Years quickly turned back and forth like the pages of a book. Twenty years passed as if it were twenty minutes reading the words written on those pages, which did not want to be covered by that accursed memory.
Conditions remain the same and nothing has changed from before. Only statues of old people who used to be full of life at one time fill the main square of the village (the Western Arch) and the same faces wander around. Otherwise, it was boredom that filled that semi-empty place devoid of flowering life.
With the fall of the robe of darkness, announcing the arrival of the night, the rain began to wane abundantly, as if it were bright threads in the sky. The voices of people who fell into a deep sleep were silenced amidst that calmness and reassurance emanating from the sound of rain and the smell of the wet earth.
In the midst of the darkness and extreme cold created by the dense trees, this girl runs in her wet and torn dress under the frightening sounds of thunder and lightning, shaking her emaciated body with one shiver, then a second, and a third.
Her heart beat violently inside her chest, almost exploding with every blow.
She kept running with the melodies formed by her trembling lips, which turned purple in the icy atmosphere.
She runs with her feet full of wounds and blood that hit her on her journey to escape from the prison of the forest, which stores her worst nightmares and deepest sorrows.
Her frozen feet brought her to a place that contains dim lights within the columns of lanterns that fill its corners. She rushed to run with what was left of her energy towards the velvet house isolated in the corner alone, fortunately for her, someone had forgotten to close the window tightly. I pressed it, pushed it back slowly without making a sound, then entered and hid inside.
By morning, the sky was gray, with clouds stretching wide against the never-ending horizon. The sun's rays seep through those cotton balls like shimmering threads that connect the sky to the pointed ceilings of the Western Bow village, creating a magical show of shimmering surfaces that shine and shimmer in different shades of gold.
This sleeper woke up taking a hot shower as usual every morning after a long night in which he struggled to get even an hour of sleep.
He finished his bath and changed into a gray woolen shirt with long sleeves and regular black pants, then went downstairs to eat his morning breakfast.
The first thing he met at the end of the stairs was the living room. He made his way to the kitchen, only to stop abruptly to look at the sight that attracted him. He directed his feet towards the sleeping girl on the couch, wrapping her arms around her shivering body.
Adam Rumah, son of the village of ( The Western Arch), stood there. An unbreakable solid wall. His chest rose up and down in exhaustion as he stared at her in confusion, studying her intensely and critically.
His eyes roamed her body, studying her tousled hair, then down to her muddy clothes. She was wearing a light black dress with torn white sleeves, and the bottom of her feet was covered only by black shoes that looked as if they were stockings attached to her feet.
Her tattered and dirty clothes sparked the curiosity inside him. So he began to inspect the features of her sleeping face well, perhaps he had seen her around before, but twenty years with the same faces every day was enough for him to know that she was not someone from the village.
He will think to himself a little:
-(Where did this girl come from, and how did she get into my house? She doesn't look from here, nor is she familiar either. I would have recognized her by this face).
He sighed a little and then decided to ask her himself to find out the answer. He couldn't wait for her to wake up, so he shook her shoulder, saying:
(Hey? Miss? Miss?)
The other one woke up terrified as she pulled her dress as if death had caught her. Adam noticed the state in which she had awakened, and spoke in his calm, hoarse voice:
-(Don't panic. You're awake now).
Something about the one he was talking to made her calm down, and as soon as their eyes met together, she sighed in relief, as if she had become safe.
He stared back at her body again and at the defensive way in which she wrapped her hands around her upper body, so she felt embarrassed and pained when she thought that he was judging her in a low way, so she rushed and grabbed her dress in the fold of her hands with a force of tension and shame while she felt some safety under The severity of his eyes. As if by hiding a part of her dress her vulnerability would magically disappear from his view.
His savage eyes stopped on the dress, which she grabbed tightly with her trembling hands.
His head quickly rose again, and her body succumbed to her terror and frenzied shaking just like a brittle clay pot under the heavy feeling of his unfriendly gaze meticulously focused on her alone.
His eyes continued to rise, and a faint smile began to play on either side of his lips. An army of chills gradually began to appear on the girl's complexion until his forest eyes rested confidently on her.
Heat rose on her face burning her cheeks. She wouldn't have been surprised if her skin turned to ash and fell off her face at this point.
"You don't look familiar, miss. Aren't you from here?"
Adam spoke again in his calm voice. The girl was alarmed when she felt a drop of sweat slipping down her temple that would probably evaporate as soon as it landed on her cheek.
(I...I'm Amalia Hazel).
She answered hesitantly and sat there waiting for a response from him. He said:
-(And I am Adam Rumah. May I know where you are from and how did you enter my house?).
Adam... Adam Rumah? His forest eyes really are to save. It's the most beautiful explosion of nature's green and woody textures. A window into the land of dreams.
Amalia thought to herself, her stomach reeling in excitement and giving her a shred of joy.
She stared dreamily at him, at this boy she had only heard of and never met up close before, and it was at this very moment that Amalia Hazel of "Eastern Arch" Village, felt her heart skip a beat for the first time for a man named Adam Rumah.
Adam waved his hand in front of her face to catch her attention, which was completely distracted by his presence so close to her.
She added hastily under the tension and embarrassment that befell her:
-(Your window wasn't closed tightly...and it was freezing cold).
The other stared at her with concentration, waiting for her to finish her sentence to know where she came from. And she added, tension evident on her face:
-(I am from the village of " Eastern Arch" ).
She sat in her place, waiting for any reaction from the one standing immobilized in front of her, his gaze screaming with all the disturbances that could exist.
His lips finally moved.
-(Impossible. It is impossible for you to go all the way through the forest here and those creatures don't do you anything )
She opened her mouth to answer, but he interrupted her. That tall blonde opened the door of the house and entered randomly. He greeted his friend and smiled:
-(Good morning, my friend. You didn't sleep as usual, did you?)
As soon as he approached the living room where his friend was standing, he noticed the beautiful stranger sitting on the sofa facing him.
He approached his companion Adam and whispered in his ear asking:
-(Who is this girl Adam? I haven't seen her around before).
-(That's what I was asking her about Tallan , before you came in. All she said was her name and where she came from )
-(And what is her name?).
-(Amalia Hazel).
Talan raised his hand to greet her.
-(Welcome, Miss Amalia Hazel. I am Talan Denny.)
Amalia only smiled because of her nervousness, then the other smiled back at her and turned his gaze again at Adam whispering in his ear :
-(Where did she say she come from?).
Adam said:
-(She said she was from the village of "Eastern Arch" and came all the way here through the forest without being spotted by one of those creatures).
His eyes widened in shock, and some fear, which he could not deny or not express, crept inside him. He said:
-(Uh? It's not possible for her to escape from the woods.)
He could only feel himself speaking so loudly that Amalia could hear him. She replied:
-(It's because I'm running from there. I ran from the other dimension of the forest.)
-(What do you mean that you are running away from the forest? And how did those beings or their leader not catch you?).
Amalia hesitated a bit to answer:
-(It's because...because I'm a flaming witch, too.)
She lowered her head at her last words as if they were a disgrace. It was as if that fact opened up old wounds for her that she tried hard to hide.
Talan hesitated a bit, trying to comprehend what he was hearing, before speaking again:
-(A flaming witch? like the "flamethrower " Tamader ; symmetrical to the one that preceded you, right?).
Adam, who seemed surprised in his turn, intervened quickly to grab the hammer under his single sofa, speaking menacingly:
-(What did you come here for? Wasn't that enough of your great leader, or did she send you to finish what she started?)