The Butterfly's Keeper

Emelda

Darkness. It's all around. A cloudy, black mass of some substance fills the atmosphere and I can't see anything. I'm stumbling blindly into unknown territory. The caliginous sky blurs with the ground as the hazy mist hangs in the air. It smothers me and deprives me of oxygen. I'm panicking. I can feel that horribly dreadful feeling of angst crushing my lungs. I gasp and flail wildly as I take in the toxin filled air in an attempt to filter the precious gas from the deadly concoction of dioxides that has clouded over my vision.

As my throat constricts in agony i try to cry out but my screams are strangled out in a pathetic gurgling noise. I panic more as the poisonous gases continue to kill me slowly. I'm aware of a few things though. We're moving, that is obvious from the sick feeling I have from the motion. We're traveling fast. Extremely fast, and without and vehicle too. In fact I don't even feel my feet moving. And Reese is next to me. Although I can't see him, and he's not holding my hand or anything, I can sense he's there, it's like a strange, magnetic force or something, like two magnets working against each other. After what feels like a lifetime of choking and inhaling deadly fumes, I see a small light ahead. Its a dazzling white color, almost blinding. And it's getting bigger. A second later I realize, to my horror, that it's not getting bigger, but in fact we are hurtling towards it, and at an intense speed. We're going to collide with it in what imagine to be the mother of all big bangs. I shut my eyes tightly and wait for the searing pain.

* * *
I flutter my eyes blearily. As my lids lift to allow me to see out through sleep filled eyes, I can make out the silhouette of Reese standing above me. It takes me a while to realize he's offering an arm to me. I take it gratefully and pull myself up from the floor which I notice is made from white marble. As I gather my scattered thoughts I find that everything, in fact, is made of marble. The walls that are decorated with carvings of cherub faced angels, the pillars supporting the ceiling which is painted with marvelous frescoes, the floors, everything except the golden framed doors carved from mahogany that stand tall in front of us. I stare around in wonder and awe. Everything looks so expensive, and far too ornate for any building in Yachats.
"Where are we?" I ask Reese, instantly gathering that we are not in Oregon any more.
"Italy," comes the reply.
Italy, that makes sense.
"Italy?" I repeat.
"Yeah, look around you, marble buildings, Renaissance paintings, it's clearly Italy, it's why everything magical always happens in Italy. There's nothing special about this place in particular, They just like to live in luxury."
A small grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. I frowned in confusion but shrugged it off. I'd had enough strangeness in the past twenty-four hours to allow myself to ignore one small smirk.
"So, if we're in Italy, how did we get here?" I question him. He sighs in exasperation with me.
"The door. We went through and traveled with the light to here."
"Traveled with the light?"
"People say you can't travel faster than the speed of light, but we've learned to channel the energy and tap into it, and because of this we've created portals, doorways, between places where you can simply grab onto the beams of light and literally travel along with it."
My head spun with the confusion of all of this but I stayed silent. I had a feeling that that things were about to get even more confusing.

We go through the mahogany doors and find ourselves in a winding corridor. Its deserted, just like the last room, and stretches forever. It takes us twenty minutes to reach the end of the corridor where we come to a stop outside another set of doors, identical to the last. Reese turns to me and sends me a warning look. His eyes are glassy and nervous, his mouth twitches at the corner ever so slightly and his jaw is set with harshness.
"Do not make a fool of yourself in here. Speak only when spoken to, do not interrupt with questions or comments and please promise me you will not anger them."
I feel slightly offended but I nod because I can feel his anxiety too. He nods at me and knocks loudly on the huge doors.

A moment later they swing open and a petite girl with curvy hips is standing with one hand on the door frame. We walk forward into the room and she shuts the door behind us. I am surprised to find we are in what appears to be a waiting room. It's an unimaginable contrast to the corridor and room outside in that it has modern, painted walls in a deep plum color, and one wall is made entirely of glass, forming a huge window that overlooks the city below. There is a plain, wooden door on the far wall unlike the ornamental fancy ones outside. It is filled with big, soft sofas in rectangle shapes in various shades of black and grey, with a glass coffee table in the center of the room which is littered with magazines and newspapers written in Italian. There are tall lamps in each corner of the room, and on the far right wall is a large desk with a sign in Italian saying "accettazione". I don't speak Italian but I gather it to be reception from the telephone and paperwork that cover the desk. The woman who opened the door walks over and takes her place behind the desk. She sorts through piles of paper and rummages through drawers until she produces the right form and a pen. She hands them to Reese and he mutters something to her in Italian.
"You speak Italian?" I ask, surprised.
"You have to be able to around here," he tells me with a smile. I notice its the first proper, heart-warming smile he's given me all day. I take comfort in this small fact and my worry declines a small bit. We make our way to the sofas and as we sit down I glance at the form he has in his hand. I frown as I notice its all in Italian and lose interest after a few moments. I go back to surveying the room but after three times of scanning over the same things my eyes rest on the woman behind the desk. I figure she must be some assistant or something. She has long black hair that falls in soft curls over her shoulders and is pinned at her ear with a flowery hair clip. Her skin is tanned perfectly and compliments the cerulean blue top she is wearing that shows just a little bit too much cleavage. I sigh and look down at my hands in boredom. A moment later Reese stands up and hands the form back to the lady at the desk. They share a short conversation in Italian and then Reese motions for me to come over. I walk to them and the lady smiles at me with a knowing look. I'm the only one left out on the secret. I look away shyly and she says something to Reese as she points to the door on the far wall. He nods and smiles a thank you. We walk to the door on the other side of the room and Reese pauses for a moment with his hand on the doorknob. He looks at me silently and we share a nervous smile before he opens the door and we step through into the unknown.

The modern theme has vanished and the room is back to the Renaissance style of interior design with painted frescoes and carvings on the walls.
"They like to make visitors comfortable while waiting," Reese whispered in my ear referring to the waiting room we had just come from. I look around and find it is like a dining room of a house, a long table takes up space in the center of the room with seven chairs all around. As I observe the scene in front of me I find that only three of the seven are currently filled and their occupiers shock me. Three men with dry, cracked, yellow flesh covered in pinkish veins that writhed and twisted like live animals and blank white orbs for eyes.