《Between Worlds》 One Rainy Night Ching, ching, ching! "Welcome to Happy Doughnut!" "Which box set would you like, Sir?" "Would you like to dine-in or take-away?" "If you buy the Special Mocha Latte right now you will get 50% discount on two pieces of doughnuts." "The total price will be $7.50." "Thank you very much, please come again." Ching, ching, ching! The bells of the front door at the Happy Doughnut kept ringing as customers walked in and walked out at the last hour of business for the night. A lot of students usually came to the Happy Doughnut to either study or just hanged out with their friends. At this moment, about an hour to midnight they had started to pack up and ready to leave at any moment now. Surprisingly, even at this late hour, there were quite a lot of people who had come into the Happy Doughnut. Some of them were familiar night shift workers who had entered to buy snacks for them to munch on ¡ª to keep themselves awake during their nightly works. There were also people who had come in to buy late night snacks after watching movies at a nearby cinema ¡ª a few blocks from the Happy Doughnut. However, there might be quite a few of them who were simply hungry and had dropped by at the nearest shop which was still open for business this late. Just then, as the hands of the clock on the wall pointed toward 11.30, one of the Happy Doughnut workers ¡ª a blond young woman ¡ª standing in front of a counter started to stretch out her arms in exhaustion. "Enghh¡­ Last 30 minutes. Then we are done for the day!" she shouted cheerfully. "Shhh¡­ There are still customers around, Lynn," Lynn''s friend ¡ª a dark-haired young woman ¡ª another Happy Doughnuts worker standing in front of the next counter warned her in a low voice. "All right, all right. I''m shushing up now, Mia," Lynn whispered back nonchalantly. It was obvious that she wasn''t planning to pay heed to her friend''s warning. Mia just simply sighed when she saw her friend''s ¡ª Lynn''s ¡ª behavior. At that moment, heavy rain started to pour down. When Lynn saw the weather outside, she stepped closer towards Mia and shook hard her friend''s shoulders, while complaining, "Ughh¡­ It''s raining, Mia. It''s raining!" "Stop it!" Mia slapped Lynn''s hands away, feeling totally annoyed. "I know that it''s raining. I can see it clearly through the front door." "Boohoo... So serious all the time. Loosen up a bit, Mia." Lynn puckered up her mouth at Mia. "I''ll say that you''re the one who''s too loose, Lynn." Mia raised her brow in a mocking gesture as she jokingly commented on Lynn''s easy-going behavior. Lynn simply stuck out her tongue at Mia''s jest. "You''re being too moody right now, Mia." Even though Mia had always been a stickler for rules, Lynn had noticed that her friend''s temperament had indeed changed from her usual calm self. "It can''t be that you''re the type of person whose mood can be affected easily by the weather, is it?" joked Lynn. Mia flicked on Lynn''s forehead when she heard her words. "Ouch! How could you!" Lynn showed Mia a pained expression as if she had done something truly treacherous. "That''s enough playing. The last customer is about to leave. We can get ready to clean up here," said Mia refusing to spoil Lynn any longer. As the last customer left, Mia and Lynn began to clean up the counter area. After reporting to the manager, they headed toward the female changing room to change out of their respective uniforms. Once they finished packing up all their stuff, they left the Happy Doughnut together with each holding an umbrella in her hand. Mia and Lynn separated at the nearest bus stop, as Lynn had to take a bus there. Unlike Lynn, Mia only lived a walking distance away from the Happy Doughnut. After they waved each other goodbye, Mia then continued her walk home. Walking through the pouring rain, Lynn''s words echoed through Mia''s mind, ''It can''t be that you''re the type of person whose mood can be affected easily by the weather, is it?'' Honestly, it wasn''t that the weather can actually affect her mood ¡ª it was the rain. Mia really hates it ¡ª the rain. As far as she could remember, in her entire life ¡ª since the day that Mia learned to recognize things ¡ª she had always been scared of the rain.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. People would usually be scared of the rain because of the thunder or lightning that accompanied that particular weather sometimes. But for Mia, she was scared of the rain itself. No one knows why. Not her friends. Not her family. Not even her. All she knew was that the rain gave her the chills. Chills that people usually have when something really terrifying was about to happen to them. This fact puzzled even her own family. As far as they knew, Mia had never been involved in any kind of accidents during the rainy days. Even Mia herself gave a firm confirmation on that fact. And yet, she really hates it ¡ª the rain. As her mind was occupied by these thoughts, she didn''t even realize when she had reached the crosswalk to the Forest Apartment ¡ª the apartment where she lived. Even at this late hour and even more so in this weather, there were still quite a few people standing along with her by the crosswalk. Currently, it was her semester break, so she decided to work there to earn some extra cash and filled her free time. Her family home was two hours flight away in City Z. Ever since she was little, she had always