Xel thā rā

by Ruby Chan, age 11

*Brring brring*You pick up the phone and glance at the screen. It’s your eccentric Aunt Amara. You try to ignore her call, but she calls again. This time you groan and then hit the pick up button. “Hello?” you say, and Auntie Amara replies with, “Hello, dear. Have you thought about my offer to pay for a fortune telling session?”You groan again, because she has been nagging you about this for weeks. Frankly, you are considering just giving up and letting her set a session up, but you don’t believe in all of this voodoo, fortune-telling crap, and you won’t let your aunt drag you into it.“Hello?” she says again. “I hope you’re silent because you’re thinking of the best way to tell me that I can set you up with Madame Lillian.” With that last comment, you finally snap. “Fine. I’ll do it. But this is the ONLY time I’m doing this.” You can basically hear Auntie Amara smirking behind the phone.

“Does the 12th work for you?” “No,” you reply, “I have my improv class, remember? I’m doing that all week except for Friday.” “Then how about Friday?” You cringe because you know that as soon as she finds out that Friday is the 13th, she will immediately freak out and change the date. So before she can say anything, you just blurt out, “Alright, sounds good, love you! Bye.” You hang up and silence your phone before she can start calling you again. Five minutes later, she sends you the confirmation receipt, and you

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don’t give it another thought until the day comes. Friday the 13th rolls around before you know it, and suddenly, it’s time for you to go to your fortune telling session. You grab a purse, slip on your shoes, and rush out the door. When you get to the area, you feel as if someone is watching you. You look around, but all you see is an alley cat. You get to the shop, and as soon as you come within three feet of the door, a 50-something-year-old woman with sharp, ice blue eyes comes out and says, “Welcome to Madame Lillian’s Clairvoyance and Prophecies! I’m Madame Lani. Madame Lillian is currently sick, but I’m here to satisfy your soothsaying needs. Come in!” You cautiously step inside of the shop, instantly overwhelmed by the intense smell of incense and chamomile tea. You suddenly feel tired, like you just lost two hours of sleep. You hear her voice ask you if you want a cup of fennel tea, and you nod your head, even though you don’t know if she really asked you that. You slowly start to walk behind her, and you sit down on a cushion placed on the floor. You count thirty-seven seconds, and then she brings in a warm cup of fennel tea, a spoon, and a small cup of honey. You add the honey to your tea and start drinking. Fennel tea: not your favorite, but you’ll survive. This cup of fennel tea, though, has a strange bitterness to it. But this is fennel tea we’re talking about, so it’s not much of a surprise. She brings out her tarot cards, spreads them out, and tells you to pick three cards. You pick three cards, and you swear the eye on the back of the last card looks at you. She puts down the first card. The queen.“Your past: the Queen. You grew up more financially stable than most families that you know, and you knew your worth.” You find this very inaccurate, because you emigrated from Chiang Khan in Thailand when you were 6 years old and weren’t the most financially stable growing up. You lived in a small immigrant neighborhood for eleven years and worked

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harder than anyone else in your family to get into a good college. You got into a regular college and a year later got into Columbia College. And throughout all of this time, you struggled with self-consciousness. But despite all of that, you ignore your annoyance and turn your attention back to Madame Lani. She puts down the next card.“Your present: the Count. You are still financially stable, and you are happy with your life.” Now that part is true. You don’t think there’s anything else to say about that, so you urge her to go on. But suddenly, you get a flash headache, more painful than any other headache you’ve ever had. Madame Lani asks if you are okay, and you nod. She places the next card and starts talking, but you start to nod off. Before you can fall asleep, she reads the last card.“Your future: Eltara.” As soon as she finishes speaking, you pass out.You slowly open your eyes and look around. You see an empty warehouse with a hayloft all around you. You try to get up, but your legs refuse to work, so you lie back down. Suddenly, you notice that the ground is made of a weird blue grass, and you are surrounded by red . . . cherry blossom petals? You’ve never seen cherry blossoms this red before. Your legs are then released from their prison of paralysis, and you get up. A shiver works its way down your spine, and you feel as if someone is watching you. When you turn around, you see a girl with extremely pale skin, sharp green eyes, and red-pink hair with green highlights put up into twin buns. While you’re frozen in confusion, she jumps down and waves her hand in front of you. “Hello? You alive?” You manage to blurt out, “Did that fortune teller drug me? You gotta be kidding me.” She leans back and says, “Oh! You’re not a statue! I thought you were a ghost for a second. So how did you get here?” You look at her, confused.

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“How did I get here? I don’t even know what here is.” Now she looks confused.“You don’t remember standing before the court of the supposed holy beings?”

