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I looked up and saw a figure of a woman staring straight at me, created by blue and black sand. The woman looked oddly familiar but I couldn’t recall where I’d seen her.

“I need to get out of here,” the woman started to beg. “You need to help me get out of here.”

“I…I….I don’t know how,” I whispered back. My fear meant I couldn’t speak any louder. .

The woman turned around as if something was behind her, or coming for her and she disappeared with a scream that jolted through my being. The scream faded after the image was gone and I could still hear it echoing off the walls into silence. All the hair on my arms and back of my neck stood straight.

Another image appeared. It was a happy one. One that slightly resembled the images of my life with Mom and Tim. The woman inside of them was beautiful. Pure white blonde hair fell over her shoulders and bounced off her back as she was running and laughing. She was happy and I could feel happiness again. The emotion was that strong. The woman kept glancing over her shoulder back at me, as if I chased her.

A small chuckle escaped my lips and then the woman stopped running. She was on alert.

I felt fear again. Something was about to happen and neither of us liked it. The woman ran again, I followed, and then the image froze as the woman glanced around back at me.

I stared at her face and waited for what evil it was going to bring. The woman’s face burned like a picture being lit with fire.

A dead body lying on the grass, the same woman screaming in agony. Men, all dressed in some exquisite type of robe emerged from all around her. She tried to explain but they didn’t listen. They kept reading her some sort of law, judging her while she tried to explain. She saw a figure, I couldn’t see who that figure was, it was blocked by the men; the figure said something to her, but I didn’t hear a peep. I could tell by the woman’s face that someone was speaking to her, making this beautiful woman realize what was happening, realize her fate as she just sat there with tears rolling over her betrayed face. I knew that look, I still carried it myself, and struggled to deal with it.

The emotion froze her face. I felt it too. She was innocent and these people weren’t going to listen. Darkness filled my gut and it occupied my entire core as if this woman and I were connected and that they were reading me my rights.

I watched the woman standing up, as black sand emerged from her eyes, ears, mouth, and hands. It consumed me and I couldn’t breathe again. It felt as if it wanted to coax out my own darkness inside of me.

I closed my eyes and remembered what Mom said about the darkness and what it was I had to do when I felt scared or angry. It was dark emotions that would make the black sand appear. Something I couldn’t let happen as it would mean they would chuck me in Oblivion and throw away the key.

I was there once and if it hadn’t been for Leigh, I would have never found my way home, back to reality.

“Breathe, Chastity!” Mom’s voice ordered me. The command was so clear and so loud, it felt like it was going to break my skull.

The pain in my head made me scream again and I fell down onto my knees with my hands clutching my head.

“Calm down, baby. You can do this.”

I tried to listen to Mom’s soothing tone, a memory, as there was no way that Mom was inside this darkness.

My scream turned into a grunt. I ground on my teeth hard, while praying for this stab in my mind to vanish.

Everything suddenly stopped. I gasped as if the air in this darkness was gone. I tapped hard on my chest, with huge eyes, huge teary eyes and wondered when my life was going to flash by, or did that already happen?

Was I busy dying, or worse, was I already dead?

I fell over and hit my head hard on the surface.

The darkness crept all around me, sound became hollow and then everything became quiet. If it hadn’t been clear a minute ago, it was crystal clear now. I was busy dying, this time for real and nobody was going to free me from this nightmare, I wasn’t going to wake up and find myself back in some grey room, not this time. My life of seventeen short years was over.

The sound of footsteps rushed through the floor. They were far off but they were coming for me. Whether they were going to get to me in time, I doubted that. My heartbeat started to slow down, doom, doom, doom, doom, … doom …doom …doom …………doom…….doom ………doom.

Everything went black.

IF THERE WAS AN AFTERLIFE IT WAS DARK. IT WAS nothing and empty.

I didn’t like this one bit, and the thought of Oblivion didn’t sound so bad anymore. At least there were hounds created by shadows wanting to kill me and a dilapidated world with a sick rotting smell lingering in the air. It meant that I was still alive, even if it was in Oblivion, but this, this was different.

I wanted to go out of my mind, but couldn’t. I didn’t need air anymore, I couldn’t smell, see or even feel anything, and the worst of it was I couldn’t hear a sound.

It was a sickening place and one I really didn’t want to be in for eternity.

Hours of nothing ticked by, no thoughts, no memories, I tried but it seemed I couldn’t remember what memories or thoughts were. I’d never felt so invisible, never felt so unworthy.

Then a jolt of pain hit my chest. It was extremely painful but I welcomed it. It was better than the nothingness I’d been experiencing. Another jolt and then a voice shouted in the distance. It became louder and louder until I sucked in breath. My lungs burned as I jolted up right.

“Deep breaths, Chastity.”

I looked at him crouching next to me. Tears were close as my stomach twisted and turned. I moved on all fours and a form of bile came from my mouth. It spilled on the floor. It was dark, and looked like tar.

A pair of hands held my hair back and I closed my eyes as a strong sulphur smell filled my nostrils.

“It’s going to be okay. What the hell happened?” Leigh asked. I glanced at him from underneath my eyelashes and before I could help myself I flung my arms around him.

“Thank you.”

Leigh’s arm folded over my body. Being this close to him, feeling his warmth made whatever had happened, bearable.

“Chastity, what happened?” he asked again, using a gentle tone.

“I don’t know,” I muttered into his chest as I broke the hug. “The door was there but something blocked my path and it took me straight through another.” My head turned sideways. We weren’t in the same dark place anymore, but it was just as bad. It was a small room, slightly lit and a feeling of needing to cry out emerged in my chest. Leigh was here, at least that was some sort of reassurance and I took a huge breath trying to push the horrible feeling of never escaping whatever this was to the back of my mind. I looked back at Leigh, and our eyes found each other. I really liked his dark brown eyes, I felt safe whenever I looked at them, I felt hope.

