PROLOGUE

1

A woman collapsed on the street.

It was so sudden, I could barely utter a word.

“Hey, are you alright?”

She didn’t respond.

So, I brought her to my apartment to check if she was okay.

“H-huh…?” She coughed weakly. “Wh-what’s g-going… on?”

“It’s okay. Everything’s alright now. I’m here to take care of you.”

As she continued making that high-pitched hissing sound, I gently touched her forehead.

“H-hey! S-stop…”

“It looks like you have a fever.”

Indeed, she did. Her forehead was hot, extremely hot. I could barely touch it.

“Wh-what’s that? I-is it s-something b-bad?”

Are you kidding me? She didn’t know what a fever was?

“It’s when your forehead rises extremely high in temperature. It’s typically caused by an infection.”

“Oh… wait what?!”

Okay, now she was concerned? What is wrong with this girl?

After a few minutes she fell back asleep.

“Ah, this is gonna be difficult.”

I put a blanket gently over her sleeping body, and placed a pillow underneath her head.

“Goodnight, have a nice rest.” I whispered.

2

A few hours later, the girl woke up, fully recharged.

“Excuse me, I’ve got to go now.”

“Wait — aren’t you gonna thank me for saving you? Speaking of which, who are you, exactly?”

“My name’s Estella. I need to go back to my realm, quickly. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way.”

And with that, she left the apartment — and I ran after her.

“Wait! Estella!”

Breathing heavily, I caught up to her. She stood in front of a portal.

Estella turned to face me.

“What are you doing here? Didn’t I tell you to stay out of my way?”

“Listen, I get it — you want me to leave you alone. But I want to make sure you're okay. After what happened earlier… I don’t want you to get hurt again.”

“I appreciate your concern, but this has nothing to do with you.”

As she stepped toward the portal, I grabbed hold of her wrist.

“Huh? Wait, stop!”

“Estella, calm down. I’m sure we can think of something.”

“Calm down? How can I calm down when you're literally going through a portal to an entirely different dimension! Come on, portal. This isn’t funny! Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!” She started to panic.

And with that, I knew: we were heading to another world.