking on two legs. The state they were in was a pity to look at, to say at the very least. They looked malnourish while pushing a heavy cart. Everywhere I look, I would find at least the same sight.

In the distance, I could see establishments. The establishment was in complete contrast of modern buildings. They were significantly smaller and made out of polished wood. Though it looked old, it was aesthetically pleasing to look at.

“Make way!” A man in the distance shouted. “Make way for the King and his men!”

People flocked the side of the road as men in horses paraded by. One of them, presumably the said King, wore a fancy white surcoat with gold-work thread and riding with what looked like a majestic…animal. . It looked like the combination of a horse and a lizard with reddish scale. The King carried on his right hand a pike, which the half-burned head of a young woman rested.

“I present to you, my dear people, the head of the Shakna the Witch!” The King proudly shouted. People clapped and shouted happily, some people even begun to cry at the scene. I squinted as I tried my best not throw up.

Why would people be happy at the sight of that? I must be dreaming. But I don’t recall sleeping. Then I must have entered some weird cosplay event, that or I’m being pranked right now.

As all of these things unfold before my eyes, it made me wonder if I was being pranked. But who would prank me? Or maybe I entered some weird cosplay event. Either way, it was not like I would know the answer just by looking at them, so I went and asked someone.

I grabbed the shoulder of the nearest person and said “Excuse —“

As soon as I said the first word, I felt another gripping headache. I’d never felt anything like it before, it was so intense that I started to lose my consciousness. I tried to sit down to the road but my body wouldn’t move the way I wanted it to, so I fell flat to the road with my head facing the sky.

As I started to lose my consciousness, I looked to the sky, the only thing I could look at. It was still the same blue sky that I'd seen in my entire life but for some reason, it felt like it wasn’t the one I knew.

It made me wonder.

“Where the hell am I…?”

*

I woke up in an endless stream of darkness. Coldness wrapped itself around me as I felt my body wandered the darkness.

Another place? Where am I now? I thought as I got lightly dragged by the wind or something. Did everything that had happened have been a dream?

Usually when people got into a strange situation they would be scared but being in this void of nothingness made me feel…unbelievably calm.

Hmmm?

As I was floating around, out of the corner of my eye, I vaguely saw a moving spot of light. As it moved, it illuminated everything in its path and left a faint trail of light which vanished in a moment. The light spun around me for about five times and then went behind me. I couldn’t spin myself, so I had no idea what had happened but I definitely knew something was behind me.

I could hear a faint sound of someone breathing and it instantly made me scared. My body shivered and I tried to move my body by rustling myself. It was this or dying and I would choose the former all day long.

But then it happened.

A hand touched my shoulder and spun me around.

The first thing I saw was the hooded face of a woman with the spot of light in her forehead.

“Agh!” I screamed out of fear as the woman looked exactly the same as the woman whose head was in a pike.

“Be quiet!” The young woman powerfully shouted. I didn’t know what happened but my mouth zipped itself. “Why, out of all the living things, did I summon a repugnant human…?”

“I’m sorry, I must have entered the wrong place…”

Though everything looked incredibly real, all of this was some high-quality cosplay event or prank happening somewhere. I had to admit, they got me but seriously though, props to them for pulling such an incredible show.

The young woman heavily sighed. “You’re not where you believe you are.” With the faint light in her forehead, she turned around and then sighed. She then raised her right arm and snapped her finger.

Everything suddenly started becoming wobbly and the dark void started to turn into something. A few moments had passed and everything changed. In stark contrast with the darkness, there was bright light, the sun bombarded us. A small island formed, surrounded by nothing but a seemingly endless ocean. In the middle of the island, my family’s house stood, leaving me in shock on how incredibly detailed it was.

“Again, you’re not where you believe you are.” In the blink of an eye, the woman in front of me turned into…my mother.

“M-Mom…?”

Okay, how did they do that?

“This is why I hate humans…” I blinked again, only to see my father in front of me.

“I don’t know how you’re doing that but that’s actually impressive.”

My father pointed to the house and continued,”Let’s go to the house first. The sunlight is really painful.”

We went to the house. I was still amazed on how detailed it was. I opened the gate, which squeaked exactly like in my family’s home, and entered. I opened the door and entered. Incidentally, when you looked at outside through the door, you could still see the beach. Nonetheless, it was pretty surreal.

The pictures hanged on the wall, the pizza stain on the couch, and the apples on the table. Everything was exactly where it was supposed to be when I left for the convenience store. We then went upstairs to my room. Unsurprisingly, it was exactly the same again. What the hell?

“Oh! You got a lot of games and books, huh?” My father acted as he strolled from the shelves of books and games.

“Yeah…I mean, you should know, you’re my father.”

My father ignored me and as if timing the blinking of my eye, the young woman from earlier appeared. “Well then, how about we start?”

