A window to another world

Opal dashed through the narrow streets of her small town at the highest speed her legs allowed, giving her best impression of a professional runner – maybe that was the reason why the bigger part of the sports clubs at school wanted her to join them, now that she thought about it –, and somehow arrived on time yet again. There were still people coming in and, while gulping down a few needed breaths, she grinned like a madman to herself: she had utterly failed at the not-making-a-run-for-school part, but her record attendance wouldn’t have been affected.

“Hey, Opal!”

She was walking proudly down the path that led to the entrance of the building, when she heard the voice of one of her friends. She looked around, seeing the other girl near the school gate, and waved excitedly at her. “Toshiko! Hi!”

Her friend joined her, heaving a sigh, and they started walking together to class. “I’ll never understand how you manage to get here before me every single time. I even started waking up earlier! And I know at which hour you put your alarm!” she exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air.

Opal snickered, imitating some of the characters of the series she liked – she had become so good at that, she had to show the fruits of her training – and making her hair swish in a way that was very theatrical, if you asked her. “Ho ho ho, my young apprentice, it is way too soon to reveal the secret of my art!” The drama club would’ve loved her, she was sure of it, and to be fair she was certain she would’ve loved the drama club back, but her problem was that she would’ve constantly thought about the other clubs too: she wanted to try anything and everything, but she couldn’t possibly be in every single club in the school, so she had to decline every offer to join with a heavy heart. That was also the reason why she always tried to dribble the various club members she daily met at school; such was the harsh destiny of someone so indecisive like her.

Toshiko rolled her eyes good-naturedly, playing along with a smile. “Oh and pray tell, oh great Time Master, when will the propitious moment finally come?”

Opal grinned. “Maybe when you’ll actually arrive before me.”

“Opal, come on!”

She started laughing, and Toshiko, who was trying her best to maintain her pout, soon followed her, shaking her head.

“Anyway, you arrived on time but I could bet you haven’t even taken some time to look at yourself in the mirror, if those wrinkles I see are anything to go by. Come here for a second.” Opal dutifully stopped and turned to her, letting her straighten her tie and adjust her collar and her shirt sleeves. Afterwards, Toshiko drew back, putting her hands on her hips with a huff, and examined her critically, as if she was a professor reading a student’s test and not a student herself. “Well, I can’t do much more, but you’re presentable. Plus, I guess it’s a benefit of having short hair like yours, but it's always fine. I’ve never caught you with a bed hair in all of the years we’ve known each other.”

“Hehe, it’s one of my multiple talents!” Opal flashed her a grin, giving her a thumbs up. “Anyway, thanks Toshiko!”

Her friend smiled. “You have to thank whichever god or goddess decided to grace you with their favour. Now let’s head to class, or you can say goodbye to your record attendance and you don’t want that.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

They resumed walking and got to their seats just in time, a few minutes before the bell rang.

The grand majority of students in her class – and probably her school – would’ve argued that it was, in fact, the complete opposite, but to Opal the lessons were usually incredibly intriguing. She liked every subject and was sincerely interested to learn more, genuinely happy to be there. That was, possibly, the actual reason why she didn’t want to ever arrive late despite everything. She was happy when she finished a school day as well, because she could dedicate herself to her way too many hobbies, but it didn’t change the fact that she liked to be there. She even liked Mondays, to her friends’ eternal and absolute dismay. That was the first time, however, that she continued to drift back with her mind to her latest dream instead of focusing on the current lecture. Naturally, no-one could actually focus on every single word of every single lecture, it just wasn’t humanly possible, but getting that distracted didn’t happen that often to her. She felt, inexplicably, some kind of pull that demanded to be acknowledged, but apart from getting back to sleep she hadn’t the foggiest idea of what she could do to satisfy that demand.

For the rest of the school day, a part of her mind continued to think about it, even during the lunch break, when she absentmindedly slipped into the familiar back and forth of the conversations with her classmates. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, then, when she declined their offer of hanging out after school.

“Oh… Opal, are you sure?” one of them asked.

“Yeah, sorry guys, I had already something planned. Maybe another time?” she said, apologetic, rubbing the back of her neck.

“Sure, no problem. See you tomorrow, then!”

“Yes, see you!”

She felt a bit guilty for not joining them – and for lying, while she was at it –, but she simply had one too many thoughts swirling around in her mind to be capable of following her classmates in conversations or activities. She liked spending time with them, but sometimes… sometimes she felt like she was just putting up an act, as if her expressions, words, gestures and reactions all followed a script of repetitive casualness. Even though she liked spending time with people, be it her friends or the members of her family, from time to time she felt horribly out of place, for apparently no reason at all, and she couldn’t shake off the impression that she shouldn’t have been there.

When she felt like that there was only one place that could ease her worries, and that was why, after having walked for a bit, she found herself in front of the abandoned church just outside of town. It was small, like everything in that area, Romanesque in its architecture, and it still managed to be elegant in its stoic lines despite some parts of it having crumbled down after centuries of pillages and failed renovations. The exterior walls – or, at the very least, what remained of them – were covered in ivy and vines, but it just added to the overall impression of mystery of that place.

Opal entered and took a seat on the far end of one of the wooden benches, lifting her gaze to look at the colourful rose window that had always captured all her attention. It was the best preserved thing in that church and its stained glass depicted a girl – probably a saintess – with closed eyes and long wavy hair, spread like a blue halo around her head, who held a sword in her hands and was surrounded by swirling speckles of light. Opal had been completely fascinated with that figure since the first time she had entered that church after one of her exploration sprees, and by that point she visited that place at least once a week, not counting the times she just went there in order to profit of the peace and quiet.

Normally she would’ve simply sat there, in contemplation, but that day she felt the inexplicable need to get closer, against her better judgement. She left her school bag on the bench and climbed the stairs, whose rusty gates couldn’t keep anyone out anymore, going up to the first floor, right in front of the rose window. She made a few steps towards it, but she tripped over a rock, between all things, and fell right towards the window. She closed her eyes, shielding her head with her arms in preparation to get hurt, all the while belittling herself in a constant litany of stupid stupid stupid, but, instead of hitting the glass, she passed right through it, as if it was liquid.

She had a few moments to be surprised and then she was falling again, down, down, until she finally collided with something… soft? Were those flowers? How was that even possible?

She heard a buzz of whispers, so foreign to that place she had always associated with sacred silence, and opened her eyes to see a crowd of people – believers? – filling the space of a church that until not even a minute before was abandoned and forgotten, but that now was perfectly standing and cared for. Maybe in an effort not to think too much about the situation at hand- was she in a different town? In the past? How the hell did she even get there? Magic? But magic didn’t exist! Was she in another universe altogether-, her mind strived to focus on something she could understand: that is to say, the architecture. The thought that came to the forefront of her mind was that her very first assumption was wrong, for that wasn’t the church she knew, but an unfamiliar cathedral: apart from the fact that it wasn’t destroyed, it was Gothic in its style, high-ceilinged and grand, with a central nave and two side aisles that could easily welcome hundreds of people. It was majestic, with its array of elegant columns and the intertwined lines that formed intricate patterns on the stone – a sword motif being the most recurring one –, and it was luminous, not just thanks to the marble that had been used to build it but also because its walls were covered in stained glasses, that filtered the rays of sunlight in resplendent colours. Moreover, it was decorated with flowers everywhere, as if she had arrived during some kind of celebration.

She was frozen in shock, not even registering the words that were spoken until a few seconds later.

“… a sign! This must be her! Rejoice, the Saviour has returned!”