We barely passed the gate when midday tiredness came over me. My eyelids got heavier each second, and I had a hard time letting them stay open.

*Boom*

I was just about to fall asleep when the door of the rolling carriage was slammed open with a loud bang. I looked over to the culprit, Savia, and shook my head. She jumped out of the door and climbed up onto the carriage’s roof. Sieggald and I could hear a rumbling sound on the roof.

“Hey! Hey! Siana, do you want to join me?”

Savia’s head appeared hanging at the open door.

What is she thinking?

I shacked my head to answer her and said,

“Sorry, Savia, but I will take a nap on the carriage’s bench.”

Immediately,  stretched Savia her right hand and pointed her thumb downwards. Of course, the thumb was actually upwards, but she was hanging with her head downwards, which let the thumb look upside down for us. Then, she disappeared, and I could observe how she pushed the door into its lock with her hand.

I’m done…

My eyelids fell down, and I fell asleep.

 

===

 

“Ngh!?”

I opened my eyes and looked around. Sieggald was gone, and I realized that the carriage wasn’t rolling.

Might they take a break? How long did I sleep?

I stood up from the bench and smoothed out the wrinkles in my clothes. Then, I went to the door and opened it. The deep red evening sun shined at me, and immediately, someone started talking with me.

“Hey, you’re awake!”

The voice belonged to Sieggald, who sat next to a bonfire a little further away. I started looking around and searching for the driver and Savia, but they weren’t around, and the horses were missing as well.

“Well, yeah. Where is Savia?”

He pointed right behind me. I followed his direction and found Savia sleeping soundly on the carriage’s roof.

“You both are so similar. Are you twins by chance?”

I rolled my eye due to Sieggald’s question and went through my thought for a moment.

Our hair color is indeed kind of the same color, but our eyes, mine golden and hers grayish, aren’t similar. Our appearance makes it clear why Sieggald couldn’t tell the difference between Savia’s and my age. Well, it was weird to hear that I’m over hundreds of years old, even I couldn’t expect this. The only Memories I have are from a late teen boy and some of the visions from Siana and Tyrania.

I looked up and directly into Sieggald’s eyes.

“I’m the older one, and we are half-sisters. We share the same father.”

Sieggald’s eyes became colorless, and his gaze sunk to the ground. He shook his head for an unknown reason and needed a  while to raise his head again.

“And you’re genuinely on good terms with her? Isn’t it a bit contradictory for you when your sister is your greatest competitor for your inheritance? I mean, you are from a noble family, right?”

I faltered for a moment before I gave him an answer.

“Certainly not because Savia inherited our father’s, and I got my mother’s inheritance. And curse...”

I whispered the last part only to myself.

*Fweeth*

Sieggald whistled as an answer while nodding his head. I sat down on the dry ground opposite him with the bonfire between us.

“Do you want something to eat?”

Sieggald pointed at the pot hanging over the flames. The pot was relatively small and could barely contain enough food for two.

“I have to decline this offer because I don’t think that this pot contains enough for the both of us.”

I waved it off and looked at the surroundings. Then, my mind drifted slowly off into deep thoughts.

When was the last time that I had a dreamless sleep? These visions overtaking my sleep and hindering me from getting a relaxing night. In the future… In the future, I might lose the way to dream like others.

My thoughts switched to another topic while I started to gaze into the flames.

My sisters… How can I end it? Tyrania, mother, must know what to do or what kind of reason would she have to send me to earth? And why there?

My bracelet brought me out of my thoughts because the light of its pendant started to blink.

Hey, it’s still working! It’s so long ago where it last reacted to something.

I taped on the pendant and checked the appeared holographic map out. Three red marks moved from the north, with high speed, towards one green and two yellow dots. The green dot and yellow dots were a little farther to the east from my current location.

This must be the driver with the carriage’s horses! I need to help him!

I stood immediately up and ran off. I heard Sieggald shouting something after me, but my thoughts were on the enemies I approached.

What’s that?

I reached the three red marks in a blink of an eye and hid behind a nearby tree. I watched how these creatures ran past my tree.

They were three giant flightless birds. The two bigger ones had red-brown feathers, while the smaller bird had greyish feathers. All in all, they looked like ostriches but had claws on their wings like a hoatzin or a velociraptor.

“Huh?”

One of the birds stopped and gave a surprised sound from it. Afterward, it started to look around. The other two continued to run towards the driver and horses.

