Parks And Strange Revelations

“Wh-what in the world is happening?!” Luciela exclaimed in bewilderment, tumbling uncontrollably through a light filled space that was devoid of anything except the young girl helplessly being sucked through.

The light was finally dying down, and revealing something else. Luciela squinted her eyes, seeing something green grow closer and closer. She continued to keep her gaze straight ahead, trying to identify the image before her, when she recognized blades of grass…

“Oh, that’s the ground! Wait, the ground-” Luciela’s moment of realization was abruptly interrupted when she fell straight into a field of grass, a low thud filling the otherwise silent scenery. Luciela would’ve usually felt embarrassed by a fall like this, but right now all she was concerned about was the aching pain of her arms, which she had used to break her short fall from whatever strange portal she had just flown through.

“Ouch ouch ouch, why did that hurt more than I thought it would?” Luciela groaned to herself as she carefully got into a sitting position, rubbing her arms to ease the pain while taking a few deep breaths to recollect herself. She was glad that, at the very least, it didn’t appear to be too serious; no scratches or cuts, just the natural pain one would feel when being magically teleported and dumped onto a grassy field suddenly and without any seemingly logical explanation.

‘I’m kind of shocked that I don’t feel more scared.’ Luciela realized, surprised that she could remain so calm in such bizarre circumstances. Whether that was because she had quickly accepted the reality, or simply couldn’t come to terms with it, she wasn’t sure. But at the very least, she felt that she should try to make sense of this situation, and that should start with figuring out where in the world she was.

She noticed that surprisingly, she was no longer wearing the blue gown that she had chosen to wear for the awards ceremony; instead, she was wearing a mint green sweater with a symbol on it she didn’t recognize, and a long plain white skirt that flowed down to her ankles.

She stretched her arms, letting out a small sigh while looking up at the sky. It looked like the same spring sky she had been admiring for days, a beautiful view to enjoy while she took her morning walks through the park nearby her home.

‘Park, that’s right, wait! Is that where I am right now?’ Luciela thought to herself, looking around to briefly scan the surrounding area. However, much to her disappointment, the layout of this park was quite different from the one she was accustomed to. She could see a few people walking here and there, and this park had a fountain and several benches to sit on as well.

‘Wait a second…’ She suddenly took note that the trees, while somewhat similar to the ones she was used to, had colorful flowers that seemed to sparkle under the sunlight, spinning around on their own while being firmly fixed in their places, even though Luciela could not feel a breeze…

And how in the world were there small tree saplings floating close to some of those trees??

‘That’s…truly strange. Did they somehow add some sort of props to these trees to decorate them?’ Luciela wondered thoughtfully, continuing to stare at the nearest tree to her, standing only a few feet away. Her vision then caught a nearby pond, and to her surprise, it was a bright lavender color, shimmering under the sun rays just like the flowers did.

‘Okay, so we’ve got colorful spinning flowers, floating saplings, and a lavender colored pond…what fairytale land did I land myself into?’ Luciela thought, rolling her eyes and rubbing her head as she tried to keep a clear mind. And if this wasn’t enough, she finally realized the peculiarity with the timing; she knew that she got on stage around evening time, and yet it was clearly early afternoon with the way the sun magnificently shone in the sky above her.

‘What in the world is going on?’ Luciela thought to herself, feeling a little anxious as she did. Perhaps she should just go up to someone and politely ask where she was? It wasn’t like she was going to figure out any answers while sprawled on the ground after all…

However, her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a friendly voice. “Hey, are you alright? It looks like you must’ve tripped. Here, I’ll give you a hand.” The voice called out to her. Luciela quickly got out of her daze, feeling slightly embarrassed as she continued to stare down at the ground. “Oh, I did just fall, but I am fine!” Luciela reassured the stranger.

She then saw the hand that extended to her, and she began to reach her hand out while saying a sincere “Thank you…”, but the words suddenly caught in her throat.

The hand that she was just about to grasp looked quite pale, to the point that it was concerning. Was this lady experiencing a cold? There were some chilly days even with the spring season being here, so it wasn’t entirely unreasonable.

But this lady’s hand did not look like the regular kind of pale that is expected with catching a cold or the flu. In fact, unless her eyes were deceiving her, it almost felt like the hand was somewhat transparent…

Luciela slowly lifted her head to see who the kind lady who offered her help was. Two young women came into her vision, both with dark colored hair and eyes that were clearly filled with concern. One was the lady who extended her hand to Luciela, smiling at her and waiting patiently for her to accept her hand, and the other was standing at the side and watching Luciela with sympathetic concern of her own.

But what stood out the most to Luciela, despite her senses trying to come up with an explanation against it, was the fact that the two women were clearly floating a few inches off the ground, their bodies faintly transparent, in a way that Luciela could see the rest of the park behind them.

First, Luciela smiled at the lady and stayed like that for a few seconds.

Then, when the reality finally knocked hard into her skull, she loudly shrieked,

“G-G-G-GHOSTSSSSS???!!!”