Hi there! This is Ross.

I hope you enjoyed the previous chapter.
 I know it was a bit of a slow start, but there are some things in these first few chapters that will make sense later on. So please be patient. And don't worry you will see plenty of action in this chapter.   ;)

Enjoy your reading!  

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CHAPTER 2

"The Goblin."

Kalysto's brain hadn't finished processing what her eyes were seeing.

She stood there, frozen like a statue with her mouth open for a few minutes unable to believe that it was true everything she had been insisting to Alice, for hours, was nothing more than the lies of a forgotten old author looking for attention to boost her sales.

A wave of fear swept over her, dulling her initial surprise. Her breathing quickened as her heart pumped like crazy against her rib cage and a thousand ideas raced through her mind as she thought of a solution, a way to make herself safe from all the chaos to come if that portal meant the same as in the stories Kassandra R. Black used to write.

Why the hell didn’t I read all her books, but only three? She reproached herself. If she could get her hands on the author right now, she would shower her with hundreds of questions.

But it was too late for that now.

Where could I go to get to safety? She tried to think. But no ideas came to her mind. If this thing opened over the city, no one could guarantee her that other portals wouldn’t open in other parts of the world, if they hadn’t already.

How much money do I have? She tried to remember with a frown. With the money she had earned in tips the night before, and what she had left over after paying the rent that morning, she barely had two hundred dollars in cash. That wasn't much. And she couldn't get far enough with such a small amount either, but she had almost seven hundred dollars in the bank that she planned to use when she finished her degree and could finally start traveling the world.

Although, she'd prefer not to touch that money.

More ideas came to her mind as she discarded one after another, trying to find the one that could guarantee her safety.

The problem was that she had very little information.

It was then that an emotion foreign to her came over her. Excitement. And as she questioned herself about the strange and highly inappropriate feeling, she remembered that interdimensional portals always brought monsters with them, and with their death came experience and access to powers far beyond her imagination.

She swallowed saliva.

A part deep inside her wished to have all that power at her disposal.

And that scared her.

Kalysto shook her head, with some confusion. I’ve been listening too much to Alice’s strange ideas all morning, and that was why she was thinking about that madness.

But she also remembered that, during her emotional relapse, Alice had mentioned a system, a kind of program made with magic that gave every human who went through a portal the ability to use it.

If what the author says in her books is true, of course.

The young waitress sighed and looked up at the sky again, at that vast patch of red light from which small black dots seemed to be dripping as if it could produce rain.

“Please tell me Alice isn’t trying to get into that thing,” she pleaded to no one in particular.

If so, Kalysto wasn’t planning to follow her into something that could very well end in her own death.

Besides, it was too high for them to reach it safely.

A girl’s scream echoed through the park, indicating that she was not as alone as she had thought she was when she wandered away from the crowd of affectionate couples.

Without a second thought, she ran toward the scream, returning along the path she had taken, passing another pretty fountain, and taking another path to a wide path surrounded by pretty gardens filled with colorful flowers on both sides.

The young university student stopped as soon as she saw the scene in front of her.

A thin girl of about thirteen with a blonde braid on each side of her head and with her arms outstretched at her sides, was trying to use her body as a shield, protecting a woman in her late forties who was lying on the ground with one leg in a cast and two crutches strewn about, not far from them.

Kalysto guessed it was her mother.

In front of them, less than five meters away, approached what she at first thought was a boy of about twelve, maybe thirteen, in a hideous green costume.

Goblin. Said a voice in her head.

Immediately, Kalysto remembered seeing Natasha, her landlady's daughter, playing video games in which she fought the nasty green creatures while hurling expletives because the only healer on her team had died, again.

 

A sharp, long knife was in that monster’s right hand, and as soon as it was almost three meters away from the terrified girl, it raised its arm as an obvious threat, while it growled something unintelligible and approached them.

Despite her initial surprise, Kalysto couldn’t help but make a comparison.

And she saw herself as a small, malnourished child as she tried to protect her own mother from the brutal beatings of her violent, drunken stepfather when he came home from a long, unsatisfying day of work in the mines. And before she was aware of what she was doing, she dropped the bag with the packages of sliced bread and other things, and ran as fast as her legs would let her towards the green figure, took off her backpack and threw it with all her might right in the goblin’s face, knocking him off balance, as she bent down and picked up one of the mother’s fallen crutches.

She hit the green wrist that held the knife hard, three times in a row, while the goblin screamed and pulled his backpack from his face with his free hand. A bloodcurdling shriek escaped from the monster's gaping mouth as he dropped the knife from the pain of her blows, even though she could neither pierce his skin nor break his bones.

The goblin jumped back, moving away from her and cupping his injured hand against his chest, but Kalysto followed him and continued to hit him with much more force on any part of his face she could reach, even though it almost felt like she was hitting a huge stone.

But that didn't make her give up.

His eyes! Attack his eyes! That voice deep in her mind shouted again. And for the first time in many years, Kalysto obeyed it.

She took the crutch hard with both hands and struck him in the nose, fracturing it with one blow and sending him crashing to the ground after giving him another thrust in the crotch covered by a loincloth made of something similar to leather.

Taking advantage of his distraction, she attacked his eyes viciously, several times. But to her annoyance, the little goblin covered his eyes with his hands and hunched his body to one side. Again, it looked as if she was slamming the crutches against a huge rock.

Feeling frustrated, she went for the long knife the monster had dropped, and in one swipe, buried it in one of his eyes. The metal pierced the greenish skin of his fingers effortlessly as if his strange skin was made of butter.

Kalysto, on the other hand, almost seemed possessed.

“Leave her alone, you fucking monster!” she growled, as she continued to stab him.

She wasn't entirely sure if she was yelling it at the little green creature in front of her or at the monster that still lived in her memories.

But none of that mattered now.

The world was a better place without them, anyway.

Violet blood splattered against the black sports outfit she was wearing when she stabbed him in the chest, but she didn’t care. The high-pitched shrieks that the creature made as she mercilessly stabbed his face over and over again began to fade little by little until he was completely silent and motionless.

Still, she was slow to notice, too caught up in her painful memories, too angry at the man who had taken away her mother’s chance at a better future. Too angry at herself for having been so weak, for not having been able to do anything to stop him and save her mother back then.

If only I had been stronger! She lamented.

But she had only been thirteen when that happened, and hunger can take its toll all too easily on a terrified little girl.

 

Finally, the violet, blood-soaked knife slipped from Kalysto’s hands as she struggled to normalize her crazed breathing. And sat down near the corpse as she caught her breath and felt the surge of rage that had seized her completely vanish.

And Kalysto blinked, surprised to see all the chaos she had inadvertently caused.

“Now I understand why people practice such a violent sport as boxing,” she whispered to no one in particular.

And for the first time in a long time, she felt a little vindicated.

She couldn’t save her mother from that violent animal who was posing as her stepfather when she was thirteen. But at least that little girl wouldn’t know what it was like to grow up without a mother, as she had.

A sad, thin smile tugged at her lips as her eyes misted over with tears and she closed her eyes with her head held high, not wanting to cry.

At least that little girl will have a chance... she won’t be like me.

And that comforted her in a way she would never have imagined before.