I took this chance and jumped out of my hiding place. With the dagger in my outstretched hand did I cut through the bird’s neck. The blade went halfway through the neck, but it didn’t cut the head off. My movement was fast enough to stop the bird from crying out loud.

Who is next?

I looked up and checked the surroundings, but the other two weren't viewable. So, I checked their current locations with the holographic map. One has reached the horses while the other one was near the driver’s location. Their dots were only a few meters apart.

The Horses or the driver?

“Go to the driver. I’ll take the Canardis who attacks the horses.”

A voice of a man spoke right into my head. Of course, I could question this voice, but I chose to listen to it and followed its offer. I flew with a powerful jump right over the ground toward the driver. He was about to get hit by the bird’s attack. Before this could happen, I threw my dagger at the Canardis, but the bird easily avoided a critical hit by jumping aside.

“Run!”

I shouted as loud as possible, but the driver was already in shock and wouldn’t hear nor move at my words. So I switched the hand of the remaining dagger and readied myself for the Canardis because it shifted from its current target to a new one, me. First, it spread its wings to appear bigger as it already was. Then, with an explosive start, it started to run toward me. Its wing claws were ready to strike.

I waited until the last moment before I jumped up and made a backflip. I landed on its back and fixated the wings with my legs while holding both hands on the bird’s neck. The dagger’s blade pointed away from the bird’s throat. It was about to go mad and start a rampage when I leaned over to its ear.

“If you don’t stop moving, you’ll die from my hands.”

It stopped its movement for a mere second before continuing with its wild movements.

“As you wish! Die!”

The blade went through the neck and sunk lengthways down the throat. It had no chance of surviving, and its body fell without any movement to the ground. I climbed over the corpse and looked at the driver.

“Hey, you ok?”

The driver’s view was already fixated on the other Canardis near the horses. It let him ignore my sayings once again. So I followed his gaze and watched the other battle. The bird’s opponent was a small black-colored animal. Its body was fast, but its attacks hadn’t much effect on the Canardis.

“Should I help you?”

I tried to communicate with it like it had with me before. But, even after a while, it didn’t give me an answer, which made me think that sending messages back wasn’t possible.

“I’ll end it alone!”

The voice appeared anew inside my head, but its voice was hearable exhausted. The Canardis advanced in a new attack, but it could not catch up with our small helper. Our helper already attacked the bird from its back while the bird still canceling its attack to turn around.

*KEH* *KEH* *KEH*

The Canardis laughed at the weak attacks of his enemy.

“Let me create an opening for you!”

Without waiting for an answer, I threw my reclaimed dagger at the Canardis feet. Its focus was on the opponent right in front of it to discover my sneak attack. The dagger went through the feet and stopped its current move. The bird cried in pain and stopped all its movements.

*Kyan!*

An awful high-pitched scream came from the Canardis. I had to cover my ears, but the small helper wasn’t troubled and started attacking the bird again. Its whole body got covered in blue flashes of lightning. My eyes couldn’t follow its movement, and it took a while until it appeared again. It appeared right next to me and looked over to the Canardis. At this moment, broke the Canardis body and fell to the ground.

“We need to talk!”

Its voice appeared once again inside my head. I nodded my head without sending a word back to it. This was the first time I could look at its body. Our helper was a rather small wild cat, like an ocelot, covered in black fur. I turned to the driver and talked to him.

“Go with your horses back to the carriage! I have something to do and can’t guard you here.”

He got slowly back to himself and understood my problem. He followed my orders and left with the horses’ reins in each of his hands. We waited until the man disappeared between the trees.

“We can talk now.”

I sat down near a giant tree, looking at the black cat.

“We can…”

An awful break of silence happened before it started to talk again. Its deep and manly voice was kinda awkward.

“That won’t do… I’m not sure where we have to start. Do you know Gladenius?”

Its question came a bit unexpected, and the name it said stunned me.

“Gladenius… I know this name, but why… No, how can you know about this name?”

Gladenius was the world’s name of a game I created with a sandbox tool. It was a one-man-created game and never left the early-access phase of engine. It was an open-world game with an island as its map. I created magical creatures based on real animals like cats, dogs, bears, and many more. All of them would be enemies for the players, aside from these that the by players tamed. The game was running, but a lot of features never got a live patch. The market was already full of first-person survival games, which demotivated me and let me drop the project.

“I’m from Gladenius! I don’t know where I’m, but this place is not the island I know.”

