In a flash of light, Neha was swept from the room she thought had existed and into reality only to find that what had just occurred had all been in her head. As her eyelids fluttered open to embrace the light that engulfed her body, she noticed a woman standing a few feet away from her.

The woman stood up straight with perfect posture and a composed appearance, yet in her eyes Neha could read an element of sadness.

She wore an off-the-shoulder, white dress that fell to her ankles. Her skin was pale as paper and her hair was a golden-white color and it adorned her shoulders. The woman was tall and bone-skinny and looked very fragile. The two of them, Neha and the woman, looked at each other as Neha wondered what to say if anything at all.

"It appears that it is finished," the woman spoke as she folded her hands and pursed her lips a little, not out of frustration but instead a type of stern sadness.

"Um," was all Neha would think to say.

"My name is Asaliah and that was... something I was asked to give you," Asaliah spoke.

"How did you know it was me you needed to give it to... Asaliah?"

"Never mind that, girl. Come with me. You need to get to where you will be staying the night. You have a big day coming at dawn," Asaliah spoke, gesturing for Neha to follow her.

There was something oddly similar about the way the woman walked and talked. She reminded Neha of a person she felt she knew but could not place.

As Neha pulled herself from her thoughts, she sunk deeper into reality and noticed where she was. She was standing in an empty square of grass with houses on all sides. It was warm outside, and the light breeze lifted Neha's red wisps of hair that had fallen from her braid and threw them about her face in a majestic manner.

Following Asaliah out of the enclosed, grassy field they had been standing in, the two walked across the cobblestone paths.

***

Neha's body tossed and turned like a wave in a restless storm, helpless and broken. Her bedsheets tangled in between her legs and both her arms hung off the bed as she squirmed in the darkness of her dreams. Her mind dragged her deep into the ocean of nightmares, so her body was forced to thrash about there on the bed with no hope of coming up for air.

No thoughts crossed her barren mind to take her from this restlessness. Instead, she just lay there in the bed, tossing and turning as she whispered inaudible words beneath her breath like a madwoman.

Images flashed through her brain, first one of her wings, strong white wings with black designs; wings that could lift an entire person above the earth. Then one of a tall beacon of light which shines over a beautiful city, mesmerizing hundreds with its light. Next came an image of something red; something warm and red that burned as it crawled out of her skin. She creased her brow in her sleep, feeling the burning pain of what felt like a knife digging into her skin.

Her mouth opened to scream from the pain, but that is when she noticed something else which stole the very air out of her lungs. Neha lay there, speechless as she gazed into the green eyes of someone she felt she knew deeply.

The person was young, younger than she felt she remembered but there was still something about him that made every single hair on her body stand on end. He did not smile, nor did he frown, but instead stared at her blankly like a blinking photograph.

Then all was black, and her eyelids bolted open, tearing her mind from the image of the boy. She was no longer sweating from the thrashing she was doing, nor crying because of the pain of feeling her blood pour out. Instead, she was staring blank-faced at the room she sat in, the image of the boy's eyes still burning fresh in her memory.

Her body sat on a mess of multi-patterned blankets piled into a bed-shaped pile. The room was all wooden, with wooden walls matching wooden floors and wooden baseboards joining them at the floor. It had a small, square, wooden door on her left and a single skylight above her. This skylight revealed the midnight diamonds of the stars above. Through the skylight crawled in vines of ivy which crept all through the room, aligning the baseboards and adorning the bare walls.

The girl was perplexed by the stars above and the way each of them looked like a freshly cut diamond. They twinkled and shone like sparks from the beacon, which appeared to have dimmed in the darkness of the night.

In the distance of the night, she could hear the crickets' chirps and owls' hoots. They all added up to a gentle hum that swept into her room with the breeze under the dim light of the diamonds above.

Neha crawled out of the bed and made her way through the square wooden door and out into a nearly black, wooden hallway, heading in a direction she herself was unsure of. She simply wanted to get out. That was all. Her body would not let her sleep, yet she was not sure why.

As she crept down the wooden halls, her body bent and curved with the light, almost morphing along with the shadows of darkness in a natural way which she herself did not remember learning how to do. Her feet did not make a sound, dancing across the wood, somehow knowing where not to step. She silently danced past a clock which read five minutes until midnight. It was funny, that time brought back some memory of a feeling she did not understand.

There was something odd about this building that Asaliah had let her to—about this whole world technically. Everything just felt... different for what she felt she remembered before. There was something about how the wooden houses connected to the earth and the vines touched everything yet strangled nothing. This whole place seemed to breathe and sigh together in a synced peace Neha did not understand.

Her body danced her into the small wooden kitchen with open-air windows looking out over a rose garden filled with the beautiful colors of flowers that glistened in the moonlight. She silently continued to make her way to a window where she crawled out over the windowsill and out into the cool moonlight of the garden.

Each petal of each rose glistened in the moonlight. The dewdrops glowed light diamonds on every pink, orange, and red flower petal. The diamond stars above and diamond flowers below made the world look like a room of stars that shone like a dim disco ball at a deserted party.