“No. Who’s that?” “The holy beings who decide where you go in the afterlife.” You suddenly get very nervous. “Well, where are we?” She sighs, and then speaks. “We’re in Eltara, home of the eternally damned.” “What? This isn’t possible.” You start freaking out. She puts her hand on your shoulder, and all of your worries momentarily wash away. But then they come back. “This hasn’t happened in a while.” she says. “The last woman here escaped but stole the sacred honey used to transport people here. But at least she got out. If she can, you can.” You piece it together. Madame Lani did drug you! But at least there’s a way to get out. You sit down and you feel something in your pocket. You put your hand inside of your pocket and take out a piece of paper and the girl gasps. “Oh! You have the chart!” When you look at her weirdly, she explains. “Every seventy-eight years, a portal to the human world appears for thirteen minutes. And every seventy-seven years, a map to get to this portal is formed. You have that map, and I can be your travel companion! Also, the seventy-eight-year mark is coming up in four days and fourteen minutes.” “Okay . . . but before we leave, can you tell me your name?” She grimaces.“Names aren’t things that you just tell people here, but you can just call me El.” You give her a small smile, and with that, you open the chart.“It’s been here for the past three portal summoning years?!” El looks annoyed, but also kind of relieved. You’re also relieved, because that means that you don’t have to go anywhere other

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than the warehouse. You won’t have to worry about meeting any other of the eternally damned. And this space seems like you can live there for four days. There are cherries on the ground, and it looks like El has a supply of hunting tools. But before you set up camp, you ask El one more thing. “Why are the cherry blossoms red?” El smirks. “It’s because every other human that has come here gets killed by some demon who wishes to go to the human realm. I’ve been each and every one’s bodyguard/travel guide, but they didn’t survive. So, I buried their still-bleeding bodies under the growing cherry blossom trees, and the roots seeped up the blood. My way of paying respect to them.” You’re a bit weirded out, but you just shrug it off. You set up camp, lay out a sheepskin and a pillow of leaves, and you pass out. The days pass as fast as you and El eat the roasted steak that you hunted down. Before you know it, there are forty-three minutes until the portal appears. You gather all of your belongings, and sit on the sheepskin until there are ten minutes left. El taught you all about the portal: It takes ten minutes to charge up, and then one person can make it through. Now there are four minutes left, so you start walking towards the charging portal, when suddenly El shouts, “WAIT!” She jumps down from her perch and comes to give you a hug. “It’s been fun.” But just when you’re about to embrace her, she kicks you in the gut. You fly backwards, surprised by how strong she is. She looks different too. Her green highlights have turned black, and her eyes are tinted red. Suddenly it hits you. This isn’t El.

“Who are you?!” you scream. She laughs. “I’m El. Your travel guide.” You can hear the sarcasm in her voice. You grab a knife and shakily stand up.

“I’ll ask one more time; who are you?!” “Ever thought what the El was for? No?” She laughs even

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more. “I am Eltara. I’m the original eternally damned. I killed all of the humans. I collect their still-bleeding bodies and bury them. And I am the one that will make you meet your maker!” With that last sentence, she jumps up into the air and comes down, kicking you in the head. You collapse on the ground, and look at the portal. Eighty-seven seconds, your lucky number. You try to make a run for the portal, but she kicks you again before you can get to the portal. Three inches away from the glowing sphere, you’re bleeding, and you think this will be your end. But then you see an opening. You drop your knife and dive towards the portal, and it works, but only half. Your face is right next to the radiant light coming from the oval. When you sit up, Eltara is right there. And this time, she’s holding a knife. You look at your watch. Fifteen seconds. She slowly walks towards you, knife poised. You start to slowly count down from fifteen. You start backing away slowly, but you get a little too cocky. You stay in the same place for three seconds, giving her enough time to stab your leg. “AAAARGH!!!” you scream in agonizing pain. Seven seconds. You back up more, but you aren’t able to escape. She grabs your neck, holding you up with amazing strength, and stabs you. You feel like someone is freezing you within an ice block and putting you in a blazing hot fire at the same time. She drops you. Four seconds. You try to crawl towards the portal and you’re almost there. You start to pass out, and she starts walking towards you again. Three . . . two . . . one. You rest your hand and your head on the portal, letting the warmth whisk you away to a world of your truest desires. You faintly hear Eltara screaming and sobbing in the background before your eyes close and transport you to a realm of darkness. “Hon? Are you awake?” You wake up to see your mother and Auntie Amara looking down at you. You see your mom choke back tears, and they both run out of the room to tell the doctor. You look around, and you realize you’re in a hospital. The rest

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