A foggy pale white breeze blew through the surroundings as large, pine trees covered in snow calmly danced in the wind.
Snowflakes trickled down from the sky slowly but methodically, calmly landing on the snow-covered ground that looked like a pale white blanket.
In the distance was a family of mountains that appeared as if they wanted to touch the sky.
In the sky, faint twinkling white lights were splattered across the dark expanse, giving it a midnight blue color. Large green lights flowed like a curtain across the lights, giving a beautiful and ambient scene.
"Ugh…" Astra, who was lying on the ground that was covered in snow, let out a grunt that strangely, was mixed with a sense of pain and relief. However, this feeling was strangely comfortable, and it relaxed her mind.
Dressed in a bruised purple sweater and jeans, she placed her hands on the ground and pushed on it to sit up. As she did, she scanned her surroundings, absorbing the current situation she was in.
"Where even am I…?" She muttered to herself, her mind still sluggish.
"Wasn't I supposed to be in a hospital? So why does it look like I'm in Iceland…" Astra proceeded to look up at the beautiful and majestic night sky. She wasn't bothered by the cold.
"The Northern Lights…" Astra said to herself. Normally, she would've said "The Aurora Borealis", but those words don't exist in Dreamurian. She was wary to speak in English or any other language on the previous Earth.
This wasn't because she was consciously thinking about the risk, but she had purposefully placed this risk in her subconscious. This was necessary in a world where you didn't know you might find a mind-reading official.
"The heavens…" Astra couldn't help but mutter to herself upon curiously gazing at the twinkling lights and the transparent green curtain that covered the lights.
Astra then slowly raised her right hand up towards the sky, her palms facing it.
Her golden eyes shimmered faintly as she was mesmerized by the night sky.
The night sky—what she had always called the heavens—was something she'd always feel connected to.
She didn't say a word, or even have a thought. She just stared at the night sky, digesting the beauty of the unknown.
As a scientist, this was what she was most accustomed to.
Relishing the things she couldn't know, while pursuing the things that she shouldn't know.
This was one of her principles—a scientist, a physicist, is not interested in what they already know.
Nonetheless, she didn't have these principles merely for the sake of curiosity. It was also for the idea of finding a connection—even if there was nothing to connect with.
And in her heart, she had wanted this current moment to last forever.
"Sigh…"
Astra's deadpan countenance never changed, despite her expressing disappointment.
It didn't take long for her to realize this was a dream, or rather an illusion that was formed from her subconscious.
She lowered her right hand and placed it back on the snow covered ground.
A second later, she closed her eyes and slowed her breathing.
"…"
Immediately after she did that, she felt her surroundings change. Her thoughts were less sluggish, and her mental state lost its haziness.
She opened her eyes again and saw that she was on a floating bed that was as soft as the snow.
She saw that she was in a large room that had all sorts of medical equipment, but it was spaced and orderly. It looked very similar to the room inside of the Dreamkeeper vehicle, but larger.
Since it was still night, the room had an ambient atmosphere that resembled the cosmos. Its lights that resembled a nebula slowly shifted, giving the patient the feeling that they were truly in space.
In this room, there were no windows, just translucent midnight blue barriers that served as the walls for the room.
Astra immediately knew that she was in a hospital room. As such, she didn't think twice and quickly examined her current physical state.
"Oh?" Astra let out a sound of surprise as a holographic screen appeared in front of her.
It served as a mirror, showcasing all of her facial features. With a thought, it moved according to her liking, showcasing the best angles to examine herself.
Immediately, she noticed that her facial injuries were completely fixed. Her face was no longer bloody, and her blonde hair no longer looked as messy. It looked as if she was never in a fight that could've ended her life.
Not only that, the pain that she had felt from before had completely disappeared!
"It's almost like magic how well they fixed me!" With ecstasy, Astra exclaimed. "This is the power of technology!"
"Well, the only problem is that my clothes are still torn…" She quickly noticed her bruised sweater which revealed her white undershirt, and her damaged jeans.
Nonetheless, with a breath of relief, Astra turned off the holographic mirror and sunk herself into the floating bed.
She closed her eyes and started to think about the 'dream' that she just had.
"From the looks of it, 'dreams' that are powered by the third dimension seem to just be illusions that reveal the subconscious. Heh, in that case, the God of Dreams should be called the God of Illusions."
