You're Not Alone

Close Encounter

It was a pleasant morning. Chelsea planned to drive Frisca around the neighbourhood in her Bugatti veyron. It was Frisca’s third day in this mystical time period. She had borrowed an unused diary from Chelsea and had commenced writing down all the events that had occurred, while Chelsea drove smoothly on the elevated roads. She mentioned everything about the new world that she hoped to tell Tori someday. Every second she saw something new and exciting on the street, she would imagine the look on Tori’s face and feel thrilled. She couldn’t wait to tell him where she had been, but that was possible only if she could find a way to get back home sooner.

Letting her hair loose, she began writing about the people she had befriended in the new world. She started with koru, in reality, he was an unidentified spirit trapped in a cat’s body, but for the world, he masqueraded as a mischievous demon spirit that loitered in the city, nobody knew his secret except for him alone. According to him, he used to be the most feared demon by all, that’s what he claimed when Frisca probed him into revealing a bit about himself. He never told her about how he got into a cat’s body, all he ever told her was, that she would come to know about it in time.  Frisca wasn’t aware of the number of demons that were present in this dimension. The only ones that she had seen up till now were Koru and the snake demon. Shaking her mind off the horrible nightmare she had last night, she sketched the cat’s figure at the corner and then went on to write about Magmus.

He was the only person apart from Chelsea, whom she felt comfortable with though it had hardly been three days since she had known him. He was the chief security officer of the museum, who looked after the security of the museum from his office cabin in the basement, hence she never saw him much on the floor. He would either sit alone before a hundred security screens or spend his time with Vlade in the conference room.

No sooner she wrote the word Vlade, she scribbled it off to her heart’s content. She was still mad at him though she knew it was her fault in the first place. “I shouldn’t have sneaked up there, but then his behaviour towards me is not at all justified. How can he be so rude?” She wondered and kept debating in her mind as to who was wrong and who was right before Chelsea distracted her.

“Hey, would you like to stop here? It’s one of my favourite spots outside the city,” Chelsea said and hopped off the car.

Letting the wind tease he hair, Frisca closed the diary and followed Chelsea reluctantly, She had brought her away from the main city and pulled over near a serene cliff. Heading towards the edge, Chelsea screamed out her name as loudly as she could. Frisca walked towards her in amusement, as she struggled against the wind that was adamant on blowing away her scar. As she came and stood beside her, she noticed how picturesque the scene was. Much to her amazement, the whole city looked like it had popped out of a science- fiction movie. Frisca stood there admiring the city, practical yet artistic, equipped with all the advanced technologies and amenities that people of her time period could only dream of. When her eyes felt content, she turned and found a cosy spot on a rock slab. Chelsea, however, stood there spreading her arms out wide and gestured Frisca to do the same.

She was the typical fun-loving person that everyone loved to be around with, excluding Vlade. Laughing at Chelsea’s goofy antics, she opened the diary again and flipped through the pages, as she wondered what to write about her.

“Frisca, say you’re a bird!” Chelsea shouted from the edge and faced her.

“I’m not a bird!” Frisca shouted back and laughed at how she danced around waving her hands as if she were a bird.

“Don’t be such a spoilt sport, say you’re a bird,” she shouted again and went running towards her like a kid.

"Alright I’m a bird,” Frisca exclaimed and shielded her face with the diary, just in case Chelsea fell over her.

“Hey, what are you writing about?” she suddenly asked Frisca as she sat beside the rock and reclined on the fresh blades of grass.

“My experience in this time period,” Frisca sighed said and closed the diary.

“Interesting, so you’re writing your future? Like an Almanac!” she smiled and turned on her side.

“An Almanac, Uh... Yes, you can call it that,” Frisca replied and realised how strange it felt to write her own future rather than writing down her present like other normal people her age, but then the future was indeed her present, at least for the time being as such.

“So then would you help me fill my Almanac? You could start with telling me more about you,” Frisca shifted her gaze from the diary and stared at Chelsea in earnest.

