Today was a very special day for a very special someone. Today, a certain someone will experience something special. Today, someone will realise the difference between grief and torture. Today_
"Okay! I get it!". Orette stomped her feet to check whether the shoes she was wearing were comfortable. Even if they weren't, she had no place to complain.
She gave herself a good look in the mirror to see whether she was impressed with what she was wearing.
A tight black high-neck shirt with black trousers. Her hair was still braided as it was before. The only difference was that her arms were not fully covered, and something about that made her uncomfortable.
"What if he sends me to the North Pole in this?" Orette whispered to herself, "I'm gonna freeze to death." She fixes her glasses at a right angle.
With another good look at the mirror, Orette excused herself from the room and made her way to the seventh floor.
Not to her surprise, Ivan was already in there while tapping his cane against the floor.
"Seriously, why does he do that?" Orette mutterd to herself.
Ivan takes one step back before he scans Orette from a fixed distance. His eyes were skimming every part of her body.
"It's creepy," Orette said loud and clear.
"You look weak," Ivan said without holding a second.
"Thanks for letting me know." Orette said as she took a few steps forward, "I had no idea."
"Save the sarcasm, you will need it more when we reach the hunting ground." Ivan turns away from Orette and walks forward to an empty room ahead.
"I thought this was a training session." Orette walked behind him. "What's this you speak of, hunting ground?"
"Oh, you will know", He said as he tapped his cane against the ground. "You will soon know." He whispered under his breath.
Orette gave him an annoying look. A certain part of her brain told her to stop taking it seriously, but she knew it wasn't going to be as easy as it was going to be.
Her thoughts stopped immediately when, all of a sudden, there was a mix of small black matter evolving in the centre of the wall. It started to grow more and more, at an increasing speed, that is.
Orette turned to look from where this matter was coming from. Her attention went to Ivan's cane. She saw small black liquid oozing out from the bottom of his cane.
For a second, she thought what it was, but then her attention went to the wall she had just faced recently. The white painted wall in front of her turned black as the liquid began to spread more and more.
"What is this?". She muttered a question to Ivan, to which he smoothly ignored.
The sudden black wall in front of them, overflowing with black liquid, didn't spread much ahead.
Ivan steps at the centre of the wall, with Orette just beside him. He comes closer and flicks his middle finger at the centre and chants, "Deform".
Orette saw a wonder she never would have imagined.
In a millisecond, the black liquid on the wall was now a crack on the wall. Not just any crack, but a crack that leads a door to another place.
"Is that another dimension?" Orette asked as if she were a little kid.
The place ahead of the crack was a vast land with dark blue sky and black grass. The sky embroidered with stars and the land stitched with blue fireflies, Orette knew a place like this did not exist in her world.
"Zero zero zero (000)." Ivan finally spoke to her without averting his gaze, "Welcome to the void."
___________________________ .☘︎ ݁˖ ___________________________ [1]
"This is amazing," Orette said as she took her first step on the black gresse grass. She turned her head in circles to admire the beauty of what she couldn't have imagined.
Floating landscapes, trees larger than buildings, and the sky home to illuminating creatures, which Orette believed belonged on water.
Ivan walked past her, leading her to his path. Orette walked behind him, still mesmerised by what she saw.
"Are those fish?" Orette pointed at a yellow, illuminating creature floating in the sky. "How are they able to float up there?"
Ivan casually ignores her. He drags his path to a near dense forestry with trees thinner than a wooden pine.
Ahead of them was a small cave hidden beneath the rocks that Ivan removed with his cane.
"How did you come to find me?", Orette asked, attempting to break the silence.
Obviously, Ivan ignored her again and dragged his path to an end, opening the cave where they were met with a huge empty meadow.
Orette finally met the wind as it struck her, cooling her face and dancing her hair.
She took a deep breath and said, "So, this is it?", She turned to Ivan who still showed her his back. "What's gonna happen now?"
Ivan says nothing. He doesn't turn to look at her and doesn't even bother to move and flinch; instead, his eyes are taken by the illuminating purple moon, which shone brightly, catching the clusters surrounding it.
"That's not like the moon I would know." Orette now stands beside Ivan, "It more looks like a planet, you know, since it has some sort of ring surrounding it."
"It has two rings." Ivan finally speaks, "A thicker one and a small thinner one, which isn't visible from this distance."
"I seeeee." Orette drags her feet towards him, "So!" she says excitedly, "What's on the menu?- and by that I mean the sophisticated training you have in mind."
For a second, Ivan views her with his cold blue eyes. Yet he hasn't taken control of his syrium; it's hard to see he has. And that gave him the advantage he needed.
"You want to start now?" He asks a simple question to which Orette found himself dumbfounded.
"I mean, isn't that why you brought me here?" She says in return.
Ivan again looked at her and averted his gaze. "Yes, that's exactly why I've brought you here."
Ivan didn't look back at her and kept walking forward. The wind howled beside him, dragging his white lab coat along with it.
"So when do we start!" Orette's enthusiasm flooded the air, to which Ivan replied as he tapped his cane with might.
"Now".
[1] Use it when needed to separate settings or points of view.