"Come to think of it, the second dimension is called the Dimension of Sentience and Consciousness. Are they related in some way? The second is the conscious, while the third is the subconscious…are both of these Gods siblings? How interesting…"
Suddenly, Astra tensed up as water began to form on her face, despite the cool air flowing through the room.
"Wait, wouldn't this be considered blasphemy if I'm wrong? After all, I am technically a new convert. What if the God of Dreams isn't pleased with this thought and gives me a nightmare? Or even worse, "He" will give me sleep paralysis…"
Astra immediately placed two of her hands on her chest. She still wasn't used to this, so she did this motion awkwardly.
"Uh, I'm sorry, God of Dreams!"
After a few seconds of waiting and seeing that nothing happened, she immediately allowed her hands to fall to the side.
"Man…this is all pretty scary."
"At least this world has given me a proper opportunity to fully understand the supernatural…"
Astra gave a self deprecating chuckle.
"From the looks of it, it hasn't even been two weeks and I'm already embroiled in such matters. How pitiful…"
Immediately, Astra's eyes narrowed.
She stared at the ceiling which appeared to be covered with a nebula-like light. Instantly, she frowned upon thinking about something.
"I have a strange feeling that this isn't over yet. The involvement of such an important figure like that man from the Orpheus family definitely proves that. Kayla is definitely a lot more suspicious—no, a lot more dangerous than I thought." Feeling refreshed, Astra began to process all of the information she had received over the past sequence of events.
"But something still seems strange to me. Judging by his questions, he didn't seem to know the strangeness of Kayla. If that's the case, why did he come over and save me personally? That man who's called Omar seems way below his pay grade, so there's nothing that would incentivize him to suddenly pop up at the right time."
"I doubt that he was just coincidentally in the area. From what I see, 'coincidences' like to always have an underlying reason behind it. For this reason, I don't think me choosing the same house as Kayla is a coincidence either."
"There has to be some reason as to why Lucian was there at the right time. I know it has something to do with the Dimensional Thieves. Specifically the higher ups of that organization…"
"I know that Omar had specifically planned a situation where he would throw Anna in despair for escaping…"
"I know the higher ups are looking for Kayla. They seem to want to look for her in a roundabout way. Initially, I thought that this was because they wanted to be sneaky. There's a possibility that this is also because they want to be avoiding something…or someone?"
"On this note, Anna had said that the higher ups were more concerned on looking for Kayla and not for her. This meant that the higher ups knew of Anna's disappearance, but didn't pursue her. Now that I think about it, I doubt Anna's reasoning was correct. It's very possible that they were pursuing her, but they chose Omar instead of a more capable person for some reason."
As soon as Astra thought of this, her eyes widened in shock. She appeared to come to an epiphany.
"Omar was used as bait…?" Astra nearly gasped.
"It makes sense! The higher ups of the Dimensional Thieves should know better than anyone that Omar would pursue Anna in such an arrogant, extensive way. They should know that he of all people would take his time with her! Yes, if this is the case, I doubt that they'd ordered him to do such actions. They would know that he would move in such a slow and arrogant way!"
To calm her excitement, Astra took a deep breath.
"This still raises some questions, though. How would the higher ups know that I would fight alongside Anna? Or how would they know that he would mutate into that monster? It's a stretch to say that they considered such things…"
"No. They wouldn't have to consider it. The obvious reason as to why Omar was used as bait was to draw out the man from the Orpheus family. As long as Anna was able to be in a situation that drew attention towards herself and Omar, he would've done his job perfectly. As for how Anna would've gotten into that situation, it was easy to assume that she would immediately try to look for someone to protect her after escaping. Now that I think about it, that's probably another reason why they had a notice that made the lackeys and gangsters look for me. After all, my looks alone draw attention."
Astra finally exhaled as her mind continued to race.
"This also means that the higher ups knew that the man from the Orpheus family was in Luna. I mean, that's obvious. As the tenth biggest city in the country, I would expect it to have someone strong protecting it."