“Hmm like what?” she enquired and raised an eyebrow suspiciously.

“Hmm…like what you did before you joined the museum, and where’s your family?” Frisca tried coming out with questions for her and waited patiently as Chelsea went into deep thoughts.

“Ha-ha... an interview, I’m game for it,” she laughed and willingly explained all her background details.

As Chelsea narrated, Frisca found out a lot about her, at least most of it. Chelsea was a graduate, a year senior to Frisca who had completed her high school. She had left her home town to study in the city and land herself a good job. Much to Frisca’s surprise, she was a trained ballet dancer too. No wonder she pranced around all the time like a ballerina. She was free-spirited and did not care a damn for the world. She was the youngest in her family. Apart from her mother and father, she had two elder brothers and a sister. Chelsea told her that she joined the museum only because the pay package was enough to fulfil her dreams of opening a ballet school in her home town.

After Frisca filled in all the details, she began flipping the pages out of habit. That’s when Chelsea sat upright and smiled. “Hey did you sketch Koru?” she enquired and stopped her from flipping the pages further.

“Yes, I know it looks more like a lump, right?” Frisca cringed, trying to keep the diary away from her reach. But Chelsea pulled it from her and randomly went through the pages as Frisca brutally bit her lower lip.

“Wow, you’re really good at this!” Chelsea exclaimed in delight, as she traced her finger on Koru’s caricature.

“Nah, you’re just being polite. I suck at this,” Frisca frowned and tried to take the diary back from her.

“What’s the hurry, you haven’t written any secrets in here, have you?" Chelsea enquired teasingly and raised her brows.

“No...I don’t have any secrets as such,” Frisca replied as she fixed her eyes on the diary.

“Ha-ha…I know what you scribbled on this page,” Chelsea winked and pointed at a messy spot on the page.

Frisca wrinkled her nose and ignored her by facing away. Chelsea noticed the change and giggled. “He isn’t that bad. I have known him for two years. He does carry himself with pride and arrogance though, and his sarcasm really gets on my nerve sometimes, but then you can’t possibly fail to fall for his hot looks, can you?” She teased and ran her fingers through her wavy hair.

“Please, you’re boring me now…” Frisca sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Sigh! Don’t you find him interesting?” she quizzed her further.

“Nope, but I guess you do, why don’t you date him?” Frisca made a face and questioned her back.

“Are you crazy, Iona would poison me if she were to hear that!” Chelsea grabbed her own neck and played dead.

“Vlade had a girlfriend, eh! I wondered how she tolerates his attitude. I salute her for her patience, whoever she is,” She said and tried changing the topic since she really didn't feel like talking about Vlade at the moment.

“Chelsea, are there really more demons like Koru in this time period?” She asked her, while she read what she had written about her.

“Maybe!” Chelsea murmured and continued reading.

“Are they present around us?”  Frisca asked her hesitantly and stared at her intently as she thought about the nightmare she had seen.

“Maybe, but why are you asking me about this?” Chelsea closed the diary and scratched her nose. She felt uncomfortable that Frisca had brought the subject of demons again.

“Hmm...I was just wondering, If there were really scary and powerful demons, then wouldn’t this world be a dangerous place to live in.” Frisca paused and waited for her reply.

“Ha-ha... Well, the world isn’t a dangerous place because, of people like me,” She replied confidently and glanced at her in excitement.

“What do you mean?” Frisca crunched her brows and enquired suspiciously.

“I’m after all a De...De…” Chelsea stuttered and stopped abruptly before standing up.

“A De- De- what?” Frisca asked her as she tried making a mental map of what Chelsea had tried to say.

“De-ing, I’m dying to eat something, yes that’s what I was saying, Cough!” Chelsea changed her words immediately and broke into a sweat.

She suddenly turned tensed, as if she had committed a big crime. She avoided Frisca’s questioning gaze and headed towards her car, while Frisca stood there looking at her in confusion. As she hastily got in and started the engine she called out to her hurriedly.

“Aren’t you coming” she shouted and gestured her to get in fast.

