I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed. Calandri wasn't in the room with me, but I saw a set of clothes waiting for me at the foot of the bed, Crier was placed on top of them in a sheathe of gold. I put on the tight, red shorts that felt a lot like spandex but were more comfortable and a body hugging, sleeveless red top made of the same material. I didn't like the way they showed my body and my underwear, but Calandri had asked me to be pretty, and I didn't want to disappoint her. I wasn't sure how to attach Crier, there wasn't a belt or anything, but when I placed it at my side it clung to my shorts without pulling them down, as if it was a magnet.

I went to the cafeteria, there were more people there, fortunately none of them were Paula. I didn't see Sam either, which made me a little upset. The rainbow person who I still couldn't figure out if it was a man or woman, waved to me and motioned at the mushroom across from her with a smile. After getting some food, choosing mostly at random, since I couldn't remember what tasted like what, I sat down beside her.

“Hello there Anthony, I'm Sin. What's your name?” the woman, I realized from her voice, asked.

“Anthony,” I said staring at her a little confused, and trying not to stare at her glittering skin.

She looked me over, smiling with emerald teeth. “They did wonderful work on your eyes, Alex. And your skin is such a remarkable shade of red, Annette.”

I covered my arms, hunching down, I REALLY didn't want to talk about what they'd done to my body. Trying to think of what to say, I came up with nothing, I couldn't bear to even say thank you.

“Oh I'm sorry Ant, you're still new here. All of this has probably been a huge shock for you. After you've been here long enough you start seeing the beautiful side of it all,” she said, waving her hand down her body.

“How long have you been here?” I asked, picking up something that looked like pine needles held together by sap. It tasted like sticky roast beef.

“At least sixteen years, Anthony. I fell through a rabbit hole when I got lost in the woods in the summer of 2030. At first I was as scared as you are, Alex, but now I realize it was the best thing that ever happened to me,” she said, her strange pink eyes staring into the distance.

My brow furrowed, and not just at her constant changing of my name. “That's in the future Sin, how could you have been here for sixteen years?”

“Listen Anthony, Even on Earth, time is an illusion. Here the illusion is shattered, and we are free as you are now Ant. There are no boundaries, no limits. Reality isn't set, dreams are as real as you let them, and everything can change, Alex.” As she spoke her eyes got wider, she ran her fingers over her body, shifting the colours of her skin.

I leaned back from her. “So if I dreamed of going home, I could go home?”

She frowned so hard I thought she was going to cry. “But Alex, Why would you want to go home. It's so beautiful here. The stars sing you to sleep, the earth rocks your bed at night. The air whispers the secrets of the world in your ears, the fire dances for your pleasure. Water caresses your body, and the trees give you their strength. Leave here, you'd be leaving heaven.”

She was crazy. “Ok, I need to go do... I need to train. Good bye, Sin.”

“Good bye Ant, I hope to see you again. The winds talk about you, whispering the glories of Anthony as they go past. They see a bad end and great fortune for the one known as Alex. You're most amusing, Ant.”

I grabbed a handful of leaves from my plate and walked back to my room munching on them as I went.

I got back to my room, but the door had two faces on it now. My own and Calandri's. I pushed on the door, but it remained closed. Ok, that was annoying, what was I suppose to do until Calandri called me for training? I only knew a few places, and there was no way I wanted to go back to chat with crazy lady in the cafeteria.

I walked back down the hall and turned towards the antechamber. However instead of a door there was a hallway. Stopping, I looked behind me and saw the tree's of the cafeteria, and the row of bedrooms. Ahead of me there were a series of gates each one seemed to lead to something different. Maybe the antechamber was up ahead. I looked through each gate as I went. There was a howling snowscape, a black void, a forest, a sitting room, a barren mountain, a moss filled field, a grand dining hall, an armoury, a ball room, stairs leading nowhere, there was no rhyme or reason.

“Oh look Ant, it's you,” Paula said from behind me.

I jumped and automatically hunched over afraid of seeing her beady eyes. I couldn't handle it on my own, I needed help. I found myself gasping for air.

“Ant, turn yourself around,” she said sounding annoyed.

I felt a long graceful hand gently touch my shoulder, freezing my skin, turning me around. I couldn't resist, I looked up at her, shaking like a leaf. And I was shocked.

I was standing beside Paula, who was wearing a long flowing pink dress made of water and fire. But it wasn't me. And yet it was. There was a girl with my face, my body, even my hair right down to the silver bells in it. Yet she was shivering from cold, her skin was pale blue like a hypothermia victim, every breath was misty as if it were a bitterly cold winter morning. Her long skirt of ice left her breasts uncovered, the ice tinkled as she moved. Our eyes connected, I saw my fear reflected and magnified.

“Do you remember this, Ant?” Paula asked the blue me.

I, she shook her head, “No mistress. I never had red skin. Only this beautiful blue which matches your eyes mistress.”

Paula ran her finger over my arm, “You're quite right, if you were ever this ugly red, I think I'd have ordered the Lady to throw you to the dogs. It is quite vulgar.”

“Quite right, mistress, it is only from your mercy I have fared as well as I have. But if I resembled this leper, death would be far preferable,” blue me said, bowing low.

I looked at her, hurt and ready to cry. How many other me's were wandering this place wishing I was dead? A surge of hatred built inside of me. “What did you face? What made you frozen?” I asked, my voice harder than anytime I could remember.

