Break Away (Away, Book 1)

by Tatiana Vila

  “Tell me what to do,” I said to Comus. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ian shaking his head. At least, he restrained himself from doing snarky comments.

  “With pleasure, she-fledgling,” he nodded slowly, closing his eyes in a wise-Sensei manner. I rolled my eyes. He really had a thing for the theatrics. “First, hold yourself straight, your spine must be erect throughout the whole process.” I shifted positions and did as told. “Good. Now, shut your eyes and take in long, deep breaths.”

  I opened one eye. “Nero won’t come around while I’m doing this, right?”

  Comus smiled. “I already told you Nero isn’t allowed to come in here. He knows it,” he said. “Just relax and forget everything that surrounds you. Listen to your breathing.”

  I closed my eyes once more and concentrated on my slow and steady breaths, feeling how my body started loosening up gradually.

  “Focus on your head—the crown, the middle of your forehead, the center,” he said with a soothing voice. “Now find that special spot in the back, where head and neck join. Feel how you start drifting into that dark, secret place.”

  Like the time when we’d been watching the movie of the Phantom of the Opera, a vaporous tunnel formed in the back of my head and those same misty ribbons emerged from it, stretching out and coiling themselves around my arms and legs.

  I must’ve twitched or done something because Comus said, “There is nothing to fear. Smooch will be waiting for you. Just believe and let go. Believe Chimera will be there on the other side of that veil.”

  Not waiting for me to decide if I believed or not, the ribbons started pulling me back toward the tunnel, that same symphony of angelic voices brushing past through me like a breeze. The moisture in the air got denser, as if suffused with midnight mist, and faster than I expected, the vapory walls of the tunnel were encircling me, my long hair and body floating in the air.

  The voices started humming a soft welcoming tune and, suddenly, bright light exploded from within the tunnel, swallowing me in its blinding glow and dropping me on firm ground a few seconds later.

  In front of a guy.

  CHAPTER 15

  In the midst of the confusion and perplexity, I felt my mouth fall wide open as I looked up and found his shocked face. Because this face was far too perfect to be real. Handsome didn’t quite fit him, but beautiful. He had the face of a fallen angel and looked about twenty-three years old. His blonde hair, tied up in a short pony tail at the back of his neck, shone like new gold. The chiseled features that graced his contours looked as if they’d been meticulously carved with a sharp knife. Glowing skin covered those delicious angles, as if muted light was shining underneath. His eyes, a warm chocolate color, invited mine to get lost in their sweet gaze, and the spot beneath his lips held a sculpted chin that stirred in me a wild desire to press a kiss on the sexy dimple denting its middle.

  This had to be a dream. I’d fallen asleep and my hormones—still crazed from the kissing session with Ian—had created the most perfect male specimen for me to enjoy and continue kissing. That had to be it, right? I brought my eyes down and scanned his body. Yep, that certainly had to be it. His tall frame encased the right amount and size of hard muscle all over.

  When he crossed his arms over his chest, biceps curling under his skin with the movement, I felt myself on the verge of swooning. But then, I looked up and found his face was no longer shocked at seeing me but angry. Really angry.

  “Can you explain this?” he said through clenched teeth, glaring at me.

  “I…I…aren’t you supposed to kiss me or something?” I spurted out nervously, puzzled at his severe stare and posture. Something in this scene didn't look right. “This is my dream, after all. You should be telling me you’ve been waiting for this moment your whole life and then take me in your arms and kiss me—or something along those lines.”

  The ghost of a smile appeared in his lips, but melted away almost immediately as soon as he remembered the reason behind his anger. “If this was a dream, you wouldn’t be standing here in the middle of the woods between us. You would be meandering in the Garden of Wandering Souls minding your own dreaming business.”

  “The Gar—” I paused and frowned. “Don’t tell me I’m in Chimera,” I said, with an incredulous tone. “And wait, why did you say ‘between us’? Who else is here?”