Frisca however, just stood there trying to figure out what Chelsea was hiding from her. For a second, she imagined that Chelsea was trying to tell her that she was a demon too. Just, the thought of it scared the living daylights out of her. “Is Chelsea a demon too?” She bit her lower lip in nervousness and gulped as Chelsea kept honking.

Shaking her mind off that scary thought, she walked back towards the car. They finally headed back to the main city through the subway, where Frisca saw the electronic boards placed above the roads. It monotonously kept directing and guiding the vehicles, including theirs, as to where they should head next. Chelsea pressed an icon on the monitor that was placed on the dashboard of her car. The moment she did that the electronic boards on the road flashed the words "Turn Left," and her car automatically turned towards the left, before taking them to another road.

“We will stop at Burrito’s Dinner for lunch, okay” Chelsea said as she saw an eatery at a distance ahead.

Frisca sighed and just gazed out of the window in silence. As they passed the houses and stores on their way, Frisca’s eyes suddenly fell on a hospital. The hospital she saw, looked quite familiar to her. She forced Chelsea to bring the car to an abrupt halt, for she had a feeling, that she had seen the hospital before. As soon as Chelsea did as she said, Frisca got out of the car and raced straight towards the entrance.

“Frisca, wait. What’s wrong with you?” Chelsea protested from behind as she tried to catch up.

“I know this place! I’ve seen it before,” Frisca said and entered, without caring to see if Chelsea was following her or not.

“Girl, we can’t possibly have lunch here,” Chelsea frowned and ran after her.

On entering then reception area, Frisca wasn’t surprised to see the same scene manifesting before her like the nightmare she had seen last night. The ambience sent her back in thoughts, as she saw a doctor and nurse running upstairs in haste.

“Doc, she never showed those signs before.” The nurse panicked as she briefed the doctor about a particular patient.

Frisca heard the nurse briefing him before they both disappeared from her view. She knew what was going to happen next and therefore ran after them. It was more like she was reliving her nightmare. She got all scary thoughts that she could think of at the moment as she followed them upstairs. “Was it true that there was a demon?” she thought, for she knew what was coming next, but why was she running? she could not stop it anyway. “Why I still feel that I should be there?” she argued in her mind until she reached the passage.

She stopped and gasped to catch a breath, as she saw the doors close behind the doctor and the nurse. Her heart was pounding. She could hear the painful screams coming out from the patient’s room as she stood at a safe distance. As expected it was the same room where she had seen in her nightmare.

“Francesca!” a familiar voice called out to her.

Frisca turned in confusion to see who had taken her name. It was then that she noticed Vlade. He was standing in front of her with a heavy briefcase in hand. Avoiding his gaze, she noticed Chelsea coming in the opposite direction and stopping right behind him. Frisca was about to say something when Magmus grabbed everyone’s attention.

“Everything is under control!” Magmus announced as he came out of the patient’s room, gently pushing the doctor and nurse away from the place of action.

It came as a big surprise to her when she saw Magmus and Vlade in the hospital. She was quite sure they weren’t present in her nightmare, but all were proved wrong when Vlade looked at her and pointed towards the room behind her. I felt like de-ja-vu for Frisca, since she recollected having seen a person who had done exactly the same thing before. “So it was Vlade after all…” she dropped her jaw after realising that Vlade was the stranger whom she had seen in her nightmare. All this felt very strange to her. She was under the impression that she had only dreamt it, but now it was actually happening right before her eyes.

“Frisca, Chelsea, what are y’all doing here?” Magmus suddenly asked them in astonishment and snapped Frisca out of her thoughts.

“Let’s discuss this latter, shall we?” Vlade interrupted and gestured Magmus to follow him back inside the patient’s room.

Frisca watched in confusion as they both entered the room and closed the door behind them. She felt Chelsea pulling her towards the corner of the passage, “Frisca, come let’s go home” she said and told her to head back home, but Frisca was hell-bent on staying and watching what would happen next.

