STARTLING SILVER

Chapter Seven- A Whole New World

It was like walking through sticky water or jelly. For a moment, everything became muffled and icky. We came out with a pop on the other side. I half expected myself to be covered in the jelly-like thing but I was surprisingly as clean as I went in. I, however, still couldn't shake off the sticky feeling.

"Sorry. Portal travels are always nasty. It takes some getting used to."

" Yeah I don't think I could get used to this." I wiped my hands on my pants. ugh.

"Oh, you don't need to. Royals can sift out of the realm whenever they want to. You just need to learn how. But, if its any consolation, welcome home." She executed a sloppy curtesy with a cheeky grin on her face.

I finally took a look at our surrounding and I was left gaping. We were still standing on the platform right in front of the portal and as far as I could see we were in a meadow. I swear it was like I was seeing in HD. Everything was super vivid that it made everything back home seem dead. From the super green blades of grass to the hyper blue color of the sky to the golden rays of the sun, everything looked unreal. I actually had to squint my eyes so I don't go blind.

"Am I in a video game?" I asked Mels in awe.

She burst out laughing as she also looked around."I guess everything back home was pretty dull, huh? Come on. We've still got a few hours of trekking to do."

I just nodded, still preoccupied by the sight in front of me. As soon as I stepped unto the earth, I was immediately attacked by spasms of sharp pain in my body. I grunted and bent over in pain. What the actual fudge?

"Whoa! What's going on?" Mels quickly ran to my side.

"Overactive T-cells." I groaned. "Apparently, almost getting killed isn't enough activity for this thing."

She laughed and helped me straighten up. "Alright. Come on then. Lets jog."

After a few miles of jogging, I finally felt the pain melting away. So far, the amount of pain I was in hadn't stopped me from gawking at everything we passed. I was half tempted to take a dip in the sparkling stream we passed but Mels didn't want to stop. Few more miles in and we finally could finally catch a glimpse of a building in the far distance. As we drew closer to the building, I couldn't stop myself from gawking for the millionth time today. The meadows had long faded away into neatly mowed lawns and wide gravel driveways, framing the most gorgeous building I have ever seen.

"What the actual heck is that?" I asked Mels who had a proud smirk on her face.

"That, is the palace of the Day Court."

"Palace? THIS is a palace?" The building looked like where they got the idea of the Roman colosseum but they just couldn't get it to look like this. The colosseum probably turned out to be a smaller, poor and dull looking version of it and so they decided to turn in into a fighting arena. But this? This was magnificent. It had wide steps that led to the huge golden double doors where two huge armored statues were standing guard. I changed directions to head there when Mels stopped me by grabbing my arm.

"No no no. we are using the servants entrance. We don't wanna risk anyone seeing you yet."

We went in through a side entrance and after a series of turns In the dark hallway, I was starting to think we were lost when we climbed up a short stairs and arrived in another hallway. This one was brightly lit and amazing. The floor was covered in beautiful a blue rug, the color of the sky outside. We turned left and kept walking with me gaping at the wall on my right hand which was covered in paintings of different landscapes while the wall on my left was empty. We finally arrived at a door that Mels opened and ushered me in. It was a small room that was painted white and was sparsely furnished. It only had a bunk bed shoved to one side, two small dressers and a reading table beneath the window. I looked around in confusion.