He on the other hand, looked relieved and he blew out some air.

I squinted. “How….did you find me?”

“It’s a long story and one we don’t have time for right now. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

I looked around again. There was no door or window. “Where are we?” My heart still beat fast but not as fast as it had been a couple of seconds ago.

“It’s called the Guile. It’s a world where all the bad things in Revera’s history replay themselves. Some were unjust, where others, were simply horrifying. Usually Casters die, and Shadow Casters emerge from there stronger. You’re lucky you almost died and not the other way around. The only way a Caster gets out of there is if they are dark, powerful or inside a body bag.

I remembered what Mom said about Leigh, needing to be powerful in order to appear inside my Initiation dream like he had. “We should leave, preferably now, if that is okay with you?”

“Sure, so what do we do, say a magic word and “poof” we’re out of here? ‘Cause I hate to break it to you, there is no door.”

Leigh chuckled softly. “Watch and learn.” He winked and cupped his hands in front of his chest. When he closed his eyes bright, golden dust emerged from his hands. It started to grow brighter and brighter, so much so that it hurt my eyes.

Then it reached a peak and a bright bluish white light exploded from his hands and filled the entire room. Figures of white birds flew in the colored mist. A unicorn galloped past me, and stood on his hind legs. His mane flew backwards as if in the path of a strong wind, and it whinnied. I jumped as a pack of white wolves howled softly in the distance and ran past me. It was simply breathtakingly gorgeous and something I would never be able to put into words. Not that I wanted to because it would surely win me a straitjacket and a white room.

Leigh nodded at the wall behind me. “There’s your way out, take it.”

I turned around and where there’d been just wall a couple of minutes ago, an old wooden door with a rusty knob stood in its place. My head jumped back to Leigh as I realized what he’d just said. “Wait, you’re not coming?”

He smiled. “Another long story Chas, one I know you are dying to find out. Now go. The door isn’t going to stay there for long.”

I stared at him for a couple of seconds.

“Go!”

Shaking myself from the trance, I couldn’t help but wonder why he kept showing up when I needed him, but I was grateful. “Thanks, again.”

He smiled as I turned around and rushed to the door. I opened it, scared that it was going to disappear, and stepped through.

“Oh, don’t forget to suck in your breath.”

He shouted that advice a bit too late. The air was thin once more, and it felt as if someone had pulled the air from my lungs with a syringe. I didn’t notice that there wasn’t a floor and fell into nothing once again. The world around me twirled again and I was spinning literally out of control, tumbling and diving head first into whatever was down below, but it was the least of my problems. I couldn’t breathe and found my hands clasped around my throat, wishing for a tinge of relief, but nothing came.

My lungs felt on fire and not being able to breathe brought out my worst fear once again: The Guile.

Dizziness clouded my mind, and just like that, everything stopped as I landed with a thud on the floor.

Air filled my lungs and I started to cough uncontrollably while trying to gasp for more.

“She’s here!” Fox yelled with relief close by. The bottom of her white leather coat was moving fast toward where I lay. She crouched down as I still tried to regain myself. “What the hell happened?”

I coughed a couple more times before I could even think about speaking, which I didn’t. My body was trembling from either shock or fear, I wasn’t sure which.

I stared at Fox and I knew my nightmare was over. Tears filled my eyes. I didn’t have to say anything other than that, the tears did the work and Fox understood. She wrapped her arms around me and covered me completely.

“Can I please just go home?”

Fox stared at me with concern. “Chas,” her voice was gentle. “You are home.”

Tom paced up and down a small smelly room that looked like it used to be some sort of cleaning closet that held supplies. He kept glaring at me, waiting for the answer he wanted to hear.

Clearly, lying about what had happened was not going to get me out of this mess I’d found myself in, once again, not by my doing.

“I told you taking the back road through the basement was a mistake,” Fox said with a slight ‘I-told-you-so’ tone in her voice. Cowboy John leaned against the wall by the door with crossed arms, still chewing on a piece of straw. His hat almost covered his eyes as he just stared at the floor.

Tom gave Fox a look of warning and glanced back at me sceptically. “How did you get out of the Guile, Chastity?”

“I wasn’t alone.” I didn’t know if I was supposed to even mention Leigh.

“What do you mean, you weren’t alone?” Fox asked.

“Do we really have to do this now?” John asked with irritation lacing his tone. “She just escaped the fucking Guile, alive. If you ask me, Leigh probably showed up or something.” John turned around, opened the door and stepped through. I felt as if I could kiss him right now, except he was old, so not my type and I still felt like crap. But I was grateful that he’d mentioned Leigh’s name.

“Leigh showed up?” Fox asked.

I nodded. “I wasn’t sure if I should mention him or not.”

Tom grunted, and Henry hooted as if he enjoyed Tom’s foul mood. Tom turned on his heel and walked through the door Cowboy John had taken, with Henry still sitting on his arm.

Fox took me gently by the hand, which still shook slightly from what I’d just experienced and followed the men. We exited into another hallway, this time it looked like one of the hallways you would find in an old hotel. It had red carpet, walls with golden crests printed on them and old wooden wall frames that really needed some tender loving care. At least it wasn’t dark anymore and a bright light lit up the entire hallway.

“So I take it that Leigh is not a figment of my imagination?”

Fox laughed. “No, he’s not, but he’s not entirely real either.”

My head snapped up at Fox who was slightly taller than me. “He’s not real?”

Fox smiled sweetly. “He’s a Jumper.”