Like a meteor falling from the sky, a young girl crashed into the ground. As the dust cleared she slowly lifted herself up. She staggered to her feet and pulled her long red hair away from her eyes.

“Where am I?” she asked herself. “What is the place?” She slowly tried to walk around a bit to get her bearings. She was completely lost . She looked up at the sky as the sun shined brightly down upon her.

“Man, that’s really bright,” she complained aloud to no one in particular. She had no idea where she was or how she ended up there but she was already determined to find her way back to her home of Serenyia, which was in another dimension.

“How did I end up on such a pathetic little place?” she thought to herself as she brushed the dirt off of her long black dress. She looked down at her bare feet in frustration. Her pale skin did not take well to the hot sun.

“It’s so hot, it burns,” She complained as she walked around some more not having any idea where she was going but she hoped it would lead her to a way out this strange uninviting place.

“Excuse me, are you alright?” She heard the voice of a young man behind her. Her instinct told her not to let him get too close.

“What do you want?” She asked him as she turned around eyeing the young man that stood before her, prepared to fight him if he tried anything. He didn’t really look like he wanted to fight though. He had a small bag on his back and his straight brown hair blew in the slight breeze around his chin. His pants were torn at the knees and his shirt was not much more than some thin white fabric sewn together to make a shirt that only covered his front and back. His shoes were brown and worn out.

“You seem kind of lost,” he said. “Did you see that big crash not too far from here? From the looks of you, I’d say you were probably in it.”

“What’s it to you?” She asked still defensive.

“I saw a big crash so I ran over to see what was going on and I find you walking around, looking like you’ve been through some kind of battle or something.” he tried to explain himself. “I just wanted to see if I could help, that’s all.”

“You want to help? Tell me where I am and how I can leave!” She demanded.

The young man began to get a bit nervous. “You’re near Crystal Springs, um, it’s about 50 miles from the nearest city, if that’s what you mean. “ He told her, a bit confused.

“Huh? You mean to tell me I am that far from home? There’s no way they could have thrown me this far away! Oh they’re going to pay for this!” She yelled practically ignoring him now, realizing she was not even in the same dimension anymore. “They actually had the strength and ability to hurl me all the way to the other dimension? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Uh, I have no idea what you’re talking about but I think you should come with me into town. I’ll take you to the inn and you can get cleaned up and rest if you want,” he said trying to calm her a bit not knowing what she was capable of.

“Huh? You want to help me?” she asked, letting her defenses down a bit.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s what I tried to tell you before. If you stay out here much longer in your condition, I’m afraid to even think of what might happen to you.”

“Alright,” she said. “ I’ll go with you.”

“Ok,” he said. “Let’s go.” He began walking in the direction of the town nearby.



They walked for what seemed like an eternity in complete silence each not knowing what to do with the other.


“By the way,” he finally broke the silence. “I never got a chance to ask you your name. My name is Kayden. What’s yours?”

“My name? It’s Melonda,” she told him.



After another eternity of silence, he decided to try again to start a conversation. “So where are you from?”

“I come from Serenyia,” she told him.

“Oh,” he said. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” she told him. “ It‘s not even in this dimension.”

“Really? I didn’t know there where any other dimensions let alone that anyone could live in one,” he told her, very curious about her now.

“How far is it to your town?” asked Melonda, not wishing to reveal any more information.

“Not too far, we should be coming up to it pretty soon,” he said. “You see that tall building with all the pointy things on the roof?” He pointed to the building in the distance.

“Yeah,” she said looking to where he was pointing.

“That’s the temple in the back part of town,” Kayden explained. “We should be in town in a few minutes.”

“Good,” said Melonda. “The sooner we get to town, the sooner I can find a way back home.”

“That may not be an easy task,” Kayden informed her. “and try not to go around telling everyone about where you’re from, it might cause them to panic and we don’t want that.”

“Panic, huh? So tell me, Kayden, why aren’t you afraid?” Melonda asked.

“I don’t know,” he told her honestly. “I just felt a need to help you when I saw you and I didn’t really care who or what you were or even where you were from. To be quite honest, I only asked out of curiosity and the fact that the silence between us was slowly driving me insane.”

“You’re really weird, you know that?” she said as they finally made it into town.

“Oh well,” he laughed. “We’re here.”



They walked into the small town of Crystal Springs, searching for a place for Melonda to rest. They cam to an inn and went inside.

“Hey, Wally!” Kayden greeted a round man in overalls sitting behind the counter.

“Hey, Kayden,” he said with a smile. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. How have you been?”

“I’ve been alright, still running from you know who,” Kayden told the man. “Listen I ned a room. Are there any available?”

“Oh,” Wally said with a sly grin acknowledging the girl standing behind Kayden. “You need a room for the two of you?”