How the hell do they do that?

“Start what?”

“Our secret meeting.”

Guess I’ll play along.

“What are we going to meet about?”

“Well, let me introduce myself first. I am called Shakna the Witch. I have tremendous power and unparalleled knowledge, though I was killed by your puny kind.” She said in an extreme annoyance.

“I don’t remember meeting anyone named Shakna…and if you’re such a great being, how did you get killed by humans?”

Shakna lowered her head and sighed, she then quietly said “This is worse than death…”

She then lifted her head up, crossed her legs, tucked in her arms and with a serious face said “Listen up, boy. Right now, you’re not in your world. You’re in another world.”

“Oh, wait, so this is a dream. All of this can’t happen in the real world. And it’s a better explanation.”

“You’re right, this is a dream but your real body is in another world.”

There it was again. Those words.

“Why do you keep saying another world?”

“I guess a low-being like you wouldn’tbe able to comprehend the situation you’re in right now.” She contemplated. “Well then, you’ll know once you wake up. You humans and your “to see is to believe” sayings.”

“I really don’t get this.” What had I been doing with my life lately? I was spacing out a bit due to my scores on the recent tests but I didn’t remember taking drugs or anything.

“Anyway,” she pulled out small folded paper in thin air. She then unfolded it and said “So, your name is Terrin Tachibana. Age eighteen and a highschool student. You’re what humans would call average Joe. You got an average face, personality, life, everything. You're a dull walking shell that has no purpose.”

“Well, I mean…” I found myself searching for words to counter yet my mind knew that what she said was mostly true, hence the inability to counter.

“Am I not right? You haven’t experience any hardship to make you mature and you haven’t work hard for a single thing in your life.” She just kept dropping these bombs.

“All right, All right! How do you know me so well, anyway?” It was like she’d been watching me grow up.

“Oh, that’s because I can access every part of your memory. I can also remember what you’re doing every time you’re alone in the house.” She then chuckled a bit. “Oh, humans.”

If this was real, I would have surely panicked. Thank God it wasn’t.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re just a person in my dream. You're not real. You can’t hurt my feelings.” I sneered.

“The mind likes to believe what comforts it. For now, I’ll tell you the story why I was killed by your kind.”

According to Shakna, in the world where she belonged, there were various races and monsters. She belonged to one of the race called Witches, though for the humans, they looked at her like a monster. Witches are extremely powerful and rare race, in which only five of them exist. Humans had always hunted the witches for fear of their power being too powerful.

“So, you see? I was hunted and killed just because I was too powerful. They deemed what I do as dangerous

“Huh…” I questioningly stared at her.

“What?” she said, a mix of irritation in her tone.

I put my hand on my chin and said “It just made me wonder…where do I get these ideas? And this is the first time that I am completely conscious in my dreams. Is this what they call lucid dreams?”

With a face that says ‘I’m done’, Shakna stood up and beckoned me to stand up, too. I stood up and then she pressed her right hand to my chest.

I felt something at my heart.

It was like something was literally binding my heart and squeezing it so tight. I screamed from the unbearable pain but it was far from over yet. That something pierced me, which at this point, made me want to vomit blood but at the same time, nothing was really coming out.

The woman that was standing in front of me was smiling indifferently. It was as if she was used to these and was already bored of seeing it. But I knew that this was all a dream, so after the unbearable pain diminished, I stood up and faced her again.

“Hey, what did you do to me?” I asked, demanding an explanation.

She ignored me and touched my chest again. This time I didn’t want it to happen again but at the same time, I just wanted it to be over, so I unwillingly let her.

“Whether you believe me or not, this will be my order to you. No one must know who you really are or where you're from and to never tell people our connection. You must bring me to my sister and free me from this cage. Only then will I remove this curse that I had put upon you and let you walk these lands free. But if you attempt to disobey my orders, indescribable suffering will come to you, you’d been warned.” She then removed her hands from my chest.

I did not know if it was from the unbearable pain from before but Shakna started becoming blurry, as if she was disappearing.

“Oh, it’s time already? Well, that can’t be helped. Anyway, I had put basic skills with you such as linguistic and a tiny bit of agility. For other things, you just have to learn them by yourself. I wanted to give you more powerful skills but as I am annoyingly weak right now, there’s nothing more I can give you.”

“I don’t really understand but that’s okay, as you said, I am incredibly average. I can be acceptable or enough in a lot of stuff.”

She blankly stared at me and then raised her right hand. She snapped her two fingers and instantaneously, I woke up.

The first thing that I saw was the ceiling. Assuming that I was still asleep and didn’t went out this morning, it would actually make sense to normally see the ceiling but the problem was—

It wasn’t the ceiling in my house.

This was where it all came crushing to me. The plaza, that woman, and the pain. The term another world made sense as the seconds passed by.