aspired to become an archaeologist. So, she made a decision to apply for the Rowena University in City B ¡ª where the best education in archaeology was being provided. The day that she received the letter of acceptance was probably one of the best moment in her entire life. It should be known that being the most popular department to be applied to in Rowena University, the Department of Archaeology entry requirements were really strict. One should be really proud of oneself, to be accepted into the department. Now, it has been 4 years since she arrived in City B in pursuit of her dream to be an archaeologist. Next year will be her final year as an archaeologist student at Rowena University. Though she won''t be in her final year until about a month later, she had more or less managed to secure a job position at the Helion Academy of Archaeology. This academy was where the country''s most astounding and reputable archaeologist experts were gathered. This year, Mia had spent the free time that she had during her fourth year, as a student research assistant for Professor Pang at the Helion Academy. A professor that she knew closely in the university had recommended her for the position, which Professor Pang had then accepted. During the period where she worked under Professor Pang, he had come to admire her overall attitude and passion for working with history. Thus, he had gladly extended her a position in his department which he managed in the Helion Academy. Mia had then gratefully accepted the offer. However, before she could be formally integrated into the working force at the Helion Academy, she must first successfully graduated from the Rowena University and obtained the Degree in Archaeology. After that, there were some written tests and internship evaluations that she will need to pass to enter the academy. For someone like Mia who had been personally accepted by one of the heads of the departments in the academy, these tests and evaluations will be more of a formality that she need to partake in. This was to ensure that the academy had indeed accepted a qualified person to be part of their working staff. Of course, she was still expected to pass them. However, unlike other applicants, once she had passed, her name will go straight to the ''Accepted Applicants'' list ¡ª skipping through the eliminations part. Just then, the pedestrian red light finally turned green, and Mia along with the other pedestrians started to cross the crosswalk. Suddenly, Mia abruptly stopped walking as she was attacked with a strong and pounding headache. The umbrella that she had held in her hand fell off her grip as Mia fell down to the ground, kneeling in the middle of the crosswalk. She clutched her throbbing head with her both her hands as she groaned in pain. No longer being protected from the heavy rain under the cover of an umbrella, she immediately became wet. In front and beside her, the other pedestrians simply continued walking ¡ª completely ignoring her current condition. It was as if they didn''t see her on the ground ¡ª dripping wet and enduring a terrible pain. Suddenly, little by little those pedestrians started to fade away. At first, Mia thought that her vision had simply gone blurry because of the rain pouring down on her. Otherwise, it could be because the intense pain had started to rip off her sense of reality. However, soon after the disappearance of the pedestrians, all around her other things started to fade away as well. Until, in the end, only the road underneath her and the dark sky above where the rain continued to pour down from, were left. Despite being surprised and frightened by what was happening around her, the severe headache that she had stopped her from focusing in anything other than the pain. As the headache continued, Mia felt that she will soon lose her consciousness. As she fought to stay awake, the rain that was pouring heavily just now, stopped. It wasn''t that the rain had ended, but stopped. All around her, droplets of rain can be seen floating in mid-air. It was as if a pause button had been pressed down on them. Before Mia could react even more to the situation, a wide golden circle had suddenly appeared beneath her. The circle surrounded her, who was still kneeling on the ground in immense pain. The circle resembled the interior of a clock ¡ª complete with all the clock gears in golden. Then, surrounding the gears was what looked like a clock face. Only that, instead of the twelve numbers representing the time, there were twelve unrecognizable symbols in their place. The circle then lighted up basking Mia within with a shining golden light. In that instant, she felt a strong force pulling her downwards into the golden circle. Soon, her body was slowly sucked into the golden circle under her, immediately startled Mia to take action. With one hand still clutching her painful head, Mia tried to rise from the ground with the help of the other hand. However, as if she was glued to the ground, she couldn''t bring herself up to more than a crouch. Furthermore, it was as if she was inside a quicksand ¡ª the more she struggled, the deeper she sank. Afterward, the pulling force became stronger with every second passed, sinking her further into the golden circle. At one point the pulling force became too strong and combined that with the severe headache which she already suffered by, Mia''s consciousness soon blacked-out into nothingness as