“Well, yeah but it’s not what you think, so wipe that goofy grin off your face!” Kayden said.

“Alright, alright. I won’t even bother asking. “ said the man, “There’s one right through there, if you want it.” He gestured down a hallway lit up by the windows surrounding it, and doors lining either side as he handed Kayden a key. “It’s the second door on the left and there’s a wash room at the end of the hall if you want to use it.”

“Ok, thanks,” Kayden said as he took the key and headed down the hall.

The man stopped Melonda before she could follow by grabbing her arm. “You’re awfully pretty to be hanging around with a boy like him, why don’t you stay with me instead?” Wally asked with a grin on his face that told her just exactly what he wanted.

“Back off, old man,” she warned as she took his arm and bent it back causing him to yell out in pain. She then proceeded to follow Kayden down the hall to their room.

“Don’t worry about Wally,” he told her. “he doesn’t mean any harm. He just can’t resist a pretty face.”

“Well, he’d better learn to keep his hands to himself if he wants to continue to have the ability to use them.” Melonda told him, a little aggravated with the man for touching her.

Kayden laughed. “You need to keep that temper under control if you don’t want to cause trouble.”

“I don’t, I just want to go back home,” she told him. “And I don’t appreciate creepy old men grabbing me for no reason!”

“Ok, I get it,” Kayden tried to calm her a bit, as he opened the door for her. “Sorry I didn’t know he would do that. Let’s just come in and get settled.”

“Fine,” she said flatly as she entered the small stuffy room. It had one window and two beds on either side of it with a flower pot of roses and a nightstand between them.

“It’s not much but at least you’re out of the sun and you can rest,” Kayden told her noticing that she had a slight sunburn and she looked exhausted as he followed her into the room and sat on one of the beds. She followed and sat on the other bed. There was a silence between them once again.

“So, who is it that you’re running from?” This time it was Melonda that broke the silence.

“Oh, no one important. Just my crazy ex girlfriend,” he told her. “She’s been after me since I broke up with her last year. Everything was going great and then she started getting really weird. She started saying things like, You’re never going to leave me are you? We have to stay together forever. We’ll get married and spend the rest of our life together. It started getting really weird when she started telling me I wasn’t aloud to leave the house and that if I ever left her she’d die and all this other crazy stuff.”

“You lived with her?” Melonda asked, not because she actually cared. She was just trying to make conversation.

“Yeah, she convinced me to move in with her after we were together for about three months,” he told her.

“Three months? That’s all? You must have really cared about her,” she said.

“Yeah, I did, but I only agreed to move in with her because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her no,” he explained.

“Oh, I see,” she said.

“Yeah, but after I moved in, that’s when she started getting crazy. She was gone all the time and when she came home she’d make me promise I’d never leave,” Kayden told her, looking out the window. “I did leave her though. She started to scare me so I had to get away. She was not to happy about that and she’s been after me ever since.”

“Oh, so you’re just running from a crazy woman who can’t figure out the meaning of no?” she said looking out the window and noticing the sun had now set and it was dark out.

“Yeah, well you’d run too if you met her,” he told her.

“Whatever, I don’t really care about your life. I’m more concerned about getting my life back in order,” she told him.

“That’s ok, I don’t even know why I said all that anyway,” Kayden told her as he stood up. “Listen, I’ll be right back. Try to get some rest, ok?”

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I’m going to get some supplies for our journey,” he explained. “Unless you don’t want me to come with you.”

“No, if you want to come then come. I don’t really care either way,” Melonda said.

“Well, then it’s settled, besides you really shouldn’t go out alone anyway,” he said as he walked out the door leaving the key on the nightstand.



After a few minutes, Melonda decided she needed to do something. “I have to get out of here,” She thought to herself. “I can’t take much more of this! Well, I’ll just clean myself up and go. So what if I leave before he comes back. I never asked for his help.”

She stood up and walked out the door down the hall to the washroom. She walked in and looked around.

“How quaint,” she thought sarcastically as she took a towel off a rack and took a wrapped bar of soap off a shelf near the small tub and prepared to fill it with water. She turned on the water and let it run until the tub was full and then undressed and got in. She sighed and took the wrapper off the soap and washed. Once she was finished with her bath she got out and wrapped herself in the towel. She picked up her dress noticing it was quite dirty. She decided to wash it in the remaining bath water. “Not the best way to wash things but it’s better than nothing,” she thought as she used the soap to scrub the remaining dirt off her dress. She took the wet dress with her as she walked back down the hall into the room. “He’s not back yet. I guess then I’ll have to let him come with me,” She sighed as she hung her dress by the window sill hoping it would dry with the slight breeze still blowing. She laid down on the bed and began to drift in and out of sleep waiting for Kayden to get back.