"Though, why did he fall for the bait? No…the proper question is why wouldn't he fall for it? Two apparent citizens were about to be killed by a 'mutation' near the intercity. At the same time, an anomaly was preparing to take place. Any rational official would've hurried over to deal with the threat and investigate. Though, there's a non-zero chance that he could've intentionally fallen for it…"
"This secret organization seems to be very methodical. By looking for Kayla, they knew that the Dreamlanders would have locked onto their preparations. And to avoid them, they used someone like Omar as bait…"
"Heh, the fact that he was used as bait meant that he was quite disposable. He also was never that strong or that smart, only being used by the people above him. How ironic."
Immediately, Astra dug in her jeans pockets to pull out her phone. Interestingly, it wasn't damaged despite the tense fight that she had earlier.
"Well, that's expected of such advanced technology…" Astra nodded in satisfaction.
She continued to analyze.
"Now, I strongly doubt that Kayla is completely oblivious to these developments. I assume she's making preparations of her own. Or at the very least, she's started to do so the moment I told her about my situation back in the dark corridor. I assume this was the reason why she didn't respond to my message, or why she didn't help me."
"Knowing this, it's very easy to predict what she'll want to do next. She can't stay at our house knowing that the Dimensional Thieves are likely about to finish their preparations. This is evident by Omar attacking me; someone who is related to Kayla in some way."
"She could theoretically leave the city, or even the country, but this comes with its own risk. The Dimensional Thieves have likely put this possibility in their preparations. Immediately choosing to leave could be a trap in and of itself."
"So, her only real options are hiding from both the Dreamlanders and the Dimensional Thieves, or trying to find me to gain more information so she can continue her preparations. After all, I did end up meeting with someone who the Dimensional Thieves are trying to avoid. Plus, I doubt that Kayla wouldn't like having more information on that big shot pursuing her."
Holding her phone in her right hand, she found Kayla's contacts and typed the message:
"I'm currently at the hospital. A man from the Orpheus family came to question me after the fight."
Of course, Astra didn't need to type and just needed to think about the words for them to appear on the screen. She just typed with her fingers out of instinct.
"Phew…" Feeling satisfied, Astra locked her phone and put it back into her pocket.
After gaining a better understanding of the situation, Astra had concluded that Kayla not responding to her or helping her back then likely wasn't a showcase of distrust, malice or apathy.
Of course, she didn't fully trust Kayla. Nor was she beginning to rely on her by this move. After all, she was still a stranger.
Instead, she felt as if Kayla could've given her some vital information in exchange for information she has about the man from the Orpheus family, Lucian.
Even if things went wrong, Kayla couldn't really do anything to her in the hospital without major consequences. Still, Astra didn't believe that Kayla would do such a thing.
"Now, I just wait. If she doesn't come, then it just means that she chose to hide from both organizations. For me, it would be the worst case scenario since she wouldn't be there to help me pay rent." Astra said to herself as she stared at the ceiling with an apathetic gaze.
"At the very least, I wouldn't be involved with such powerful people that can cause those things called anomalies…"
"…" A few minutes passed by as Astra observed the pretty lights and listened in on the sounds of the soft ambient hum of the room. Strangely, she was very comfortable in this environment.
After some time, Astra chuckled dryly as she thought about something.
"Hehe. The good thing is that this entire situation somewhat overshadowed my strangeness. If it wasn't for this situation, the chances of my identity as someone from the previous Earth being discovered was extremely high. I wouldn't have been let go, especially since I knew about Ethereon and had a strange body…"
"…Then again, it's possible that my strangeness caused this entire situation to happen."
As Astra closed her eyes, she began to calm her thoughts down. Suddenly, she thought about the words the man from the Orpheus family said before he left.
"I've already entered the Celestial world, huh…"
"Not because of anything I did intentionally, but only because I stood out and wanted to help a teenage girl feel like a person."
"But despite that, I was still so powerless. I still made many mistakes that could've costed both of us our lives. I'm still too inexperienced."
Astra opened her eyes and sat up.
"I need to tell her that I'm as powerless as she is. No, perhaps even more so…"
"I wonder if I can communicate with Anna inside here. That is, if she's even here…"After she said this, she then looked around and observed the room.
While Astra was looking in a particular direction, a hologram appeared in front of her.
It read:
Video Call Request: Accept or Decline
"This must be Anna. Such convenient timing." With an unchanged look on her face, Astra tapped "Accept".