 “Chelsea, what’s happening inside? Is it something serious? Why did they go in place of the doctors?” she demanded an explanation from here and crunched her brows. However, before Chelsea could open her mouth to speak, they were distracted by a loud growl that escaped from within the room. The growl was strong and powerful. It vibrated the windows and lamps in the passage where they stood. Frisca looked at Chelsea with questions in her eyes. “I need to know!” She whispered as Chelsea finally decided to slip the beans.

“Fine, wait and watch,” she said and stood with her hands resting on her hips.

It wasn’t long before Frisca heard a heavy thing bang against the wall, twice. The noise was deafening, she felt like the hospital would collapse into rubbles any moment with the amount of disturbance taking place inside.

Magmus was the first one to come crashing out the door. Like a human canon, he fell and landed at her feet.

“Magmus!” she cried out his name, but he seemed pretty cool about it as if he were used to such things.

“Not now kid, I’ve got to put her in place!” he replied and walked back into the room which was covered in a red mist. Frisca couldn’t see clearly as the red mist, blurred her vision. She stared blankly at the room which strangely fell silent all of a sudden.

A piercing cry escaped through the room followed by a terribly ugly demon that barged out in its true form. This demon was a Reaping Jack which looked like a big bird. It was red with a vertical slit for eyes spread across its chest. The skin looked rough and thick as armour, with cuts and bruises over its feet. The demon’s bloodshot eyes fell on Frisca, as she merely stood there witnessing the same demon she had seen in her nightmare. Letting out a cry, it snapped and raised its front legs to attack her. Vlade predicted the demon’s moves and immediately dragged it back. A screeching noise echoed in the passage, as the demon scratched the floor with its claws. Vlade wrestled with the demon before overturning it with his bare hands.

“Quick!” Vlade ordered Magmus as he pinned demon against the floor by holding its neck firmly.

Where demons usually struggled during operations such as these, this particular Reaping Jack, laid still and slowly transformed into a human figure. Frisca gasped and noticed how the thick armour skin was gradually being replaced by soft, fair and delicate skin. The bird-like face disappeared and got replaced by a gorgeous lady's face. Frisca stared in amazement as she watched a demon transforming into a lady right before her eyes.

The Reaping Jack smiled and looked into Vlade’s eyes with desire. It would have been a shame to refuse those eyes, but Vlade very well knew that it was all but a trick to escape his clutches. He tightened his grip on her neck and snarled as Magmus  put on his dark shades.

“Will you hurry!” Vlade shouted at Magmus since he was taking longer than usual.

Magmus smirked and rolled up his sleeves before revealing his robotic arm. It was at that second that Frisca realised who Magmus really was. He was a cyborg with an arm that worked equally good as a cannon.

“You have been a bad girl,” he said and balled his robotic fist over her.

Before Frisca realised what would happen next a bright ball of light passed through his hand and erupted as soon as he released it. “Move!” he alerted Vlade, who rolled away from the demon and crouched on the floor.

The Reaping Jack screamed, as the bright ball of light illuminated the whole passage, consuming everything around it. Chelsea brought her hands over Frisca’s eyes to protect her from the harmful light that could blind anyone in its path.

“Close it.” She advised her and shut her eyes as well as they turned away from the demon.

Frisca couldn’t see anything further, all she heard was a loud cry and some cuss from the demon’s end before everything fell silent.

“Our job is done here,” Frisca heard Vlade's sharp tone that broke the silence in the passage.

Chelsea released her hands over her eyes and ran towards Vlade in anger. “Why wasn’t I informed about this? I thought we were a team,” she questioned Vlade as he stared at the remains of the demon. The demon by now was nothing but a pile of ash on the passage floor. Vlade ignored Chelsea and walked past her. However, he stopped beside Frisca and ordered, “You're coming with me.” 

With a start, she looked at him, while he walked till the other end of the passage, before descending the stairs. Who were these people? Was she meant to believe everything that happened here? She saw the ashes of the demon and then realised that she was not just stuck in the future, but in something beyond her wildest imagination.