  “I was in the middle of a conversation with Smooch when you came out of nowhere and rudely planted your feet between us.”

  “Smooch?”

  “If you turn around you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

  I hesitated for a moment, thinking about how crazy all this sounded, and decided to spin around. I gasped. The small creature standing there barely reached my hip in height. Its face was all wrinkled and swollen, like a human newborn on its first day out of his mother’s womb, only its eyes were big and rounded instead of shut and tight. Flat and wide ears, like an elephant's, fell down to his narrow shoulders, almost touching its tapered, even narrower naked chest. A protuberant belly stretched above a flimsy khaki pant that showed toothpick-thin legs underneath, turning the creature into a mismatched ensemble of body parts.

  More than scary, it looked funny. And astonished, definitely astonished. It had his bony hands pressed together over his mouth, as if it couldn't believe what its eyes were seeing in that moment.

  “What is this?” I heard the hot blond say behind me.

  The small creature that was apparently Smooch, and now looked terrified, shook his head with his hands still pressed over his mouth without a word. His wide ears flapped in the air with each movement.

  “Smooch,” he said insistently, with a warning tone in his voice, demanding an answer.

  “Is it true?” I asked the creature. “Are you the Smooch?”

  Its scared eyes widened more if possible.

  “Smooch!” the blond pressed, as if what I'd said had flipped a switch of understanding in him. “You didn't. Tell me you didn't.”

  Seeing he had no way out of this, Smooch finally pulled down his bony hands and displayed his very thin mouth. “I—I—I not believed this possible,” he said in a weird way of speaking, waving his hands to me.

  “So you know what this human is doing here,” Tall, Blond and Sexy said, furious.

  “Young Andras,” Smooch said pleadingly, looking up above my head. “Comus told I a human girl was coming but I not believed because that not possible.”

  “Yet you were here,” Andras said, “Waiting for her. That's why I found you here, in the middle of the woods—next to the portal nonetheless.”

  “I—I just wanted see if possible, just if possible.” Smooch raised his bony hands as if in surrender.

  “What did you tell that man?” Andras asked and realized almost instantly something else. “And I told you not to go and see him again! If they find out about this, they won't hesitate to send you to Tacca this time.”

  At the sound of that name, he folded his hands together in supplication. “Mercy, young Andras, mercy. I promise not go again.”

  “Your word has no worth, apparently. Just look at what you've done.” I could feel his hard stare on me once more.

  Smooch ran past me, his rounded belly bouncing in the air freely, and stopped somewhere behind me. I turned and found him glued to Andras, his thin, flabby arms wrapped around one of the blonde's legs.

  That's when I noticed what Andras was wearing. He had on what looked like white linen pants, but its texture seemed softer, silkier. A rather tight, lavender shirt covered his upper body, which made him look even manlier somehow, and a small pale yellow messenger bag was swung over his shoulder and across his chest.

  “Mercy, young Andras, mercy,” Smooch repeated, his cheek pressed tight against the hottie's thigh.

  Andras sighed. “Just tell me what you told that man you like to visit so much and I'll let this pass.”

  Smooch took a step back with a sniff and looked up at him adoringly. “Thank you, young Andras. Th
ank you,” he said, bending his head.

  “Yeah, yeah…just get it over with and tell me. Don't make me change my mind.”

  “Comus said a human girl would be coming,” Smooch rushed to say, not willing to risk Andras' benevolence. “That she needed bring her sister back.”

  “Bring her sister back?” Andras glanced at me curiously.

  “From Garden of Wandering Souls,” Smooch pointed somewhere behind him, up north.

  “Ah,” Andras arched his dark gold eyebrows. “I see…she's amid the group of humans that arrived recently.”

  Smooch nodded. “Yes. I told Comus show her meditation, but I always thought she not able.”

  “This human girl shouldn't be able to come through that portal,” Andras shot a look at the place where I was standing. “Unless…”

  “Hey!” I called him, cutting short his pensive state. “Stop talking about me in third person, okay? This is my dream, therefore address me as for what I am: your creator.”

