The Other Side of the Dimension
By: Embers of Inspiration
Reika sat in front of her computer, blankly staring at a half-completed document. Her hands hovered over the keys, poised to type; but her mind was elsewhere.
How long had it been since Ginta disappeared? Two months? Three? It was hard to keep track of the days. Time stood so still in her apartment. The sun rose and set on opposite horizons but she never felt the actual passing of time. The only sense of normalcy was brought to her by Ginta's best friend, Koyuki. But even she talked about a far-off world. One that used to be so familiar, but was now so foreign.
She remembered when Danna read her first story about MÄR-Heaven. He had brandished the manuscript in the air enthusiastically and declared that it was her best work yet. Pleased, though she'd never tell him that, she had gone on to make a whole series of it. She painted with her words stories about the lives of fairies or what a talking rock did on a normal day. She created beautifully colored trees and the exotic fruits that hung abundantly from their branches. It was something precious to her and her family, a God-sent gift of imagination.
Reika was distraught when Danna disappeared. His sudden departure hadn't been anything special. There were no dramatics – as far as she had seen – and it was an ordinary day, not Friday the thirteenth or April First. In fact, it had been his day off of work. They were lounging together in the living room, discussing insignificant things and generally just enjoying each other's company. She had volunteered to get them both some coffee, which later turned out to be (for a while) the worst decision she'd ever made in her life. For when she returned from the kitchen, he was gone.
At first she had thought that Danna was teasing her. He loved to do that, he was so light-hearted. That was part of the reason why she loved him. But when she set the cups on the table she bent down and noticed a ring lying on the floor. She picked it up curiously and although she had never seen it before her breath caught in her throat.
She may have never seen it before but she remembered describing it. A pair of elaborate wooden doors with a guardian who had pluses for eyes and an almost manic grin on his face at all times: The Dimensional Guardian.
The ring faded from reality and Reika clenched her hand in a desperate attempt to keep hold of the only thing that would be able to tell her how to get her husband back. When she opened her hand however, it was gone too.
Later on in the day, Ginta came home and found her holding her newest draft of the adventures of MÄR-Heaven over the stove, ready to burn it from her memory. Ginta stopped her, he made her tell him everything that happened; and although he was only eight, made her feel better. With a child-like confidence that only an eight-year-old could possibly possess he told her that Otou-san was in MÄR-Heaven so there was no need to worry, right? He would make friends with the fairies and try new things, and when he could, he would return to them, because Otou-san loved them lots and there was no way he would just leave them. Better yet, when he returned, he's have loads of stories to share!
Ginta was the reason that Reika found an excuse to get up every morning. Even as the years went on and Ginta seemed to forget what he had told her that day, she never did. It gave her hope, though she figured she was probably foolish to believe it, that Danna was only having difficulty locating the Guardian of Dimensions. Logically, such a guardian would be hard to find wouldn't it?
Somewhere in between then and now, denial faded into acceptance. Danna was gone, he wasn't coming back.
And then Ginta disappeared too.
There hadn't been anything special about that day either. Ginta had, apparently, just walked through a creepy set of doors and on to his fantasy world according to his disturbed classmates and sensei. Reika filled in the blanks for herself. Ginta had gone through a pair of elaborate wooden doors that had a guardian with pluses for eyes and an almost manic grin on his face…
MÄR-Heaven had stolen another of her loved ones. That was the day when she truly began to hate her creation, her fantasy. What did she have nowthat Ginta and Danna were gone? She contemplated this for a whole day until Koyuki breezed into her life, and apartment, claiming excitedly that she had just had a dream of MÄR-Heaven.
Reika wasn't interested in hearing about the world that destroyed her life. She listened only out of vague politeness and because it was something to do. A week after that Koyuki showed up with more exciting news. "Last night I saw Ginta!"
They were traveling, she explained, around MÄR-Heaven in order to defeat the Chess no Koma. At the same time Ginta was looking for Monban Piero so he could return home.
For the first time in a while, a spark of hope flickered inside Reika. She listened more readily as Koyuki described that in MÄR, she was a princess named Snow competing for Ginta's affection with a sorceress named Dorothy. It amused her to no end when she found out that Dorothy had a dog named Toto.
Hope soon turned to dread when the war games were first mentioned. Why did Ginta have to fight? He was so young. Is this what Danna did too? Did he join the protectors of MÄR-Heaven and fight for a world he loved?
She found out soon enough that he had. And that the reason he never came back was because he'd died. It was like loosing Danna all over again.
That night, Reika cried.
If this world was so insistent on having her family, why wasn't she taken too? Why did she have to suffer alone, knowing that there was nothing she could do? She finally gave up on the document she was attempting to write and closed her computer down.
How was it that her wonderful dream world had been so easily twisted into a nightmare?