Sweats drip over my face as I keep running away, endless dark corridors of the palace, no people around, all alone, but I know someone is following me. I can feel its presence, shivers run down my spine, bullets of cold sweats on my forehead and that goose bumps that disagree to leave my skin. “Jinuven”, that creepy voice that keeps calling me since the start. I’m terrified. “Jinuven”, that voice again, and a devious laugh follows.

“You can’t escape.” No. no. no. Please stop. What is this? What’s happening? I keep running and running, but it seems that the corridors keep extending, there’s no end. A tear drops on my cheek as my legs can no longer be felt, I’ve been running nonstop, my energy is at its peak. I want out from this. Tears keep flowing. “I told you, you can’t escape. Fate is fate.” The voice laughs mercilessly. “This is your fate, it will happen again.” I bring my hands over my ears, I keep running, No, I won’t stop, I’ll run until I can. I don’t want to hear that voice anymore. “What will happen, will happen. You can’t change the end.” “You’ll die.”

Beads of sweats are dripping over my forehead. I am panting for air as shortness of breath wakes me up from deep slumber. I can hear and feel my abnormal beating of heartbeats. Was that a just a dream? ! Thank goodness that wasn’t real. I can still feel the hairs on my skin standing up. The fear I felt that time was still lingering. I touched my forehead as I stared up the ceiling, still processing what had happened. Calm down, you’re in reality now.

“This is your fate, it will happen again.” “You’ll die.” I shut my eyes as I recall the voice’s words. My fate? Does my fate in this novel not gonna change? Mino will kill me someday? A heavy feeling envelops my chest.

I abruptly look over my side and I see no one. Mino is not here. But we share the same bed last night? Was that a dream too? I remember that we kissed. My fingers find its way to my lips. No, that wasn’t a dream. But where is he?

I roam my eyes around the room and realize that it’s already morning. Yellow rays of the sun are peeking over the large windows, through the small gaps of long curtains. I can hear the birds chirping, and the wind is blowing from the small open window. My question got answered as the door opened and a very handsome brute emperor, in his expensive looking royal dress suite, enters the room with a tray on his hands. His eyes found mine and he closes the door.

“You’re awake.” I smile weakly as he walks towards the bed.  He puts the tray on the bedside table, and gets the bed table from its cabinet.  He places it on the bed with the tray. He sits on the side of the bed and looks at me. He brushes some strands of my hair off my forehead. “I prepared some breakfast, I cooked it for us.” His eyes are cold but there is a ghost of smile on his lips. I look over the foods he prepared. There are pancakes, fried beef, seasoned rice, a hot soup, and two mango juice. “Thank you.” I look at him and he just pats my head. “Let’s eat.”

Mino went to his office to work after we ate our breakfast. My dream, a nightmare perhaps, keeps hunting my thoughts. I need answers for all of these. I will not live here as someone else if it’s just nothing. There might be reasons for all of these. I decided to go to the palace’s main library. There might be books in there that can help me.

High ceiling, spotless white marble floor, sturdy high and massive posts with intricate designs, painting of angels and gods on the high walls, and shelves full of books welcomed me as I entered the library’s big wooden double doors. Almost no one is here because it’s so big that you wouldn’t notice other people inside with you.  

I went to look for an officer in charge of the library. I walk some feet away from the entrance, and in the very middle, I saw the reception area. There is a woman with very long jet black hair, in all black dress, and black gloves. Her head snapped up to look at me when she felt my presence, and I felt scared on the way she looked at me. His eyes are red and her lips lifted a little as if expecting me already.

She motions her head for me to come nearer. As I slowly come closer, I notice she looks gorgeous with her deep set eyes and high cheekbones. She could pass as a model if not for her scary demeanor. She looks mysterious and dangerous. “How can I help you?” I gulped my fear away, not allowing her to notice my fear. I maintain my poker face before I find my words.

“Do you know where the books about life and death, and magic are located?” She smiles at me and stands up. “I will show you the way.” She went out the reception area and walks over near me to motion her hand on the way for me to follow. I let her lead the way while I’m walking behind her. We went up to the second floor through the grand spiral staircase. She stops when we are almost at the end of the room. “This section.” She told me as she points the alley of shelves using her hand. “There are only limited books you can find here since some are restricted and only accessible by the emperor and other very important people in the kingdom. Some are only for the priests.” She said without looking at me. “But maybe you can find what you’re looking for here.”  She nods her head before looking at me.

“Thank you.” I said, and there goes her weird smile again before bowing her head and leaving me alone.