Neha silently walked through the roses, careful as to not trample the dew drops--continuing toward the center of the garden. As the girl walked silently through the dark, dragging her wings limply behind her, she did not happen to notice the eyes, all on her.

Her feet pulled her toward the center of the rose garden where there stood a small clearing. She walked into the center of this clearing and looked around, the moon placing her in its spotlight as she gazed over the sea of roses.

By this time, the eyes were beginning to collect, every pair glued to her as the creatures held their breaths. Neha stood there, looking over the garden and then... something happened.

It was as if something had clicked in her brain, a feeling maybe. It was then where the crickets of the garden picked up their wings and began to string them like tiny violins and the dewdrops each sung their own unique song with voices only the quietest creatures could hear. Their song was so beautiful and indescribable that there was only one thing Neha could feel to do. She took two steps backward and then, began the unthinkable.

She was unsure of why she was choosing to do this, but it was almost like an instinct. The girl had a strange feeling that it must be done now, or it never would be.

Neha felt each step that flung herself forward, running like a bullet shooting out of a gun. Holding her breath in tightly, she pushed, giving all her strength into her wings. She needed to know that they could hold her. She simply needed to.

The girl pushed with one draft after another, hovering her body over the earth. Every eye in the night gazed at her in wonder and inspiration. Each eye desired to be her and to have her wings.

Neha continued to push, only this time she pushed harder, propelling herself into the night air. Air rushed by her face, causing her to smile—the first real smile since she had entered this odd little world that just felt a little too harmonious and flawless.

Her body flew through the air. Her wings split the air in half as the strong things whipped her up into the diamond night sky. There were no stars and dewdrops anymore, simply a world of diamonds everywhere her eyes looked. Spinning and drifting like a fairy but propelling and whipping like a hawk, the girl flew. She silently glided through the night air with such a great force that it was a miracle of nature that she could not be sensed from below.

Each eye stood perplexed on the girl as she spun and danced through the air like a creature with no chains. She was like a butterfly locked up for its entire life only to be set free years later.

The smile on her face was so wide now that she feared she would not be able to withhold a laugh of pure joy. It was so perfect and pure in the cool, crisp night air of this world that breathed with her and felt her every step.

Although nearly every eye was secretly glued on her, none made a noise, so Neha was unaware that her night flight was being observed. Instead, she continued to toss and turn. She was flying, flying through night diamonds as free as a lark.

Eventually, her wings grew tired and she gracefully brought herself back to the concrete square in the garden without bending a single stem of one of the roses at her feet.

She then walked back into her bed and drifted off to sleep easier as if the whole incident had been a dream. Even though her heart raced, she was easily able to drift off into a deep sleep that left her wondering if she had ever woken in the first place.

However, out of all the eyes that had witnessed the spectacular event, two sitting in a window nearby, hatred dripping from their eyes, knew she had not been dreaming for sure.

These two people sat there. Their eyes still fixed on the diamond night. "That was the last clue. She can fly," the first quietly whispered as he wrung his hands, staring at the floor.

The second, her knuckles white in her folded hands, took a deep breath, attempting to be strong as she replied so quietly that barely even a whisper of the night could hear her words: "I am so sorry to have to believe ya, child. I never believed this day would finally come. It is just... well, we waited so long—so long that I believed it might have all been false."

"Well, what can we do? One of us will have to fill in for what is to come next."

"The Nostro Lumine will decide who will go and who will stay. Do not worry about it just yet. We have time for now. Go to sleep, boy. Do not let this trouble that brain of yours. We will have to let the Fates take their course," the second said, attempting to force a smile.

"But ..."

"Go to sleep, child! It's no use." A single tear rolled down the woman's golden skin, a tear that held so many emotions in one. She wanted to love the wild little girl, but she knew what the little girl would do to her if she chose that path.

The boy reluctantly rose from his wooden chair by the window in the room next door to where Neha lay asleep on her bed without a care. He began to walk out of the room, opening the square door. But then he stopped in his tracks and turned to face the woman with a spark of imagination in his big green eyes, one that even she could not help but let bring her spirits up.

"Is it not worth a chance?"

She smiled up at him, her sad eyes turning to slight fear. He continued: "I mean... to try at least. She may be the one but... but that doesn't mean she has to ever make it to the light..." his voice trailed off.

Her eyes began to light up once again as the wheels in her head began turning as she allowed her thoughts to dance up a scheme to save her own lot.

The two sat there in the dark of the moonlight, both of them thinking over what had just been said. They both knew what had to be done in order that when Neha set her free like was the consequence of the prophecy, they would not be forced to go. In order for the two of them not to be damned by being sent back to the wretched places they must hide from, they must stop what was to come.

The boy returned to his seat and began staring out the window once more. The moonlight shone on his sharp, skinny, linear face, making him look more sickly-white than ever.

The woman turned her head to look at the boy, "I know what ya are sayin', child. But... do you really think it could work?"

The two sat there and stared at each other dead in the eyes for a few seconds before Yadiel replied, a smirk lighting up his bone-white face.

"Everything Works When the Right Cards Are Played, Dia."