Out of the Frying Pan

With her bag filled, Robina makes her way back out into the night but she hears the sound of sirens closing in on her. “I need to hide!” She runs down the street and notices a building still being constructed, clambers over the fence and makes her way up a flight of stairs. She takes a moment to analyze the situation and sees that the lights of the cop cars aren't far, in fact, they’re coming down the street. “Did they see me? Oh noo….” A familiar buzz alerts her from her pocket, she looks at the phone and sees that Terry is calling again. “I really don’t need this right now!” she whispers to herself.

A squad car pulls up to the construction site, and an officer steps out of the vehicle and shines a light towards the upper floors of the unfinished building before saying something into their shoulder mounted talkie but she can’t hear what. She starts climbing higher, and unfortunately she knocks over a box of screws that had been sitting alone in the dark. “No, no no….” she pleads with the falling objects as they plummet before crashing into the ground below. The officer hears the clanging of screws hitting the ground “Who’s up there? Come down now, you’re trespassing!” they shout up at her vicinity.

The flashlight, all that she can make out of the officer below starts coming closer. Her chest is pounding, nearly causing physical pain from the fear of being caught. She tries running again but the ground beneath her runs out first. ‘Mom… Dad…’ the last thoughts on her mind before her senses are consumed by the feeling of a freefall. All she can hear is her own scream and the wind rushing against her hoodie, then her world goes dark.

“Robina Dimos?” an unfamiliar voice calls her name, “...Um, hello?” Robina slowly opens her eyes, adjusting to the warm light in the room she finds herself in. “W-what… Who are you? Is this a hospital?” she replies in a confused daze, “i feel like i got hit by a truck…ugh..”

The person sitting across from her looks at her with a warm smile, “Sorry, kid. It wasn’t a truck. Maybe you forgot…” they pause and readjust their glasses “you fell four stories, and no this isn’t a hospital”

Robina looks back distressed, “are you like a cop or something?” she looks around the room but all the walls are missing. “Wait… what?”

“You can call me Chronoa, this isn’t my usual assignment” she folds her hands under her chin and leans forward, “I’m not law enforcement, you’re not in trouble or anything. So don’t worry about that!” Chronoa says, almost laughing off the suggestion. She then begins furiously typing on the computer between them.

“So… what’s the deal then? Did you call Terry?” Robina leans back in her seat, trying to remain calm. “She always likes to call the case workers on me!”

Chronoa twiddles her fingers and sighs, “Well, it turns out… that you died.” Robina is dumbfounded by the assertion. “I can see that you don’t believe it… Well look around you, this is a place for me, my colleagues and the dead.” She stands up, “and you are the latter” she finishes.

“I’m sorry but that’s bogus!” Robina slams a fist on the table, and Chronoa narrows her eyes at her.

“You hit that desk pretty hard, but did you feel anything?” The strange woman asks her. But Robina can’t deny it, and instead just stares at her hand and then the desk in disbelief. Chronoa snaps her fingers and a binder appears in front of Robina, “you can look in there if you still don’t believe me.”

Robina looks down at the freshly materialized binder, and it has her name blazoned across a metal plate on the cover. She flips through the pages, and sees many details from her life. Tears stream down her cheeks when she sees the section about her parents' accident, the tragic event that left her an orphan. She skips past the painful sections from her times in horrible foster homes, and finally flips to the last page. The fall plays on the page like a video, and she lays a hand over it. “I’ve seen enough…” she closes the book, and pushes it away. “So, am I going to hell or something for all the wrongs I did?”

Chronoa looks at her with empathetic eyes, “You’ve got a long rap sheet huh? Well, what could be expected when you grew up the way you did?” She walks over and places a hand on Robina’s shoulder. “I’m not here to punish you. You’re not in trouble, okay?” the girl nods in response. “Robina Dimos, you’re being offered another chance. Do you want to live again?”

Robina can’t say the words and just looks into Chronoa’s eyes and nods. Chronoa smiles “Very well then. I wish you well, Robina…” they both start to glow as the world around them begins fading into a serene blue “...Dimos” the words fade as Robina is engulfed in light.

She finds herself soaring through an endless expanse of stars, ‘It’s beautiful’ she thinks. Closing her eyes, her mind finally finds a moment of peace. ‘What will I do with my new life?’ The thought pulls a smile across her face. A deep slumber sets in, the walls of her inner world cradle her with dreams of possibility and fantastic reality. She hears a word echo in her dreamscape ‘Selvara’ its meaning seems alien to her. It repeats itself insisting that she know it, that she must begin to know it…

The acrid perfume of smoke rouses her from the cosmic dream, and she opens her eyes. “Where am I now?” she rubs her eyes and acclimates to her surroundings, “Wait, am I inside a carriage?” she leans over to look out of a window, pulling back the rough fabric shades. No one is outside, but she sees the ground littered with open luggage and a few damaged swords “That looks bad...” She cautiously creeks the door open, and something spots her!