  Andras looked at me for a moment, and then, cracked a loud laugh.

  “That's not what I was expecting,” I muttered, knitting my brows together above the bridge of my nose.

  Andras paused to take a deep breath. “My creator?” He started laughing once more and it took him about another minute to end. “Kastor is right. Humans are egotistical and crazy,” he said. “This isn't a dream, human girl. You are in Chimera. The whys of it are a complete mystery to me, and something I don't have time to ponder on if I want to save Smooch from punishment.”

  “Thank you, young Andras. Thank you,” Smooch started expressing gratitude again.

  “Stop the ass-licking and help me,” I told Smooch suddenly annoyed. “Comus said you were the one who was going to help me to get into the Garden of Wandering Souls. If this isn't a dream, then I'm wasting priceless time.”

  “You might search forever and never find her,” Andras said, crossing his arms over his hard chest. “Do you have any idea how many souls are roaming in there right now? While half of your race stays awake for its everyday routine, the other half drifts into the garden while sleeping. Add to that the recent ones that seem to have plans of permanent residence—among them your sister.” He leaned forward, shrinking the distance between us. “In a nutshell, we're talking about billions and billions of souls, human girl.”

  “My name is Dafne,” I narrowed my eyes. “And I don't care if I have to look for her amid a sea of souls. I will go, with or without your help.” I looked down at Smooch and an idea lit up in my mind. “But if someone else finds me in the way, that punishment you want to save Smooch from will certainly come.”

  The warm chocolate color in his eyes turned into incandescent rock. “Are you threatening me?” Andras asked in a mixture of anger and amazement, his strong jaw clenched.

  “No, I'm offering you a solution. The more time I spend here the worse, right? Help me to get into the garden so I can leave Chimera faster.”

  “Young Andras,” Smooch said, poking the blond's leg. “Girl is right. Nobody enters garden. She will be better there than here in woods. And maybe she will find her sister quick, just like she did with mediation.”

  Andras looked at me and paused, mulling over the nuts and bolts of this idea.

  “Please,” I told him. “My sister is in pain. I had a dream about her where she asked me to help her. She was desperate to leave.”

  “Impossible,” Andras said, with a sharp shake of his head. “Those human souls who stayed have only done so because they've chosen to, not the other way around. How do you know it wasn't your own fears you were projecting into that dream?”

  “I know my sister is trapped in there. I can feel it,” I said, tapping my chest. “You can't know for sure if all those human souls are still keen to being there. Maybe they were at the beginning, but maybe they want to go back now and they can't because something is shutting them in. Besides, Smooch told Comus this wasn't normal—that seeing the garden so full of energy wasn't normal.”

  Andras shot Smooch a murderous look, making the small creature to recoil in fear, and locked his eyes with mine. “Your world is a hard and hostile place to live in. Each day things get worse and each day more humans wish to break away from the turmoil. All these human souls taking residence in the garden is a result of that yearning. Wars, conflicts, injustice, poverty—this is what keeps them here, away from all of that.”

  I sighed with a sense of emptiness. “I understand what you're saying, Andras, I really do. But these things aren't new to human history. There have always been wars and injustice and poverty, and this is the first time human souls have remained in the garden—and more seem to be on their way. Why? Why now? Have you thought about it?”

  Andras kept silence, staring at me with intense brown eyes that reminded me of dangerous mountains. I felt as if I was an Alpinist, trying to climb those two mountains until reaching their top, until reaching a peak of sympathy and consideration.

  Then his eyes took on a studious look, narrowing until only suspicion dancing around them. He tilted his head to the side, as if thinking over something he'd just realized about me and said, “I'll help you. Just promise to leave as soon as you find your sister—if you find her.” He took a step back and looked down at Smooch. “Gives us a moment to talk,” he told me and walked a few yards away from me with Smooch to make sure his words wouldn't reach my ears.

