Chapter Three Part Two

I was stupefied by how she was able to also add the last part in which I was thinking a moment ago.

“How…?”, I gazed at her hard, searching her face – her expression.

She tittered and sat down on one of the rocks as she leaned on her old cane for support – groaning in the process, then she looked at me, motioning for the rock opposite of hers. I gaped my mouth, closing and opening it as I wondered again at the rock that wasn’t there before when I got here.

I slowly walked towards the rock and sat, never breaking my eye contact with the old librarian before me. I gulp a lump on my throat, nervous and cautious streaming up my system.

She cleared her throat raspily and asked, “You are Selina Anderson, correct?”

“Y-yes,” I replied, shortly prolonging the E in yes.

She nods in approval, “Do you know who created this world?”

The brows on my head furrowed deeply as I pondered why she would ask me that irrelevant question. “No?”, I questioningly answered.

“As much as I want to hit you with my cane on your head, that was not an irrelevant question child.”, she pointed her cane at me, to which I jumped back on my seat. Startled again at the fact that she was able to read my mind. Then it dawned on me that she could maybe read my mind – my entire face lighting up in amazement. But before I could open my mouth she hit my head lightly with her cane.

“Ow!”, fear now replaced by comfort, I rubbed the top of my head where she hit me, looking at her. “What was that for?”

“Yes dumb child, I can read minds as much as you already know that this isn’t like the real world you were teleported from.”, she grunted, she settled down her cane in front of her once again and looked at me sternly. 

I looked at her perplexed and curious all together as I waited for her to tell me about this magical place. 

“You’re royalty.”, she said simply as if it would explain everything with just that.

The cave became quiet, the wind howled lowly as it passed by, rustling leaves from the trees outside – a chirp of a bird could be heard, wondering if it was really a bird considering that this isn’t a normal place at all. I squinted my eyes out of confusion, tilting my head a bit, leaning out as I looked at the old lady. “Is that supposed to make me laugh?” She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger. I backed away expecting her to raise her cane and hit me in the head as she had done twice earlier.

“You’re a princess.”, she said stating what she meant by royalty, meeting my eyes with a strong and solemn hint on her tone. “Your mother, the former Queen, Amanda, and your father, also a former King, Kyle Anderson once ruled this world. They created this world because of you. They built the foundation with the idea of you living freely in it.”, she explained.

I leaned a bit in interest. I did not know where to put my emotions when I heard about my parents being royalty. This was a joke right? It is true that we are rich, we live in a mansion, go to the most prestigious school, but kings and queens? I'm skeptical, especially hearing it from someone who works at a library – and no less someone who I barely know. 

The old lady in front of me sighed in sadness, realizing this as I looked at her, she could actually read my mind. I turned my gaze down to the ground, a half-frozen orange leaf fell gently near the entrance of the cave, sliding an inch towards us.

“They didn’t want you to live in such a cruel place, a world you live in right now, they didn’t want you to experience the things they had to go through.” she paused, she reached out her hand to me and gently panned my head towards her. She had the look of sadness, conflict, and a tinge of concern. “They were experimented on.”, she said, almost a whisper that I could barely hear if not for the wind that stopped the moment she started saying it. “They realized that if the people who tortured them for years found out that they had a child, they wouldn’t waste the opportunity to take you and do the same thing as to all who had powers.”

My brows furrowed in confusion, my emotions running wild everywhere. “They?”

“We call them the Enders. They’re a group of scientists who experiment on people who have powers such as your parents. They are hungry every day for knowledge of how a person could attain powers, they thirst for it. Searching every continent of the world to look for people like you. But, fortunately, your parents thought of this world,” she spread her arms around, looking at the cave and outside. “And created this wonderful place for us, power users, or  as what these huge creatures and animals here like to call, the Zonculi's.”

The Zonculi's, I remember Lawrence saying that yesterday. She called me Zonculi because I had powers I didn’t know about. “Zonculi,” I repeated. “What does it mean?”

The old lady chuckled, the grim look she had earlier gone in an instant. “We are called the Zonculi because we are situated in the East part of the world. There are also others like you in the North, they are called the Ofeter, in the South they call themselves the Mavi, and in the West, the Flihths."

I nod in understanding. Amazed at how they came up with these names.

I stood up from the rock seat, kind of stuck with the thought of this world, and walked towards the entrance of the cave – a puff of smoke was visible as I exhaled the air I was holding in listening to Mrs. Hasse talk about my parents and who they really were. I couldn’t quite grasp the thought of it yet. The pain on my foot from the wound earlier became numb, the coldness I felt became much colder than it already was a few minutes ago. Why did I decide to come back here anyway? It was as if hearing Mrs. Hasse tell me about my parents took so much of my memory that I couldn’t remember how I got here. Was I accidentally teleported in again? Or did I come here on my own will?

I heard a grunt far behind me, I turned my head slightly, glancing at Mrs. Hasse stand up and fixing her front robe that got crumpled. “People who are new to this world get that effects the first few times.” she trudged slowly towards me. I leaned on the mouth of the cave, glancing back at the now frozen forest. I saw her stand beside me in the corner of my eyes, smiling like how she smiled in the library, “But it will fade away the moment you get used to teleporting back and forth from this world to the other.”

“That’s comforting.” I mumbled, pursing my lips and crossing my arms together as it was getting colder – my legs shaking already.

“You are the rightful heir of this world, Selina. You are the daughter of the two greatest people who created this world afterall.” she said quietly beside me.

I found myself biting my lips – a habit of mine when I didn’t know what to think and feel and where to place my emotions. “What if I only came here to escape reality from the other world? What if I don’t want to be this heir or princess of a King and Queen, or a daughter of two great people? What if I just want to be just me and a daughter of two perfectly normal people?”

There was few minute pause before I heard Mrs. Hasse reply. The now white freezing forest, somehow sensed the ambience, was quiet again. No birds chirping, no leaves rustling, and the wind stopped howling unlike earlier. 

“There are things in the world that you cannot just escape from.”

I glanced down beside me, only to find that I was now alone. Mrs. Hasse disappeared like dust. I peered in the cave to look for her, the sticks I picked up on the way lay gloomily in the corner, the rock we sat on was gone, everything was quiet. Too quiet for me.

She was gone. She left me with more questions, more undefined emotions than answers and clarity.

Everything felt so overwhelming.