I nodded continuously at his words because all of his guessings were correct. However, I wondered how the world I created could actually exist. My first thought was that the world was already an existing world created by Tyrania. Still, the opposite had the higher possibility, which would mean I created the videogame world, and Tyrania created a world after its image.

“You’re so damn right! I would like to know how you came from Gladenius to this world. I guess the person I am going to meet should know something.”

The black cat turned its head to the side and looked clueless at me.

“How could you know?”

His question was only logical and would be my first question as well. So, I already thought of an answer.

“What if I tell you that I’ll visit the person who created my, this, and your world? Would you join me?”

The cat stared at me for a very long moment before he answered.

“I would.”

I signaled him to follow me since he helped me. So, I described putting some trust in him.

“Come, I’ll introduce you to these that travel with me.”

I checked our current location with the holographic map and went together with him to Savia’s position. On our way to the camp, I stopped for a moment and turned to the cat.

“Ehem… What’s your name? You can call me Siana.”

The cat paused for a brief second before he answered.

“I don’t have a name, but you can just call me A-vol. It’s the name of the place I was born.”

A-vol… I never named parts of the island, nor the island itself. Maybe its citizens gave it its name.

“That’s good to know, and nice to meet you, A-vol.”

We reached the camp a few minutes after our talk ended. Savia was awake and sat near the bonfire. Sieggald finished cooking his soup and was eating it. The driver found a new spot a little further away, where the horses could rest. Sieggald was the first of them to react and put his soup pot aside before standing up.

“What is that?”

He pointed at A-vol, who walked beside me. I stopped and gazed with an emotionless face at him. A-vol answered him before I got to.

“Who is that? A snobby noble?”

Savia was surprised by A-vol’s words and stared over at him, but she stayed silent.

“You! You can talk!?”

Sieggald fell into a state of shock and stopped moving.

“I think his brain got a malfunction. How about I’ll introduce myself first?”

Savia disappeared and appeared a few meters away from us. Her question was rhetorical, and she started to introduce herself.

“My name is Savia, Siana’s half-sister. I’m the younger sister if you like to know.”

She bowed lightly before looking at A-vol’s face.

“Nice to meet you woman with a burning heart. You can call me A-vol, even if it’s not my name since I don’t have one.”

A-vol was politely like Savia with his greetings, but his description, woman with a burning heart, bugged me somehow.

Does he know that Savia is a Dragon? Or that she is good with fire?

I wasn’t sure, but I could expect that he possessed an ability to detect something like this. But, to my surprise, was Savia on much friendlier terms with A-vol as I hoped for.

Savia turned around after they greeted each other and dragged Sieggald on his shoulder back to the bonfire. She set him back into a sitting position and sat down in the same place as before.

“Come, there is enough space to sit down.”

I pointed at the open spots around the bonfire. A-vol stopped me from moving and spoke to me.

“Fire makes me blind, and I won’t see incoming enemies.”

He opened the path for me that he blocked while speaking to me. Then, A-vol himself went off and climbed on a nearby tree. I shrug my shoulders while observing A-vol climbing on the tree before sitting next to Savia, who already awaited me.

“Where did A-vol came from?”

Savia’s personality went back to her usual self and showed her curiosity all over her face.

“He called the place Gladenius, and it seems to be part of another world… Maybe part of the fourth or fifth world we came across.”

Savia made a facepalm at my word and let her gaze into the distance. She got silent for a long moment before continuing the conversation.

“Again… another world. What should we do?”

I answered her immediately,

“Your question is wrong. You have to ask, what can we do? I think my mother is our only chance.”

“You sure?”

Savia was skeptical, but I couldn’t think of anything else, and when she can’t think of something else, would this talk be unnecessary.

 

=== the next Morning

 

It took me a while to convince Savia, and it ended with Savia going back to bed. Finally, I offered to stay on guard on our nightly travel.

The driver slept until midnight and wanted to continue to ride until daybreak. None of us had a problem with his idea, so I guarded with A-vol while Savia and Sieggald slept inside the carriage.

Dawn wasn’t as far away as it seemed to be because it was summer, and the sun would rise before 6am. So we left the forest behind us in the middle of the night and took our next break at dawn. We made a small camp next to the road, ate a little, and switched our shifts. Sieggald and Savia started to guard while A-vol and I went to rest.

Finally, in the afternoon, we reached the city between Avuern and the capital city, its name was Agalam and was famous for its pink-colored lake. This pink color came from some minerals inside the water and the ground of the lake.