  I shrugged and, for the first time, took the time to look at my surroundings. Light seeped through the lush emerald canopy above with a pinkish glow, suffusing everything underneath with dim, ethereal brightness. The trees weren't that tall, which gave the impression of being below a vast green blanket, as if sheltered. Bushes of every possible color dotted the silvery ground, and rocks had, too, the same silver specks blended into them. Several feet away, near a dome-shaped rock, a shy beam of light on the ground caught my eye. I moved toward it, listening to Andras asking me what I was doing as I closed the distance with that spot.

  The beam turned to be a small pool of silver-white. It was rounded on the edges, like a jellyfish's head, and didn't merge with the sparkly earth underneath. I tried to poke it with the tip of my Converse, but the liquid was pretty elusive and scurried away. I remembered a chemistry experiment at school with a drop of liquid mercury where I'd tried to do the same thing, only with a toothpick, and the liquid metal had acted the same way.

  “I never said you could stray from us,” I heard Andras say, irritated, as he stepped next to me.

  “Is that liquid mercury?” I asked, looking at the glossy pool of silver.

  “I guess it is for you, humans,” he said, bending in one knee and taking out from his bag what looked like some type of liquor flask made of iron. “For us however, this is nothing more than the most powerful elixir nature gives us.” He pushed the silver liquid into the flask with a small flat spoon until it was full. “This is for us the equivalent of a human vitamin—an extremely powerful vitamin.”

  I frowned in confusion as I watched him close the flask. “Isn't liquid mercury toxic?”

  He shoved it inside his messenger bag and straightened. “Don't apply your human laws to this world. They're not the same.”

  “Are you saying you take liquid mercury as an elixir?”

  I felt some tugging at the hem of my shirt and looked down.

  “Silver elixir very good for health, human girl,” Smooch said, his bony fingers still perched on the fabric of my shirt. “It allows energy of garden flow better in body.”

  “You mean the energy that is collected in the garden and then distributed throughout Chimera?”

  Smooch nodded, flapping the ends of his elephant-like ears against his chest.

  I knew liquid mercury was a good conductor of electricity and was sometimes used in electrical switches, but to ingest it just so it could conduct the energy in your body better was…crazy. It sounded somewhat logical, but still foolish and unwise.

  “I don't get it,” I said, shaking my head.r />
  “You don't have to,” Andras said, looking at me defiantly.

  Smooch tugged at my shirt again and signaled for me to follow him. We stopped in front of the tree trunk and he beckoned me to inch closer. “See,” he told me, pointing at something in the trunk. “See silver elixir.”

  I drew closer and eyed the area he was indicating. Indeed, silver liquid ran underneath the bark ridges, like still rivers of metal. I looked up, following the fissures and glossy channels along the trunk, until a weird movement in its middle startled me. As if it was a human chest, expanding while air streamed into the lungs, the trunk moved as well, contracting as the air left through its…leaves?

  “Is the tree actually breathing?” I asked in shock, as that spot in the trunk inflated again, slowly.

  “Don't they always?” Andras said, as if exasperated by all my questions. “Last time I checked, trees also breathed in your world, so why the surprise?”

  “They don't move!”

  And they have resin dripping from them, not liquid mercury! I wanted to say.

  “A tiny difference,” he shrugged, like it was no big deal. And as if sensing another question coming his way, he stepped ahead and started talking. “They give us elixir,” he waved his eyes to the silvery rests on the ground, “And much needed clean air, and in exchange, we give them love and respect—something you humans should learn to do.”

  I rolled my eyes at the sharp disdain in his voice. Though he was right, I couldn't help but thinking he was biting the hand that literally fed him. From what I'd understood, all these beautiful plants and beautiful—though insufferable—people, lived off of the energy that was emitted from our dreams. Which brought to my mind an idea. A place this beautiful—I didn't need to see more of Chimera just to know this world exuded beauty everywhere—and idyllic couldn't have had pollution. Then why was Andras talking about trees giving them much needed clean air?