she was completely pulled under with one forceful tug. The golden circle soon disappeared afterward from the ground. With its disappearance, everything went back to normal at the crosswalk to the Forest Apartment ¡ª the raindrops that had paused in mid-air had started to move again, everything that had faded away just now came back and the pedestrians kept on crossing the crosswalk. It was as if none of the strange phenomenon that night had happened. None of them had seen the golden circle appeared, neither did they noticed when it had disappeared bringing along with it a dark-haired young woman. The Scenes Within The White Circles When Mia came to, she found herself floating in the air. Only that she couldn''t actually call it ''air'' as there was no ground beneath her, and no sky existed above either. Rather than ''air'', it might be best to call it a ''space'' ¡ª an unknown space. This greatly surprised and frighten her. However, she tried holding down that fear. Mia began to look around carefully, trying to make sense of what had happened to her. The first thing that she managed to take note was that there white circles floating around in this space. The size of the circles was approximately the same ¡ª which was the size of a small window. Next to them were clocks of different shapes and sizes. Each of this clocks'' face has similar symbols to the one seen on the golden circle that had pulled Mia into this unknown space ¡ª instead of the usual twelve numbers which represented the time. Looking closely at the floated white circles, Mia could just barely glimpsed something flashed across inside them. Her thoughts were filled with curiosity as to what can be seen in those circles. She tried to get closer to one of those white circles. However, she found herself unable to move even an inch from the spot where she had been, since the time she first came to. She tried all sorts of things ¡ª flailing, kicking, pushing, and even pulling around randomly in the air ¡ª and still, she remained at the same spot. As she gave up on the idea of trying to move, she thoughtlessly turned to look at the white circle closest to herself ¡ª it was a few feet away above her. She simply looked at it without thinking much of anything, other than how much she wished the scene in front of her right now to disappear, and instead be replaced with a familiar scene ¡ª a reality which she could comprehend instead of this unknown space. Mia wished that she was home. Just as that thought flashed through her mind, she found that herself drifting slowly upwards and towards that particular white circle that she had been staring at. Mia was startled by this sudden unintended and uncontrollable movement. However, just as she reached in front of that white circle, all thoughts soon disappeared from her mind and replaced with the feeling of complete awe at what she saw inside that circle. Through that white circle was flashes of unbelievable scenes. At first, it had only shown a galaxy ¡ª with its sun and planets. However, the thing was that, unlike the Milky Way, the sun was purple instead of the yellow-red-orange color, that Mia was familiar with. The number of planets also differed, this galaxy only has four planets orbiting the sun. Even these planets were different than any of the planets that she was familiar with. After that, the next few scenes were those of what Mia guessed were starships. These starships were very different than any that had been portrayed in movies. They were much slicker and more advanced-looking. The scene then changed again. This time showing flying robots, or rather mechas based on the appearance of what must have been the pilots'' cockpits. They were all engaged in tough battles. Mechas were fighting other mechas while trying to avoid getting hit by the beams coming from the battleships assisting their men in battle. This was actually a war zone scene. Only a few seconds had passed, but the scene had become too bloody for Mia to continue looking at it. She then decided to turn away from that particular white circle. Once again her sight came back to the unknown space filled with the white circles. Having seen what was inside of one of those white circles, she came to the conclusion that there must be other surprising things, that could be viewed from inside the other white circles as well. As Mia thoughts began to fill with curiosity, she soon forgot about the fact that she was currently stuck in an unknown place, with unknown consequences if she continued to remain there. With no precautionary thoughts left in her mind, she turned towards the two white circles in front of her. The white circle on the right was flashing lights of blue and green, while the left one was projecting multiple hues of yellow. Mia decided that she wanted to see what was inside the right circle first. However, once again she found out that she was unable to move an inch from the spot where she had drifted to just now ¡ª which was right in front of the white circle that viewed the galaxy scene. "Hmph... How did I get here just now?" Mia began to think to herself. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. She began to think back to moment when she had started to drift towards the white circle that she had absentmindedly gazed at. "Ah, right! Home! I was thinking about how much I wanted to be home." So, without wasting any time, she excitedly with a heart full of hope, did just that ¡ª Mia stared at the white circle in front of her and thought about home. However, disappointingly nothing happened. Mia blinked her eyes her few times in silent confusion. "Did I do something wrong? I''m sure that was exactly, how it was done just now?" She began to think for a while, but she really didn''t know what was missing. Suddenly, she snapped her fingers as she thought of something. Mia once again turned towards the white circle in front of her. This time, instead of doing it nonchalantly, she thought desperately about how much she wanted to be home. Then- ------ ------ Nothing. Again, nothing whatsoever had happened. Mia expectation ended up with another disappointment. A minute had been wasted with her staring at the white circle desperately just now. Half of the desperation was actually her true feelings. Despite that, Mia still wasn''t ready to give up. Not just yet. She faced the white circle in front of her again. This time, instead of the right circle, she turned towards the white circle on the left. Once again, she wished she was home desperately. Still, there was nothing. Mia then decided to change her methods. Rather than simply looked at either one of the white circles, she gazed at them fiercely. When that also turned out to be futile, she tried something new ¡ª again. Merely glancing at them, she thought about approaching either one jokingly. Still, nothing. Not ready to throw in the towel yet, she tried something else. Shouting. Nothing. Crying. Nothing. Begging. Nothing. Singing. Nothing. Thus, Mia onslaught of different methods to approach the two white circles in front of her lasted for a while. Some were more unique than the others ¡ª ones she was grateful that no one was around to see them ¡ª and ones she will gladly bring along to her grave. Then, she tried the other white circles as well ¡ª both closest and further away from her. She even tried her previous actions of flailing around everywhere ¡ª still, nothing had worked. In spite of doing everything she could think of, Mia was still stuck in the same spot in that unknown space. With feelings full of disappointment and frustration at this unexpected situation, she began to shout flinging her fury and staring at nothing in particular in front of her. "Fine! This is stupid anyway! I might as well just stay stuck here for the rest of my life." Then, unexpectedly something happened this time ¡ª Mia began to drift forward at high speed causing a surprise shout to escape her mouth, "Woah!" Her current speed was so unlike the slow drifting that she had the first time she had managed to move from her spot at the beginning. She continued to drift forward with that speed to somewhere unknown. As it turned out, the place where she had stared at aimlessly just now, had a white circle located at a distance further back from where she had been. After what felt like miles, Mia stopped right in front of a white circle. Strangely, she could feel wind blowing and smelt what seemed to be fresh air coming from the circle. However, the fresh air was even fresher than the freshest mountain air that she had ever breathed in. Feelings of curiosity now replaced Mia''s frustration. Before she started pondering on how she had managed to get there, she decided to first peek through the white circle in front of her. Once again, she turned awed at what she saw. The scenes inside this white circle were of the wide-open blue sky. However, instead of the familiar aircraft, flying through the sky were many types of airships. The sky was full of them. Surprisingly, each of them seemed to be flying according to systematic routes ¡ª similar like the ones airplanes have to avoid disastrous collisions. Each of these airships was occupied with numbers of passengers on board of a gondola. Based on the scenes that Mia saw, these airships seemed to be a common transportation for these people. They were riding it to go everywhere. For shorter distances, the airships will be smaller in size ¡ª with smaller envelopes and gondolas. For very long distances, the gondolas will be larger or increase to two or three in number per airship. Now that her curiosity had been fulfilled by what she saw from her second white circle, Mia once again turned around towards the direction where she had come from. Dipping her head in silent contemplation, she began to ponder how she had managed to move from her previous spot again. Interestingly enough, both movements had been unintentional on her part. "Hmph... What exactly had happened? All I know was that-" Mia raised her head. Her eyes were shining bright with realization. Without any particular reason, she sighed. Mia then thought back to those rich color of blues and greens from a certain white circle. She crossed her arms to her chest in an expression of frustration and said with a tone full of complaints, "I don''t even want to think about being there. There wasn''t anything interesting enough to be seen." And then, something surprising happened. No matter what she had done previously, Mia was unable to move from her spot no matter what. However right now, just by complaining a bit, she had not only managed to move but also drifted back to one of the two white circles she has had an eye on before. "You''ve got to be kidding me, right?" grumbled Mia with disbelieve when her suspicions turned out to be correct. It turned out that whatever controlled the movement in this unknown space, it