Chapter 4

When I came to, I was unsure of where I was. I struggled up and looked around. I was in a plain room, bare except for the bed I lay on and a few pictures adorning the pale blue walls. As I pulled away the covers, I realized I was still in my clothes from the night before. I gasped, the previous night's events coming back in a blur. Mom! Where was she? Frantically, I jumped completely out of bed and pulled the door open viciously. To my surprise, Evan was waiting right outside the door. We stared at each other for a moment and as I saw the pity in his eyes, I rushed at him, tears flowing, in order to seek comfort.

As he pulled me into an embrace, he whispered in my ear. "Everything will be alright Skylar, We'll go see your mother and everything will be fine." Too choked up for words, I nodded into his chest. Suddenly embarrassed, I pulled away and tried to discreetly wipe my tears from my face with my sleeve. Evan, being a gentleman, said nothing and took my hand, leading me outside to the car. During the ride to the hospital, hardly a word was spoken. I was too busy worrying about Mom. She had to be alright. She just had to be. What would I do without her?

When we got to the hospital, I was up and out of the car before Evan even had time to lock it. I could hear him telling me to wait but I ignored him and ran up to the front desk.

"Please what room is Kaia Jackson in? I am her daughter." The receptionist punched something into the computer and rattled off a number to me. I quickly thanked her and ran to the stairs, the elevator being too slow. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Evan finally enter through the hospital doors, but I did not wait for him. I needed to find Mom.

Taking two steps at a time, I finally reached the third floor, where Mom was. I raced quickly through the hallway and finally found the right room number. I stopped, for in the window of Mom's room, was the red haired man that I had seen arguing with Evan.

Bursting through the door, I strode right up to him. "Who are you and why are you with my Mom?" Finally, I could get a good look at him. His hair was more orange than red and he had a relatively young face, around his late twenties or early thirties. His hair covered one of his eyes but the other green orb was marred by a scar running vertically through it. His face did not change at all as he faced me, and as I was about to demand again who he was, he turned, giving me a full view of my mother, motionless on the hospital bed. Unbidden, the tears came once again as I looked at her bandage covered body. I moved passed the strange man and over to the side of the bed, where I dropped to my knees. Only a few seconds later, I heard the door open and looked behind me. It was the doctor, an older man, most likely in his sixties.

He began to speak. "Are you of some relation to Ms. Jackson?" I nodded and managed to squeak out that I was her daughter. He walked right pass the red headed man, as if he wasn't even there. The doctor put his hand on my shoulder and started to relay the details of Mom's condition.

"We worked through the night on her, the entire left side of her body was damaged by the car. In addition, she suffered internal bleeding as a result of a ruptured lung. Despite this, we were able to save her. Physically she is on the mend. However, for some inexplicable reason, she has fallen into a coma and is unresponsive." I started to cry harder. "We hope this is a temporary side effect of the trauma and will keep a close watch on her system activity." The doctor turned to leave.

"I am sorry for the grief this has caused you." With that said, he walked out of the door. I buried my face into the scratchy hospital blankets that covered Mom. Then, I heard the strange man speak.

"You can save her; she need not die if she were in Sorcha." That name rang a bell, but I couldn't put my finger on it. He began to speak again, in a deep, monotone voice. "All you need to do to save her is to touch her heart. It is that simple."

I looked into his emerald eyes and for some unknown reason, I found myself trusting him. As I began to stand up, the door opened once again and Evan stood in the entrance way, his eyes fierce as he saw the red headed man.

"Skylar stop! Do not do anything this man says!" My hand hung in the air, torn between deciding which man was correct. As I watched, the strange man vanished, without leaving behind a trace. My eyes widened, how was this possible? Evan began to curse and ran back out the door, leaving the room empty save my Mom and me. Despite the fact that I had known Evan longer, I found myself ignoring his command and I reached out to place my hand on her chest.

As soon as I made contact, there was a flash of pure white light. I felt like I was being pulled and stretched, like a rubber band. I closed my eyes, the light too blinding to keep them open. Suddenly, the pulling stopped, and I opened my eyes. I was surrounded by darkness. There was not a speck of light anywhere that I could see. Where was Mom? Why wasn't I at the hospital? As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I realized I had been wrong; I could just make out a small pinprick of light. It became bigger and bigger and I was enveloped by the light.

I looked around, trying to make sense of what was going on. I frowned as I saw two objects, each about the size of a pillow twelve yards or so away from me. Walking closer, I gasped and ran towards the objects. They were not objects at all, they were two babies! I reached them but as I tried to pick the nearest one up, my hand passed right through the baby. I tried to do the same with the other, and my hand passed through that one as well. I sat back on my heels and examined them more closely. One was a baby with skin as dark as a moonless night sky and the other as white as freshly fallen snow.

As I watched them, each of the babies began to squirm. I tried to help them, but once again, my hand passed through them. This time though, as soon as my hand went through them, they opened their eyes. I fell back in astonishment. The dark baby's eyes were completely black, a full pitch black iris. The light baby's eyes were just the opposite, there was not iris to speak of, the eyes were pure white. What kind of children were these? As I stared in astonishment, the two children began to cry in unison. It was unlike any cry on Earth, and I had to cover my ears against the shattering cries.