Immediately, the hologram's size increased to that of a flat screen TV. On the hologram was a young girl who had a pretty and delicate face, brown hair that was now loosened, and beautiful blue eyes. She was still wearing her black sweater.
She was none other than Anna.
"Hey, Miss Astra." She didn't hesitate to speak first. However, she spoke in a dry tone.
"Are you okay?" Astra asked, her voice becoming softer.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I don't know how long they'll keep me here though."
"More importantly, are you fine?" Anna asked with a noticeably shaken voice.
"Yes. All of my injuries are healed." Astra replied frankly.
Anna didn't respond, but her eyes appeared softer.
She couldn't even remember the last time where someone asked if she was okay.
After a few seconds of silence, Astra took a deep breath.
"Anna. I know that you think that I'm special in some way, but I'm really not that special."
Anna tilted her head slightly to the side with no other changes in her expression.
"What do you mean, Miss Astra?"
"I mean, in the grand scheme of things, I'm just as powerless as you. No, in fact I might even be weaker than you." Astra said bluntly.
"I don't get it," Anna's face looked as if she didn't understand what she was hearing. "How is it possible that you are weaker than me when you were able to beat that…creature?" As she thought about Omar, she involuntarily began to stumble on her wards.
"Well, you also helped me to defeat him." Astra paused for a second and said, "But more importantly, the strength that I have was given to me by birth. The privileges that I used to have were also partly due to my circumstances. You, however, were born into a world that wanted to strip away your humanity. Even though you think you have no greater use, you still managed to have the desire to be someone despite everything around you telling you that you couldn't."
Anna's head slowly returned back to its original position as her mind began to gain some clarity. She half-closed her eyes and placed her hand on her chin as if she was digesting the clarity she had gained.
Astra continued and said, "Which is why I was only acting earlier…I had subtly pretended like I was someone important when I heard you mention that your gang was looking for me." Astra gave an almost silent sigh.
"In truth, they were only looking for me because I had lived with an extremely important person."
When Anna heard this, her eyes widened slightly in shock.
"Who is this person?"
"She's the person that the man from the Orpheus family is looking for. As such, she's also extremely strong and likely dangerous."
Astra laughed. After a second, she stopped.
"As for me, I'm not that important. I'm not that strong. I'm just like you. An inexperienced woman who entered the supernatural world."
Anna proceeded to stare at Astra with a poker face. In a dry tone, she said:
"Well…Miss Astra, from when I met you, I always knew you weren't that strong. I mean, you couldn't use…" Anna stopped herself for a second.
"…That energy source." Anna continued. "But…I always knew that you were special in some way."
"At first, I had assumed it was because that there might've been something strange with your body, or that you might've had some strange connections with some important people."
"Well, even though both of those things happened to be true, later on I discovered another way how you were special. To me, this was most important—actually, it was the only important thing to me."
"You are special to me because you were the first person to truly care for me." In a strange, monotonous tone, Anna exclaimed. It was a weird contrast compared to the content of her words.
"…" Astra turned silent upon hearing those words. Even though she knew Anna had trusted her greatly, and had vaguely expected such a response, she still didn't know what to say when actually hearing such things from Anna.
"Are you okay, Miss Astra?" Anna had genuinely expressed her worry upon witnessing Astra's silence.
"…I'm fine. I just appreciate that you think of me in that way." Astra replied, a little unsure of what to say. She had felt something in her chest and stomach, almost completely unaware of why she had felt that.
"That's good." Anna didn't probe further. She only gave a faint smile.
After a moment of contemplating silence, Astra spoke again.
"Say, why don't you have a last name?" Astra asked regarding something she had wondered about.
"It's because that creature never happened to give me one." Anna replied in a fastened pace.
"So, he was the one who gave you the name 'Anna'?" Astra asked.
"Yes."
"Do you mind if I change your name, then? Or rather, can I call you something different?" Astra asked with a smile.
Anna slightly raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"Why?"
"It's simple. A name represents identification. And, using a name that was given to you by someone who tried to remove your identity is a bit out of touch." Still smiling, Astra replied.
"Oh…" Anna's mouth was agape. Instead of shock, she had felt a strange sense of clarity.
"Well, what do you want to call me?"
Astra chuckled inwardly.
"This reminds me of when I was naming Astraia…"
With a smile, Astra had opened her mouth to say the words:
"Mia."