Legend of the Tahri

Chapter 1

My pulse. The first thing I hear. Closely followed by the breath that slowly flows in and out of me. A shiver. The first thing I feel. But what I have an even stronger feeling of is the way too fast, deafening rhythm of my heartbeat. Dust fills my lungs, but I'm not able to cough. It is as if every last bit of air has been squeezed out of my lungs and I'm suffocating although I am breathing. Something is wrong. The air is different, drier, oppressive. I shoot up. The skydive. This has all really happened. For a moment, the glaring sunlight blinds me and I squeeze my eyes back shut. Slowly, I start blinking so that my eyes get used to the light again. I don't know where I am and even less do I know, what to do now. It is silent, everything around me seems to have stopped. Nothing moves, not even the cloud of dust around me. Everything I hear and feel is myself: The blood rushing through my ears, the throbbing in my temples, my breath.

Subconsciously I search my surroundings for anything familiar. Nothing. I am sitting on a dusty clay court, not even 20 meters away from a huge estate. And although I can only see the back of it, it seems like one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. Right next to it is a narrow path. Where does it lead to? My gaze falls back onto the sandstone-colored house. Trees gently frame it, this seems to be a forest clearing.

I rub my temple and try to get rid of the stabbing headache when I notice some movement at the backdoor: A bunch of people come into sight and approach me. The slow motion seems to be lifted, the dust around me settles and a light breeze brushes past my cheek. I hear distant cars, a few birds, and of course the voices. The group seems to consist only of men, I can't see a single woman. Only when they get closer, I realize that they can't be that much older than me. My guess is that they are all under 25...

I take off the safety goggles. Or at least I try to. But my hands reach into the empty. They are gone, simply disappeared. Surprised I look myself down. The onesie is gone, too. I am sitting on the ground in my regular clothes. Strange...

The men talk about something, laugh, get closer. Just the one walking up front doesn't take part in the conversation. He simply stares at me, with a cold gaze out of incredibly dark eyes.

They stop right in front of me and the conversation dies out. I lift my - despite the warm air – icy-cold hand to run it through my dusty hair, which is barely held together by a hair tie at the far bottom, and eye them.

One can't exactly describe the aura that they bring with them as rainbow-sparkled. In fact, my gut feeling screams at me to get up as fast as I can and run for the hills. But something keeps me paralyzed.

"God, no..." I mutter under my breath.

One of the men says with a ropy sounding voice: "Alright, and who do we have here?"

My mind is completely blank, but that feeling of having to disappear from here grows into infinity. My body doesn't move a single millimeter though. But my eyes try to glance past them, trying to find someone that is able to help me. But they have positioned themselves in a way that makes it impossible for me to see anything but them.

The paralysis that kept me on the ground is lifted abruptly and I try to get up. I need to run. Get away from here. I shouldn't even have waited this long. But someone pushes me down from behind.

„Not so fast, sweety!"

Panic consumes me and I notice how I start to hyperventilate. Slowly, I lift my head to take a look at the grinning man holding above me.

"What do you want from me?" I whisper, no other sound would escape my mouth. My voice sounds shaky and unbelievably weak.

The one up front, I assume he is their leader, walks around me, as if I were an object to be inspected. A shiver runs down my spine.