Samie Sands - Through Space and Time

“Argh!”

Someone, or something, screamed so loudly it seemed to shake the entire time and space traveling vortex. It raced passed Raegan, hurting her somehow as it went, but she didn’t get a chance to glance at what it could be. Probably some horrible spell Hali had sent after her. At least it’d missed. Of course, it did make her dread what she’d find at the other side… perhaps there’d be something waiting for her.

She hit the ground hard, landing far too much on her head for her liking, causing her vision to blur for a few moments too long. She grappled around, needing a weapon to protect her from whatever she might be about to face here. Being at a disadvantage already wasn’t what she wanted.

A guttural yelling sound exploded, so loudly Raegan had to block her ears from it. It was too much for her, especially with this headache she’d started to develop.

“Hali!” That name made her blood run cold; her body turn to ice. “Hali, no…!”

Finally, she could see, and what she found was too hard to process. A creature, a bit like the demons drawn on Earth, with their snarly faces, horns, and extremely ugly appearances, had a fire tearing from his fingers and he was burning the witch to pieces.

Raegan wasn’t sure if she should be grateful since Hali had tried to destroy her to keep Miguel, or sad because despite all of her bad points, she had saved their lives…

Or perhaps she was meant to be afraid since those flickering flames were undoubtedly coming her way next.

Instead, she felt nothing. She was just… empty.

“She will not be in pain for long.”

Raegan jumped as the wispy voice tickled her ear. “Huh?”

“She is a witch, and one with evil intentions. We cannot have beings with evil intentions here.”

The voice came from a beautiful, ethereal, angel-type being. The complete opposite to the beast with the fire. If Raegan had to define this place, it’d be like Heaven and Hell all in one.

“What… what do you mean?”

The smell was becoming unbearable as Hali burned to a crisp. It took all that Raegan had not to vomit everywhere.

“You are safe, as is your friend. There are no evil intentions within you.”

She gulped and nodded; silence overcame her.

“You are uncomfortable, I can see that. I will take you with me.”

Her feet lifted from the ground before she could argue—not that she intended to. She believed what this angelic creature was telling her, but she still feared that demon coming after her next.

“What’s going on?” Miguel whispered with an obvious tremor in his voice.

“I don’t know.”

Raegan held out her hand to him and he took it. As their fingers interlaced, an intense warmth filled her body. Of everything that scared her, all she couldn’t trust, she had one person here who she could put her full faith in.

How he ended here with her didn’t matter, she’d never allow him to go again.

Eventually, they landed in a cloud-like spot with angelic presences surrounding them. No demons, thank goodness.

“Why have you come to this plane?” the presence who’d rescued them asked.

“We came through the exit hole of another planet. We didn’t know this was where we’d end up.”

“Exit hole? Does that mean…? Has it begun already?”

“Begun?” Raegan glanced at Miguel to see her confusion mirrored on his face.

“The prophecy is coming true. The world to destroy what has always been, will rise and rule. ”

“What does that mean?”

“How was the hole torn in time and space?”

“A nuclear war… on our planet. Earth.” Raegan felt the need to explain, just in case.

“Yet, you survived.”

“It isn’t just us. There are many.”

The presence extended her arms wide. “The ones who live, have survived for a reason.”

“A reason?”

“To rule?”

“No way.” Raegan shook her head emphatically. “Humans cannot rule anything. We’re too imperfect. We couldn’t even look after our own planet. We can’t even find one another now…”

“You are all on your own journey for a reason. It has been predetermined.”

“Predetermined? But how can humans’ rule? That makes no sense, we have no powers, no magic, no nothing… plus, as shown in the past, humans easily get drunk on power so make stupid mistakes, ruining everything.”

“Mistakes to learn from. Written, so it will happen.”

Raegan gave Miguel a doubtful look. Even though she’d seen enough not to have a closed mind, this pushed her too far.

“Where is it written?”

That would answer all her questions. If this was reality or just some crazy trick. While she couldn’t work out what this being would get out of tricking her, that made more sense than some prophecy that put humans, and their nuclear war which wrecked everything, on top.

“I can show you.” She lifted them from their feet once more. “I will take you to the prophecy and you can see for yourself. The next step towards a brand-new era where the universe and everything within it will be so much better.”

That seemed doubtful with humans in charge! But it didn’t matter how many times Raegan tried to explain that, the presence wouldn’t listen.

It didn’t matter how many times Raegan read the ancient text; the words didn’t change. They still said and meant the same thing… even if it did feel impossible.

“I don’t get it, Miguel,” she shook her head confused. “This can’t be right. There is no way humans can be in charge of anything. We wrecked our own world; we shouldn’t be able to look after ourselves…”

“But we can learn,” Miguel insisted, much more taken in by the prophecy than Raegan was. “We have learned. The people left behind now aren’t the ones who started the war.”

“Okay, fine.” She rolled her eyes. “Say we have learned our lesson, then fine. But what about everything else.”

“Everything else?”

“Think of all we’ve seen on this journey. All the magic, the beasts, the danger… we’re the weak ones. No one would ever want to listen to us, no matter what’s written, so we don’t stand a chance.”

Miguel enjoyed the fire in every single word exploding out of Raegan’s mouth like bullets. He didn’t agree with her, but that wasn’t the point.

“This isn’t really something we need to worry about right now anyway,” he deflected, trying to cool her down. “We just need to worry about getting back to Earth…”

“We can’t ignore things like this. We can’t leave it for other people to deal with. That’s one of the main human faults and it hasn’t ever worked out well before. Think of global warming. Everyone decided to leave it for future generations to deal with, so no one did anything.”

“It didn’t end the world though.”

“No.” She shot Miguel an ice-cold look. “But only because we blew the planet up first.”

“But that’s all here in the prophecy book, so I guess it was meant to happen.”

“Now we’re believing in fate rather than fact?” Raegan threw her hands in the air in frustration. “Because fate takes the blame off the old rules of Earth.”

“So, what you’re trying to say is we need to be careful with our new rulers? Especially if we’re going to rule everything?”

“I don’t know what I’m trying to say…”