won''t let you move when you desired to. However, when you didn''t want to, it''ll let you move. "Are you a tsundere or something?" she asked no one in particular. However just then, at the moment when she had asked that question, she felt that the unknown space had actually winked at her in a playful manner. Shocked, she thought quietly in her mind, "I definitely had imagined that... Yep, definitely." Ignoring the chilly feeling that had formed in her heart, Mia turned towards to look inside the white circle in front of her. Just like before, the scenes that flashed across were as awe-inspiring. This time she saw scenes from the deep sea. As expected, there were a lot of familiar sea creatures swimming around in the water. However, as the scenes changed into those at a deeper depth, most of the sea creatures there were those that she had never seen before. Those that she managed to recognize were those that were supposed to exist in legends and stories only. Nevertheless, the most jaw-dropping scenes were that of what lay on the seafloor itself. "Is that what I think it is?" Mia''s face had turned into a complete shock. Her eyes were literally bulging at what she saw. On the seafloor was an ancient kingdom surrounded by a large bubble-like structure. This structure seemed to be some sort of protection from the dangerous creatures that was prowling around. It also kept the water out of the kingdom, for it seemed that its citizens were just like any other ordinary human who required oxygen to breathe ¡ª instead of beings like the mythical merfolk. This was of course if you were to ignore their mostly silver hairs and piercing ocean blue eyes. Their stature was also unnaturally bigger and they have extraordinary strength. "Look at that bulging muscl-" Mia began to think, but then stopped as she realized how inappropriate her thoughts were. "Cough, cough. I think I had enough of these deep-sea scenes already." She then turned towards the white circle projecting the yellow hues, and thought, "Please don''t make me go there." Then once again, as expected, Mia drifted towards that particular white circle. This time, she rolled her eyes in exasperation, before peeking inside the white circle. Unbeknownst to Mia, her disdainful attitude was about to cause a very scary event to happen soon afterward. She had just begun to view a few scenes showing deserts and pyramids when she felt a few repeated soft tugs. At first, she simply ignored it as nothing worth noticing and continued to watch the fascinating scenes unfolding right in front of her eyes. Just then, the tugs became forceful that she had to turn away from the white circle ¡ª especially when it had begun to pull her sideward, moving her a few inches at a time. Then suddenly, the forceful tugs turned into a full force drifting ¡ª pulling Mia across the unknown space. The Castle Ruins At this time, Mia was drifted across the unknown space at a speed much faster than any she had ever experienced before. As though that wasn''t scary enough, her sideward drifting had to go in random directions, rather than simply following a straight pathway. She''ll sometime drift upwards and then suddenly downwards ¡ª the opposite had also happened to her. At times she''ll be zigzagging around, and others, she''ll be going in a circular motion following an irregular pathway. The high-speed random drifting had caused her screams to be choked up in her throat unable to get out for even a second. Her eyes were closed out of fear, and tears had been flooding out non-stop the whole time. "I''m sorry, I''m sorry. I won''t roll my eyes at you ever again." Just then, as if whatever unknown force that had been controlling the movement in the unknown space had heard her plead, Mia was pulled into a sudden stop. When Mia sensed that the frightening drifting had finally ended, with her body still shaking from the experience, she slowly opened her trembling eyelids and saw that there was a white circle right in front of her. Strangely enough, other than that sole white circle, there were no other white circles around in that particular part of the unknown space ¡ª wherever it was that she had been forcefully dragged to. Unsure of what else she was supposed to do, Mia turned to observe the white circle right in front of her. One eye-catching difference about the white circle was that floating in mid-air next to it was an old clock ¡ª an ancient schoolhouse regulator style pendulum clock. So far, all the white circles that she had drifted towards to and those that she had merely glanced at, had a rather modern-looking and polished clock beside them. The schoolhouse, however, was really dusty and rustic-looking. Some cobwebs had covered some part of the clock, especially inside the pendulum box ¡ª longed formed by spiders that had come from who knew where. Inspecting the clock closely, she noticed that unsurprisingly its hands were no longer moving ¡ª both of them had stopped at the number 12. Interestingly enough, though the clock was clearly dead, its pendulum was still swinging... Left to right- Right to left- Repeatedly. Unbeknownst to Mia, she had become completely entranced to the movement of the clock''s swinging pendulum. Left to right- Right to- Suddenly, Mia''s trance-like focus was abruptly interrupted by the whispering voices coming from inside the white circle. The whispering voices were speaking in a strange language that Mia had