I am scanning through the shelves and getting the books that I think are useful. I didn’t bother to look for a table and just sit down on the floor. I think I am here for couple of hours now. I was just skimming through the other books because some are not even related to what I’m finding, until I opened the next book. Parallel Souls. That’s what the title of the book says. I read every detail of it for I don’t know how long is until I something caught my attention. I read and tried to understand what it means. As what I’ve fathom from the book, there are possibilities of parallel space and transfer of souls. The mystery of where we are living has no end.  It’s a bottomless space where our souls exist. It just transfers from one place to another, living, dying, living, dying, and the cycle continues. In each parallel space, there always exists a same body with the same soul, both living and just existing at different timeline and world. If the body dies from accidents or intentional death instead of natural death, the soul will look for its host or body to enter, for it will travel time to where his designated body is alive. If both body from parallel space died from accidents and intentional deaths, the soul will get confused to where it will transfer, so a time wrapped will happen and the soul will force its way to the push back time where either of his body is not yet dead.

Is that why I came back to the time where Jinuven is years away from his death? Wait, this is getting more confusing. This is a novel for crying out loud! I just happen to read this novel when I am still alive, how the that there is a life inside a novel?! And according to the book, does it also mean I am really Jinuven?! What the ?

I left the library after putting back the books. I don’t bother to look for the librarian and just proceed to walk out that place. Everything made me suffocated. All of these are making my head hurts.

The cold wind from the darkness of the night is my companion on my way to the main palace. Walking alone, with both of my hands inside my suite’s pocket, the parade of questions and possibilities are all running in my head. I keep kicking the stones my feet touch as I remain walking and looking at the ground.

A loud flapping of wings snapped me from my thoughts for I have to frantically look ahead. Almost face to face with me, inches away is a big blue bird almost a size of a grown dog, looking at me straight to my eyes with its blazing gold eyes. Its wings flapped loudly again before flying away from me. I should be alarm, but something in me is telling me to go after the blue bird. I run as fast as I can to come up with its pace, I stop when the bird suddenly disappear off my sight. I have kept my attention to it, where did it suddenly went off? I look around and I gasp as soon I realize I don’t remember my way here. Where is this place? In front of me was an abandoned building, it looks like another palace with no inhabitant. No lights, no guards, only the small amount of light from the moon gives me the chance to see the molds and crawling plants around the walls of the place. It looked creepy, and the images of ghosts from the horror movies I had watched before appeared at the back of my head.

I shrieked the moment I heard a silent cry somewhere inside the abandoned palace. I am about to run off from the palace when the cry suddenly echoed right behind me. As I frantically look back with my eyes wide open, there is no one. Goose bumps instantly appear on my skin as the cry becomes louder and nearer, as if it is just beside me. Out of fear, I run to the palace and as I set my foot on its floor, a sudden heavy and eerie atmosphere envelops my system. It is so strong, my heartbeat loudly bangs inside my chest. I have no time to think of anything as the cry keeps following me. I run and run to the palace’s unlit corridors, I don’t know where I will go, just away from the cry. Suddenly the cry had stopped.

I stop running to catch my breath when a creepy laugh echoed around the palace. I am shaking in fear, I can’t almost feel my feet and my sweats are cold. I look around but I am all alone. The laugh became louder.  “Jinuven.” That voice! The voice from my nightmare. “Jinuven.”, the voice sound like a voice from the underground. It’s hoarse and giving off evil vibes. My hands are shaking nonstop as I force myself to run even with my shaking limbs. “My my. You should not be here, someone that is not from here should be eliminated.” The voice laughs again. I keep running until I meet a dend end. My hands flew to my mouth as silent sobs tried to escape. Tears roll down at once on my cheeks before I made my way at the corner. I sat down hugging my knees, my head in between. I put my hands over my ears as my cry becomes frantic and shaking. “This place will erase you. This place wil kill you. Remember that.” It was not followed by anything after that. The hoarse voice disappear, but the place still carries that heavy aura. With my limping fit, I stand up to get away from that place. A blue crystal appear at the ground. It lights up and an eye suddenly appears inside of it. Then I heard that creepy laugh again. “Run”, the eyes turned red and I didn’t waste any second to run away from there.

I don’t know how I find my way inside the main palace, my mind’s a mess. I look horrible, the stares from the servants and butlers are directed towards me. They looked at me confused and worried. They might be wondering what happened to me. My steps are hurried until I reached our room and closed it as soon as I entered. I have lost my strength and sat down at the floor. My hands are on my mouth as another batch of tears roll down my cheeks. With wide eyes, I stare at the space while crying my eyes out.