Alira woke up with her body heavy and numb from awkwardly sleeping on the chair for what felt way longer than twenty minutes. Her hands and feet tingled, feeling pins and needles in them. She rubbed her eyes groggily, slowly creaking them open to adjust to the bright light shining onto her.

  There was no need to question the strength of even the weakest spell from an Elite Mage. Even as an insomniac who needed complete darkness and silence to sleep, she actually slept like a baby despite the stage lights blasting at her.

  Alira scrambled to sit straight up as she gradually regained her vision. Instead of the red carpets, uniformed students, and limelight of Moonglade Auditorium, a completely different scene greeted her. She wasn’t even indoors anymore. Instead, she found herself alone in a misty world where shapes and structures blurred into a distorted mirage.

  The yellow light hot on her skin was from the crescent sun above.

  What?

  Her first thought upon seeing where she was after waking up was whether this was a prank, but now she could be certain that it wasn’t. At her realization, the fuzzy space around her stabilized. The greyish white mist dispersed to allow streets and buildings into view.

  In the presence of a couple of tall blocks and the stone-paved road with a few modern asphalt patches, this couldn’t be anywhere but Earth. She was back on Earth. Alira felt a fleeting happiness before she was brought down to Earth. Not literally, unfortunately. She was most likely inside a dream after she’d fallen asleep.

  Though it sure felt so real for a dream. The sticky warmth clinging to her skin, the stuffy air filled with pollution, the grimy feeling on the tips of her fingers. Alira grazed her teeth on the inside of her lower lip. The sensation was so eerily realistic that she didn’t dare to bite herself and find out whether it really was.

  Alira looked down. The ground looked closer, and her feet were shorter. Her gaze then darted toward her hands. They looked smaller than they’d been for years. Her hands reached for her head and behind, no cat ears or tails. Then it clicked for her. The sun and her younger self. She was back on a certain day years ago when that one partial solar eclipse happened.

  I should have refused... It wasn’t like Professor Daw could actually force the duke’s daughter.

  If only she knew she was signing up for one hell of a nightmare. She wondered if the professor’s artifact had nightmares stored in it, or if this was just a work of her self-sabotaging brain.

  She thought it was best to remain seated and wait it out. Alira turned only to find that the chair she’d woken up in was gone. Maybe not. She guessed she could just stand waiting or simply sit on the ground.

  A deep rumble timely resounded from behind, the vibrations from it rushing through the street. The ground beneath her shook slightly. It sounded like an impatient beast prompting her to get moving. Alira looked behind her. Unlike the path at the front, the view remained shrouded in mist, which seemed to be getting closer and closer with each passing second.

  She blinked. The mist wasn’t the only thing on the move. She could barely make out twisted figures within.

  What is this? Did the genre of the book suddenly turn into horror?

  Either way, she didn’t want to be the one to find out. Alira sighed. Alright, you win. She wondered if they had anything to do with this. It wouldn’t be surprising if they interfered to find out more about her backstory and the world she came from—if they could, they would.

  They might be disappointed if that were the case. Her story was just another common, cliché tale.

  Alira walked down the empty streets past rows of vacant stores and houses. No vehicles. No sounds. There was no sign of life. It was as if the world had become a shell of its former self. This was different from what she remembered of the day. On that day, the streets were filled with people standing outside, all wearing the same solar viewers to observe the eclipse.

  Alira was one of them. She didn’t ask to be there, not really, but she didn’t have to. Her father could tell. He always could. The two of them spent hours on the road just because she mentioned once about the stupid eclipse. They should have listened to her mother and watched it on television as she’d heard about it, but no, it would be a fun father-daughter trip, he said, and it was. The best she’d had.

  It was her last one, after all.

  Alira shook her head, hoping to get rid of the thoughts. She hadn’t recalled any of the events in a long time. The haunting atmosphere and the stalking mist were putting her in a weird mood. A whistle rang in her ears. The world was still quiet. She wasn’t sure if the sounds were real or not. Then again, this place was most likely a dreamworld where nothing was real.

  “Honey, are you lost?” An older woman’s voice came out of nowhere. “Where are your parents, dear?”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  The older woman had soft gray curls and kind, pale eyes as she emerged right beside Alira. The street had been empty just a moment ago. The woman looked to be in her late sixties, short and a little round in the middle. She wore a lilac cardigan and held onto a walking cane.

  “No, I’m...” Alira replied. “...I’m ok.”

  She stuttered midway through, surprised at how timid and young she sounded. The voice was almost not hers, at least the meekness certainly wasn’t.

  “Oh, sweetie, don’t be scared,” the woman said, slowly bending down to meet Alira’s eyes. “I’m Evelyn. You can call me Granny Evelyn. What’s your name, honey?”

  Alira didn’t want to reply, but since someone showed up, there seemed to be a storyline to follow with whatever was going on.