Paula smirked. “You may tell her if you wish, Ant.”

She nodded and began speaking in a faint voice, “When I first performed for the fae, I walked through a field of ice and snow. Every move had to be perfect or I would freeze. By the end I was able to walk on snowflakes and dance over the skies. I have used those skills to entertain the Lord and Lady in banquets unnumbered and with the patronage of my mistress won myself free of cruel Calandri.”

The thin woman patted blue me on the head, like a child. “I can see from how you stand you don't have the skill my Ant has. You must be truly worthless.”

Fire flashed in my narrowed eyes. “I faced a flock of fire birds on a net. I killed their leader, and injured or killed the rest with a knife.” I pointed my finger at the shivering woman who claimed to be me. Words came to my lips that weren't mine, my fingers clenched around Crier. “I may not be graceful, I don't know how to dance. But I know how to kill. You're an ant, living in the dirt. I have seen another me, with skin like mine. She was a killer, neither of you are. You beg like dogs for table scraps, the person I will become will sit at the side of the fae demanding their respect.”

I spit at Paula's face.

The woman moved out of the way so smoothly it was as if she had practiced the movement for months. As I stared at her graceful body, amazed at how she moved like water, a blue foot slammed into my shoulder

I gasped, it felt like I'd been shot, my left side went numb. I saw blue me come forward, her feet barely touching the ground, her delicate foot flew at my head. I ducked, shifting away, my already numb shoulder flared in pain as her foot connected with it again. I rolled along the ground.

I saw red.

Paula and her pet came at me, their long flowing dresses hiding their deadly feet. Crier of Souls left it's sheathe. Their movement was unstoppable, it was a race between my blade and their bone breaking strike.

Paula screamed as the ebony blade sliced through her leg. She fell writhing in pain, her shrieks echoed in the marble hallway.

Ant faltered looking at her mistress. She turned on me, tears blinding her and lunged, all grace abandoned. I stumbled back my sword between us. I felt a jolt that ran right through my bodies. I saw my face, full of hate, fear and pain inches from mine. The fire in my mind turned into an inferno, I pulled the blade back with a sickening slurping sound.

Ant fell to the ground, unmoving.

I walked to Paula who was crying and begging.

“My name is Anthony I will remember you, as you deserve,” I said in another voice. The blade came down, the crying stopped. Cleaning Crier on a piece of melting ice cloth, I walked away looking once more at the gates.

**

I stepped into the ballroom having nowhere else to go, sheathing Crier, it looked abandoned. Cobwebs hung like curtains along the walls, and my already light footsteps were almost silent in the dust. Clouds of dust flew up with every step, swirling, in the air, half formed images of creatures, people and other less identifiable things. There was scuttling in the dim light, things burrowed and moved through the dust, claws scratched on the marble floor, or fluttered in the shadows, disappearing as I got close to them.

My shoulder was stiff and sore where Ant had kicked it. My breast was feeling better, but I could feel it swelling in the bra. I wondered if I could find the infirmary again, maybe someone there could tell me how to fix it.

The light shifted, plunging me in shadows and lighting the far corners of the massive room. The strange fire that had been burning inside of me, died away. I remembered the blood coming from the stomach of the other me. It had steamed against her skin. Her eyes had looked peaceful as I pulled the sword out.

Paula hadn't looked like that. She'd seemed shocked at what had happened, as if it was all a dream. Even as I'd put Crier into her skull she had been saying it wasn't real and begging me to stop. The slice had sounded like a cross of a club hitting a fishes head and grandpa chopping wood. The blood drying on my hands and legs didn't remind me of anything, it was just itchy and sticky, stretching my skin whenever I took a step or moved my hands. The dust stuck to it, making it seem like it was crawling over me, growing on me.

I started back for the door, it wasn't there anymore. In it's place was a wall of burnt diamonds, chipped and cracked covered in dust.

Crier came to my hand again.

Walking towards the light the dust got deeper, covering my soft shoes, coating my ankles, reaching my knees. The half formed figures grew, becoming misty, ghostlike images. I saw Paula, all in grey, she danced around me, stroking my body with spiderwebs, weeping spiders from her dusty orbs. I swung Crier at her, the ebony blade passed through the dusty body like air.

Sam rose from the dust, building up mote by mote. He glared at me, only moving when I moved, his hands were hidden in darkness. Flies flew around him, filling the air with their buzzing, coating my skin, feasting on the blood I was stained with.

Another dusty ghost danced in the air above me, jumping from one dusty patch of air to another. White bells of bone rattled in it's long hair.

I felt something brush my back, Calandri was there. Her red skin turned to dead white ash. Claws of rotten silk twined around me, caressing my body.

A man came forward, his body made of crumbling, drying paper, holding a rusted poker as I held Crier. He began stabbing and slashing at me, the poker missing my skin by a finger.

More figures came forward. Focusing on me, looking at me, trying to attack me, accusing me. Asking why I had killed them. I started to cry, dozens, hundreds of tears for each person killed. The dust soaked up my tears, becoming heavy, crumbling to the ground like a sandcastle in the rain. After an eternity, after shedding enough tears to fill an ocean, I was alone.

Calandri waited at the door, holding her hand out for me. “It is time to train my child. I hope you won't disappoint me, Anthony, I want you to make me proud.”

I saw her smile, she wanted me to do well. She thought I could do something properly. I raced to her side and clutched at her hand like it was a lifeline.