never heard or even read before. Despite that, she had an inexplicable sense of familiarity with that language. ''She came back,'' they seemed to whisper ¡ª whomever the voices belonged to. On Mia''s side, albeit not understanding a single thing what those voices were whispering about, she came closer towards the white circle. ''The sovereignty of the Night, the destroyer of Daylight,'' the whispering continued. At this time, Mia had turned her head sideways towards the white circle to make herself hear more clearly the language the voices were whispering with. ''Let us come home, My Lady,'' they beckoned to the oblivious Mia. By then, Mia had given up in trying to understand the strange language. Instead, she decided to peek through for the scenes inside the white circle. ''Let us!...'' The voices urged loudly together. Just then, rather than seeing flashes of many awe-aspiring scenes like before, Mia found herself being spirited away into the inside the white circle. ****** The first thing Mia saw after suddenly being spirited away was the soil on the ground ¡ª instead of the usually empty space that she had gotten used to by now. The only thing was that the ground was a few miles from where she was floating in mid-air face-first looking down below her. Startled by her current position, Mia quickly adjusted it. She easily got her feet situated below her by simply swinging her body back a little, assisted with her hands backpedaling at her side.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. After getting used to the stilled position in the unknown space, Mia was completely unaccustomed to her current wobbled floating in mid-air condition. The only good thing about her current condition was that she could freely move around in the air by simply flapping her arms like a bird and angling her body towards the direction she wanted to go ¡ª but moving too freely has its own repercussions. Several times, Mia''s floating-flying got her too off the mark from where she intended to go and she ended up somewhere unfamiliar. Moreover, her wrong flapping motion and angling of body could also cause disastrous events to unfold ¡ª such as spiraling around in the air continuously or accidentally head-diving into the ground. However, luckily enough, Mia hadn''t actually materialized in that ¡ª her presence was more like those of a ghost or a spirit ¡ª as she had realized from her ''few'' accidents. As she was still adjusting herself being in the air, she soon came across signs of a castle ruin on the ground. As an archaeologist student, Mia immediately felt attracted to it. She excitedly changed her direction and flapped her wings- (I mean) hands towards the ruins to have a closer look at it. Just like any other longed abandoned structures, the ruins have a rather dark and lonely feeling about it. Flying across the former majestic castle grounds now full of its own remains, an eerie feeling started to form in Mia''s heart at what she saw. Even after all the ruins that Mia had first-handly saw with her own eyes, or even seen from the history books, this was the first time she had seen such a devastating-looking castle ruin. After a few more twists and turns of seeing the same destructions, Mia flew back upwards enough to have an overall look of the ruins below and she immediately noticed something frightening. There were a few giant circular scorched marks all over the castle grounds. It was as if the castle had been hit by several giant explosions which blasted everything to smithereens. There was nothing left of the castle except the half-ruined castle keep ¡ª even there the broken part of the castle wall seemed to be too purposeful. For through that broken wall Mia could see the throne room. Except for the destructions caused by age itself, the throne room was otherwise left unscathed ¡ª as if it was meant to be a mocking symbol for the fallen Lord of the Castle. Drawn towards the only structure remained of the former castle, Mia flew towards the castle keep and straight towards the broken wall of the throne room. "Just as I thought, everything still remains intact. Whoever they were that had destroyed this castle had done it with hearts full of hatred," Mia shuddered at what could have been the caused for this much anger. "However..." Standing by the ''entrance'' and over-looking the entirety of the throne room, Mia frowned when she noticed something unexpected. After scanning the aging room for any signs of it having a chance to suddenly collapsed, she decided it was quite safe for her to be inside for a moment. Mia then walked cautiously towards the throne. Unlike any other lavishly decorated and mostly metal royal seat, this throne was made of obsidian. The throne was decorated with the phases of moon and stars ¡ª simple and elegant. Yet, as Mia touched the armchair ¡ª for right now, though it had completely left Mia''s mind, she strangely could touch the things in this throne room ¡ª she could imagine the might and absolute strength of the former owner of this throne. "For someone like this to have had his castle destroyed to bits like this..." Mia shook her head solemnly. The seat of power will always bring unexpected enemies ¡ª and most of the time than not, the enemies were someone really close. For back then, despite the destructions and mocking gesture, Mia had noticed how clean and tidy the throne room was ¡ª especially the area around the throne. Now that