  “Lai,” she answered. “Lailai.”

  “Oh, what a sweet name, Lailai,” the woman said, holding Alira’s hands in her rough but warm ones. “Now that we know each other, you don’t have to be so scared anymore. Who were you with before?”

  “Dad.”

  “Aw, did you lose him? Don’t worry. Granny will help you find your dad.”

  Alira gave a small nod. The woman got back to her feet with the help of her walking stick, holding Alira’s hand as she turned back toward the mist.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  Alira didn’t move. She couldn’t bring herself to, when she could vaguely make out a whole crowd of shadowed figures down the road, seemingly staring straight at her. Eyes. So many eyes. She sensed tens, hundreds, no, thousands of them, all on her.

  The woman glanced at Alira and gave a small, reassuring smile. “It’s all right, honey. No one’s gonna hurt you here. Granny will protect you until we find your dad, okay?”

  Something in her voice did wonder to smooth Alira’s nerves. At its suspicious calming effect, Alira had to force herself to be more on guard.

  Can I still use my aspects in a dream?

  It didn’t make sense since she was technically on Earth in this dream, but she tried anyway, and unsurprisingly, no rune came into view. She mumbled for her judgment scroll, but still nothing. Alira knew she should still be most wary of this strange woman, but at least for now, the older woman wasn’t posing any threat.

  She didn’t really have much of a choice.

  The two walked back down the road, retracing Alira’s small steps. The mist parted, dispersing as they reached its edge. It spat back out the sleepy little town called Maple Hollow it had swallowed. Except now, the stores and the streets weren’t so dark and empty anymore. Despite the eclipsed sun above, the town unfolded in bright daylight.

  Alira began to recognize the buildings on her side. She hadn’t forgotten a single thing about that day and this town. She wouldn’t allow herself.

  The lanky shadows that once lined the lane unfolded to become maple trees. The two walked through the narrow sidewalks with the older woman occasionally giving up friendly smiles to the town dwellers.

  The narrow, winding cobblestone lanes lined with timber-framed houses led them to who knew where. She did know that there was a small library with a good collection if you followed down the road that split off to the left. Soon, they would come across a little rundown store that sold curious little trinkets.

  With her hand in the woman’s grasp, the two eventually made it to the store as she subconsciously led the way. Alira’s steps faltered before it. Beyond the wooden fences, she saw a building that looked even more dilapidated than she remembered. A sign hung on the fence reading, Risk of collapse. Do not trespass.

  The wooden fa?ade was blackened with soot, streaked with old smoke stains running down its length. The windows had a couple of cracked glass with some panes completely missing. The sign above the door had faded letters that used to say, Marvels & Wonders.

  How could that be? That didn’t make sense.

  “But I was here. I bought...” She could still feel the small ceramic cat in her palm, the shopkeeper's wrinkled smile as he wrapped it in brown paper. “The store was open on that day. Everything was fine, not like this.”

  Alira looked up. A glowing half-ring of the sun masked as a crescent moon blinked back at her.

  “What’s wrong?” the woman asked. “Oh, that building. It might look scary and haunted, but it’s this town’s most important place. It’s our proof.”

  “Proof?” Alira asked.

  “Yes. Proof of our survival. It was the only building that remained standing after that incident a decade or so ago.”

  Huh? Incident?

  “A decade ago?” Alira's chest tightened. “What incident? You mean the one with the solar eclipse?”

  “Oh. You know about that? What a smart little girl,” the woman praised her with a pat on her head.

  Alira flinched away from her touch. What was going on?

  I don’t understand...

  That was a decade ago? If that was the case, then why the hell was the Sun being like that now? They were in the middle of a partial solar eclipse right this moment. Alira glanced up, staring into the woman’s strangely unclear face—like it was smudged. She looked around, taking in everyone else around her one by one.

  No one else seems to be aware of what they’re in for.

  “You... You mean like,” Alira said, barely managing herself. “Like right now?”

  “What do you mean?” the woman asked, looking up. Alira heard a sharp gasp from her right before the entire world flicked to total darkness. Her eyes dilated at the sudden, complete lack of light.

  Then came the shrilling screams, desperate cries, and the sirens all too familiar.

  She reached around in the darkness, but there was nothing to hold onto. Heavy footsteps rushed around her. Things crashed into each other on her left and right. Among the loud, howling world, she could make out a few voices warped in a way that make them sound like the ones dear to her.

  ...What?

  What’s this?

  What’s going on?!

  Alira scrambled around, hands trying to find something, anything. The only thing she found was emptiness in a world that didn’t accommodate her.

  Clandestine made their first appearance on that day when the world lost its light. Today, once again, there was nothing but darkness.

  She was that lost child once again.

  And once again, many lost children like herself stood still on Earth.

  Many who may never move again.