With every step Fannah took towards the city centre the sky turned into a richer red, the creatures swimming in the hues of blue and gold slowly disappearing as the sky shines like red rubies in all their glory, like it had absorbed all of the blood from the humankind, leaving them dry and pale like the white lifeless moon that had no place in this world of wonders and mysteries.
Fannah, who was just an ordinary man of simple thinking, looked around in awe as the crowd on the streets started buzzing and it felt much livelier than earlier today,There were all kinds of hybrid creatures, looking at him as if he were prey.
"Does it not get dark here?" Fannah asked, looking around.
"No, the city of Al-Samash is always dancing in colours,never dark, never cold" the divine being answered.
"Hmm, intriguing, that means we don't need to stop anywhere. let's keep moving" Fannah said and started walking faster than before.
As Fannah quickened his pace, the world around him seemed to change colours every passing second, the non-existent air shifted around him and the glossy surroundings turned dark.
A sudden gust of hot air rushed past him and he felt something cold coil itself around his body and then everything turned dark and he fell onto the rose petals which bounced up, to support his body of white shroud and gleaming love.
Before his eyes closed shut, he saw a pair of white irises looking at his face like he had caught a precious prey.
"Wake up", a voice whispered in his ears but he did not move at all, his body frozen.
"Wake up, wake up Fannah,you are going to die", The voice started calling out relentlessly until he finally moved his fingers.
He tried to open his eyes but his eyelashes seemed to have been glued together, and something was touching his feet, wet and thick, his body felt bare as a breeze of air hit his body, but there also seemed to be some type of cloth hanging over his shoulders loosely.
"Fannah" the divine being called again.
"What's happening?, where are we?and why can't I open my eyes?" Fannah asked as soon as he heard the divine being's call.
"shh, don't talk loudly and don't open your eyes" it instructed in a hushed voice.
"What's happening?" Fannah asked again.
"congratulations, you have just successfully made a fairy fall head over heels for you and now she is going to take you to her own realm and keep you there forever like a bird In the cage" the divine being explained, annoyed by the change of situation.
"What?, why?, how?, I mean what do you mean?" He asked.
"We will figure that out later, for now you should shut up and wait for my instructions" the divine being said and a deadly silence fell over the room, leaving Fannah alone to think over the things that were happening.
Unfortunately, before Fannah could come up with a plausible explanation, the door of the room opened, and a few voices started whispering in the air, while making their way towards the man and lifting him gently.
"We need to hurry up", A delicate voice spoke as Fannah was lifted up from his place and put into a closed space, Since the cold air disappeared suddenly and the surface he was sitting on was soft and warm, unlike earlier, his eyes were still closed shut so he could only feel his surroundings.
As he tried to understand what was happening, he suddenly felt that he was pulled up and in a matter of seconds he was swinging left and right.
"A palanquin?" Fannah asked in a low voice but no one answered his question and he was once again accompanied by a dark dense silence, which didn't break no matter how many questions he asked in his mind.
The journey continued for another half an hour, making the boy dizzy, the divine being was nowhere to be heard no matter how many times Fannah called out, the divine being remained silent like it was disconnected from his brain, making his head hurt.
In this moment,the divine being suddenly appeared again and yelled in his mind.
"Fannah, jump now" the divine being said and in a second, without thinking anything, Fannah jumped out of the palanquin, ready to run as fast as he could once he landed on the roses, knowing full well that they favoured him very much.
But as soon as he jumped off the palanquin, he could not walk, his breath stopped and his eyes snapped open, he was no more on those rose petals but instead, he was inside the Red ocean he had never seen before, sinking deeper inside the liquid that was not water but blood, there were no fishes in this vicious ocean, but butterflies and wasps going in rounds.
Their black wings tied to each other with a faint blue thread that illuminated into the dark of the ocean, Fannah's eyes widened as he saw the delicate creatures open their mouth and spit fire as they made their way to somewhere deeper with bags of fragrance on their slim wings, their feet and arms dipped into ashes of something.
But before Fannah could delve more into what's happening around him, a sudden forceful jolt, pulled him down, he tried to swim up to the surface of the ocean but the more the struggled, the deeper he fell.
Once they got to the deep end of the ocean, Fannah started floating on the surface of the water,his breathing returninig to normal and the surroundings once more lightened up to illuminate the ocean once again, but there was no sign of any creature being here, the surface was just cold and lonely, like a widow in her husband's home, mourning and crying, helplessly, the surroundings now felt darker and denser, like the sun burning quietly in the vast of universe.
Fannah wanted to ask the divine being what was happening but as soon as he focused on his mind, he noticed small panicked whimpers and anxious voice repeating only one sentence over and over again.
"why are we here?, why are we here?,why are we here?,why are we here?, why are we here?,why are we here?" The whispers went on his mind like mantras from some scriptures, but Fannah decided to ignore them and asked.
"Where is this?" he asked as he started looking around.
"I don't know", the divine being stuttured out.
"What do you______?" Fannah was about to say something but in the moment, they heard a little cry from somewhere.
"What was that?" Fannah asked as he stared looking around.
"Nothing, ignore it, we need to get out of here" the divine being interrupted.
Fannah kept walking for some time and then stopped, there it was again, a small hopeless cry, bleeding through the cold bloody ocean, followed by uneven breathing sounds, but this time it felt closer, more closer then his own heartbeat.
Fannah walked closer to the stone whose shape resembled a broken heart, the whimpers were now closer then before, his heart started throbbing in pain, silently, he kneeled in front of the stone.
Behind the stone, barely noticable a small figure hid, like a motherless wolf cub, his eyes shining blue but broken like they had seen the most horrible things of the world, his face mottled with blood and his clothes tattered,his arms trembling and his body wrapped in multiple bruises and injuries.
Fannah waited silently, kneeling and looking at the child.
After a long time, the child blinked and then, after thinking of something reached his hand out slowly and put it in Fannah's own, sensing no danger from the man In front of him, the boy slowly crawled out of his hiding and hugged Fannah.
"It's okay, shh, don't worry" Fannah tried to soothe the child in his arms but the child did not stop crying and kept clinging to him.
"My mother, They took my mother, she told me to hide here" the child explained between hiccups.
"What's wrong?, who took your mother?" Fannah asked rubbing the little boy's back.
"They, they took my mother, in there, she would never come back,please help me", the boy pleaded.
"Where did they take her, tell me I will get her back for you", Fannah said, patting the boy's head as he lefted him up in his lap.
"There, I will lead the way" the boy said happily and then after a pause continued, "it's because my mother is not that beautiful, so they took her, they will not take you, just my mother" the boy said as Fannah continued walking towards the direction the boy showed.
"lets go back" the divine being said, cutting off the child's voice.
"No, we will help his mother first" Fannah said.
"No, we don't have that much time, we need to find Sufiyan, let's just go, they are already dead" the divine being argued but Fannah did not listen at all.
"How long?" Fannah asked the boy.
"There, that factory" the boy exclaimed as he showed in one direction with his tiny finger.