she was viewing the area up close, Mia became surer of her suspicions. "Despite all they had done, the perpetrators seemed to have respect for the owner of this castle," concluded Mia. Though the royal emblem had been shredded off, the two tapestries still hung neatly on the wall behind the throne with its worn-out red color. The throne itself, other than the cobwebs and dust that had accumulated over the years, still held strong ¡ª even the floor of the throne room had some bits and pieces of the destroyed wall. Moreover, settled carefully on the throne was the most beautiful diamond tiara she had ever seen. "Wait... A tiara? It wasn''t a Lord, but a Lady ¡ª a Queen?" Mia picked up the tiara gently from the throne and brought it to eye level. Similar to the obsidian throne, this tiara was also decorated with moons and stars. "This tiara is really lovely-" Just when that thought crossed her mind, her eyesight turned blurry for a moment. Mia blinked her eyes a few times, trying to get her vision to focus once again. However, once she could see clearly again, the view in front of her felt weird and unreal. Mia lifted her right hand then to brush off the discomfort from her eyes, but half-way through the action she suddenly stopped. It turned out that though she had clearly lifted up her right hand, her eyes didn''t seem to register the motion. Currently, through her vision, both of her arms were still holding onto the tiara. Then, the stilled hands suddenly moved, turning around the tiara in her hands in a relaxed motion. This situation completely shocked and frightened Mia. For despite what her vision was currently showing her, Mia clearly still had her left hand holding onto the tiara and her right hanging half-way in the air. Mia moved her hands some more in front of her eyes, but no matter what, her vision still registered a different motion than the one she actually did. Just then her view changed drastically ¡ª rather than the hands that were holding the tiara ¡ª it showed the throne room, but it was different. This throne room looked polished and clean ¡ª really clean. There was no indication of the ruined castle that it truly was right now. Mia finally realized what exactly was happening to her vision. She was actually seeing through someone else''s eyes ¡ª most possibly the Queen of the ruined castle. Now that she truly looked at the hands that had once again occupied her vision, it was different than hers. These hands were pristine and pale in color ¡ª it was as if the owner had kept herself away from daylight for a very long time, and based on the closed curtains covering all the windows, she might have truly done just that. Suddenly, her view changed again as the Queen whipped her head towards the opposite direction from the throne ¡ª towards the tall double doors to the throne room. Both of the doors were opened instantly to reveal a burly man dragging someone who could''ve been a Lord ¡ª based on how luxurious he was dressed. The Lord was struggling hard against the burly man''s iron grip ¡ª who didn''t as much as faltered in motion ¡ª as he continued to half-drag and half-lift the Lord towards the Queen. Literally throwing the Lord at the Queen''s feet, the burly man harshly grabbed onto the Lord''s shoulders as he held the man on the spot. Through her vision, Mia could only see what the Queen''s saw, but not hear what she heard. So, when the Lord began his mute shout as he continued to struggle against the burly man''s hold, Mia could only guess ¡ª based on his red face and angry expression ¡ª that they were cursed words thrown at the Queen. After a while, something horrendous happened. With one swiping motion of her right hand, the Queen had torn opened the Lord''s neck. Mia didn''t see what weapon the Queen had used, but below the Lord''s chin ¡ª on his throat ¡ª was now a shredded gaping hole. Through it, she could clearly see that where the Lord''s trachea should have been exposed was now an empty space and blood was flooding out non-stop. At that horrible sight, Mia loosened her grip around the tiara and started vomiting on the floor in front of her. At the instant that diamond tiara left Mia''s hands, her own eyesight returned. Stroking down her chest to calm herself down, Mia turned to look frighteningly at the tiara that had bounced off a few steps away from the throne. "If that was truly the owner of that tiara, I''m not surprised that her castle was ruined this horribly," thought Mia as she condemned that demon-like Queen. After the visions she saw, Mia''s interests regarding the history behind the castle ruins diminished greatly. More than anything she just wanted to get out of this surely blood-smeared throne room. However, before she could leave, she turned to look at the tiara on the floor gloomily and mumbled, "I really don''t want to go near that tiara again, but more than that I don''t want to accidentally enrage any ghosts out here, so let''s just put it back and leave." Just as she about to picked up the tiara, Mia suddenly felt a strong force attacking her. The force pushed her out of the of the white circle and back into the unknown space. However, the strong force wasn''t done with her just yet. Before Mia could fully comprehend what had happened to her, she found herself being pulled into another high speed drifting across the unknown space. At the very least, this time, the drifting was indeed following a straight pathway.