The sound grew in pitch and instinctively I closed my eyes. And, just as sudden as it began, the wails stopped. I opened my eyes and found myself not looking at pure whiteness, but instead a dark grey space, churning with power. I became aware of white wisps around me, and the fact that I was gradually getting soaked through my clothes by the strange wisps. All too late I realized what the grey and the white streamers were. I was in the sky, the wisps the clouds full of rain and the grey beneath me was the ocean, convulsing within itself. I screamed and as I screamed I began to plummet. I fell like a stone; my stomach felt like it would burst out of my throat. I was going to die. I didn't know what had happened to me, but I was certain that there would be no possible way for me to survive a freefall from the sky. I closed my eyes, waiting for my body to break upon the water like an egg on a rock. But the impact never came. Instead I felt something wrap around me as I fell into not the water, but another body. Opening my eyes, I was greeted by the strangest sight. I was on a great flying beast, its silver fur a sharp contrast against the close deep blue of the ocean. Looking down, I realized that two arms were wrapped around my middle. I turned my head back to look at their owner and was greeted by a smiling face.

The smile widened and began to move, forming words. "Hi there, I'm Alize! It's a pleasure to meet you!" All I could determine was that the voice that spoke was female before I promptly fainted from shock.

For the second time that day, I awoke from a faint. I really had to stop doing that; it couldn't be good for my health. I tried to sit up; wincing because my head felt like it was trying to break free from the rest of my body. Despite my body's discomfort I opened my eyes, determined to find out what was going on. I would have believed that everything was a dream, had it not been for the fact that I was laying on a straw bed in a damp cave. It was a small grotto, no bigger than my living room. A fire was smoldering in the center and a fresh breeze came in through the mouth of the cave. All the furnishings to the cave were homemade, a wobbly looking chair, a small table made of sticks and twigs and even bowls, no more than hollowed out coconut shells. Despite my various worries most pressing being where was I and where was Mom, I found myself looking closer at the cave. Someone had drawn pictures on the rock walls. There was one of the sea, with colorful depictions of the fish and plants that lived within. There was another of a rainforest, with strange, wide eyed creatures dwelling in the trees. The one that caught my eye though was of a girl. Normally this would be a conventional picture of a teenager with red-orange hair, except for the fact that she was on the back of an enormous cat. It couldn't be. I had thought that I was hallucinating when I was saved by the flying animal and the girl. Yet here was evidence that they were real and possibly lived in this cavern. I headed to the opening, intending to look for more clues as to what was going on. What I saw though, stopped me in my tracks.

It was so beautiful, it was surreal. Not even ten yards from where I stood lay the clearest, bluest water I had ever seen in my life. It curled, repeating its rhythmic lullaby for the entire beach to hear as it washed gently over the sand. The sand! It was pure white, almost as if it were snow. As I walked on it, I felt like I was strolling upon sugar, its consistency was so fine. I reached the water and put my toes in, the water feeling as though I had put my feet into warm bathwater. It was neither to hot nor to cold. A bird squawked behind me and I turned to try to glimpse the creature. Instead, I saw the pure green of a forest untouched by the greedy hands of men. I had never seen trees so tall. The great redwoods of California stood like mice to these great giraffes of trees. I was completely awestruck.

Something began to nag at me though. The entire area was so pristine, it seemed as though no human had set foot on this land. Yet if there were no people than how was I saved from plummeting to my death? I was quickly answered when a shadow passed over top of me. I tried to look up at it but the sun glared down, blocking my view. From behind me I heard the whooshing of a bird in flight and I turned around. Heading toward me was the very creature that had been drawn upon the cave walls. I began to run, fearful of what such an alien creature could do to me. I had not gotten far when something hit me as soundly as a cannonball hitting the side of a ship. My breath was knocked out of me as I fell face first into the soft sand. I could feel something sitting on me as I struggled to breathe. Suddenly the weight was lifted from me and I sat up gasping as air slowly returned to my lungs. There was a disturbance in the sand, and next thing in knew, I was face to face with a pair of twinkling grey eyes. A hand was offered to me and I took it, glad of the assistance.

I stood up, and gasped. In front of me stood the girl from the cave drawing. Her hair was slightly darker than in the cave, reflecting the sun rays. She appeared to be the same age as me; we were also about the same height. She stuck her hand out in front of me again and this time I shook it.

"Hi, we met yesterday but you were falling so you probably don't remember. My name is Alize, and I live here with Noemild. You met her too; she was the one who spotted you. A good thing she did, otherwise you may have landed smack down in the water. Why were you floating in the air anyway? I understand it's not a very common thing to do. Anyways, once you fainted we brought you back home but we had no food to give you so we had to go hunt. I'm sorry I'm being rude, ah what was your name again?" She looked at me questioningly.

I was flabbergasted, who could talk so much with one breath? Croakily, I managed to squeak out "Skylar" before she began her tirade of babble again. Somewhere between bananas and mountain scaling, she suddenly, and thankfully, cut off. Approaching us was the flying cat. No, I had been wrong, it was not a cat. The animal had the head of an eagle, the body of a lion and it flew. It was a griffin. Something was wrong, there were no such things in Earth.

Then, the beast began to talk!

"Greetings, young Skylar." It turned to Alize. "Now little one, let us not patronize our guest with useless discourse." She, for it had the voice of a woman, turned her head back to me. "I believe the talkative one had mentioned me, I am called Noemild." It seemed Alize could hold her tongue no longer.

"Noemild and I live on this island alone. It can get a bit boring, but now that you're here, everything is going to be great!" She continued her ranting as the griffin chuckled, a deep rumble in her chest.

What was happening to me?