This was quite possibly the first time Alora was interacting with another human in her dream so she was excited to bombard the man with questions that she had been preparing just for this day.
"What is this place? Who are you? And why am I here? " These were the very first questions that had been gnawing at the back of her mind ever since she realized that this world wasn't just her dream.
Carmen seemed to want to laugh as he heard so many questions thrown at him all at once.
It took him a whole minute to finally respond to her as he spoke, "This world is called netherworld. I am... Just a normal citizen here and you... on the other hand, don't belong here. I don't know why you're here, but it's probably not good for you to come to such a place."
"Netherworld...?" Alora seemed to ponder over the name as she responded, "I think I have heard that name before."
Carmen snickered, "You probably have."
"Okay, next question! What am I supposed to do here? Why is this place filled with different types of creatures?"
Carmen sighed as he heard this question, but although he looked a bit reluctant to answer the question, he still bothered himself with it.
"You should think of your world as a ball. A ball that can't contain everything," Carmen spoke as if he were trying to make a child understand the meaning of life, "The things the ball can't contain, it rejects. These rejected things end up in a different layer of the ball that is a bit detached from it, and that layer is this world. Everything that your earth can't contain, comes here to receive punishme- I mean, comes to find a place where other alike things exist. A place where it belongs."
Alora felt a bit dumb to not understand what this man was saying, but she didn't want to show how confused she was, so she simply nodded her head as if she understood his words.
She had never really felt dumb before. She was a bright student who was always at the top of the class so being called dumb wasn't even rare, it was simply non-existent for her.
Carmen broke out laughing as he saw her expression, "You still have no idea where you are, do you?"
Alora frowned as she ducked her head and nodded with a slight sense of embarrassment.
Carmen picked up a rock and threw it at her with force, but when Alora felt like the rock was about to hit her, her body reacted on its own and caught the rock but when she looked down at the rock that she had caught, she could see it slowly burning and disappearing without a trace.
"It simply means that the things that exist on earth aren't welcome here while the things that exist here aren't welcome on earth." Carmen shook his head, "It's as simple as it can get. The longer you stay here, the more you harm the environment around you."
"But I'm from... Oh! " It was like a sudden slap of intelligence. Alora was finally able to understand that she really wasn't on earth and maybe, just maybe, this really wasn't simply one of her dreams.
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"It's a pity that the man ran away before I could squeeze out more information from him," Alora clicked her tongue as she spoke with much annoyance.
Daren snickered as he asked, "So you are telling me that there is a sort of alternate dimension and only you can travel between these two time and space pockets all by going to sleep?"
Alora nodded eagerly as she answered, "That's right! You're so smart! How were you able to understand everything so fast?"
Daren sighed, "That sounds utterly ridiculous."
"It's not! The place even has a name! It definitely exists!"
Daren scoffed, "Sure, it does~ You can't even remember what netherworld means."
"Hmm?"
Daren leaned in as he looked at her straight in the eye and spoke, "Hell. It is another name for hell, you idiot!"
Alora was shocked to hear this and it made her eyes go wide as she looked at Daren.
"What?! I freaking thought it was the place where peter pan lived!"
Daren pursed his lips into a thin line and looked at the girl with an unimpressed expression as he heard this, "That's the Neverland, you dumbass."
"..."
"You really didn't realize? What type of a naive idiot are you?" Daren clicked his tongue as his eyes narrowed down on the girl in disbelief.
Alora, "Of course, I didn't notice! I was sleeping, for crying out loud! Does your brain work properly when you are sleeping?"
"..." Daren didn't know how he was supposed to respond to something like that.
She was sleeping...?
It was a dream...?
This was what he was trying to make her understand since the beginning!
The two seemed to be immersed in a staring competition for more than a minute as they didn't dare say anything.
Alora, "I went to... Hell...?!"
"That's it! I'm outta here. You are beyond help. " Daren stood up and collected all his things from the table as he walked away, leaving the girl behind.
Alora simply stared at the empty chair in shock as she repeated the sentence a few hundred times in her mind.
She went to hell...
She went to hell???
Does she freaking go to hell?! On a daily basis?!
What type of a sh*tty story was she a part of?!
This wasn't supposed to happen!!
Alora wanted to suddenly protest.
Why couldn't she be transported to a fairytale land instead?! Why was she being sent to hell?! She didn't wanna go to hell!
Alora heard the bell ring and only when it rang did she wake up from her train of thoughts as she called out, "Daren! You should-" She looked at the empty seat in front of her and then around the cafeteria, which was starting to empty out due to all the students leaving for classes.
"When the hell did he leave?" She muttered to herself with a frown as she looked around and didn't seem to find even a hint of his shadow.
She picked up her things and decided to head over for class. It wasn't Mrs. Miranda's class so she was sure it wouldn't be too hard to blend in with the background. With this in mind, she went to the back of the class and took a seat in the corner. She put her bag away and ducked her head down in hopes of not being seen.
The reason why she scored marks in college was because of her own amazing brain and self-study. It had nothing to do with how the teachers taught her so she wasn't worried or bothered with listening to their lectures.
She would rather sit at the back of the class, put in an earphone, and sleep peacefully while getting free attendance.
The back benches were always a bit empty and the teacher would try her best to ignore looking over at the sleeping students who ruled the back benches. It was clear that these students wanted to be left alone and the teacher wasn't a grade school teacher nor was she as strict as Mrs. Miranda so she wouldn't bother with these types of students unless they actually disturbed her class.
Alora didn't know when but as soon as she started closing her eyes, she started feeling exhausted and before she knew it, she was already deeply asleep.
She was sure that she had managed to get enough sleep yesterday night so it was definitely not because she was tired, however, the exhaustion was still there and it made her feel drowsy.
She simply wanted to sleep and there was nothing more to that.
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"Is she awake?"
"I think one of her eyeballs just moved"
"Look! Look!"
"Is she dead?"
"She's waking up! She's waking up!"
"Stop hitting me for it!"
"The skin is really of high-quality."
"Shhh- You guys are gonna scare her!"
Alora could hear a number of voices talking and it woke her up from her sleep. She opened her right eye and peeked at the situation.
This was supposed to be a class in which the teacher wouldn't bother with her so why were the students calling her?
She closed her eyes as soon as she opened them with the drowsiness still displayed on her expressions.
She tried to go back to sleep but it took her an entire minute to realize that the people she saw when she opened her eyes weren't supposed to be in her class.
They weren't her classmates... So who were they?!
Her eyes went wide as she jolted up and sat straight, looking at the three women who were crowded around her.