Enter: Shiera Beta |REDUX|

 Nathan once told me a story.

“Shiera, have you heard of a world called Dianoct?”

“No.”

The lamp on my nightstand cast soft shadows all around, outlining my father’s rugged frame. It was past my bedtime—far past it—but he’d just come home.

He sat down beside me on the bed, his face gaunt, almost skeletal. The light drew my attention to the bags under his eyes. He’d been working later than usual.

“They say there’s another planet out there, Shiera. One with life, like ours.”

He’d brought that unusual stench with him—the one he always had after his long work trips. It was tangy and rancid, something like rotten sweat.

“But dad, you’ve never shown me that through the telescope.”

“I can never find it, either. They say you can only see it on a full moon.”

I pulled my covers up and met his hazel eyes. “What’s it like?”

“It’s a world of magic and wonder, with lights shining from cracks in the ground. There’s an old story there of a queen who saved her people from the evil spirits that wanted to hurt them.”

“Dad, that’s just some kid’s story!”

“And you’re a kid, aren’t you?”

“I’m ten!”

I still remember his laugh at that moment. Back then, I didn’t understand.

“Well, Shiera, just listen to me, okay?”

“Okay,” I pouted. Nathan smiled at me, his toothy grin as dirty as the rest of him. His silver-brown hair fell over his eyes as he adjusted his position to open up the blinds.

The night sky was just like any other. We could only see a handful of stars through the murky smog of the city’s light pollution—a consequence of suburban life. Nathan wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

“Someday, you might meet some evil spirits of your own. They’ll lie to you, they’ll trick you into thinking everything’s your fault.”

“But spirits don’t really exist, dad.”

“Evil spirits might not exist, but evil people do.”

“What if I meet someone like that?”

“You should always try to see the good in them, Shiera. Sometimes evil people aren’t really evil. Maybe they’re just confused. But you can’t let them trick you. You have to trust in what you know is right.”

He reached into the back pocket of his khakis and revealed a small charm. Its silver sheen reflected the warm lamplight. In its center, a beautiful orange gemstone was set.

“Woah!”

He pulled it away from my grubby hands and patted me on the head.

“I’m not done, Shiera. Just wait a little longer, okay?”

“…Fine.”

“I want you to keep this charm with you. It’s supposed to represent Dianoct, the other world. While I’m not here, remember me with it, okay?”

“Yup!”

“Trust your gut, Shiera. And know that I’ll always love you.”

I was so focused on the lustrous amulet that I didn’t care.

-////-

I slid open the doors, the cold metal handle stinging my fingertips. The winds were roaring—they still echoed after I’d closed them off. The house fell into an empty silence.

“Nathan?” There was no one to answer my call, but I’d become so used to it that it barely fazed me. I slipped off my jacket with a sigh and patted out my messy hair. It was only September, after all—not even fall—but the wind’s howl brought with it an early winter.

I threw the jacket over a stool and hung my head. Nathan was normally home on Fridays. If he’d been held up by traffic, I could understand, but I still felt a twinge of disappointment. He hadn’t made any promises, but it felt like he’d broken one.

The room was a bit messy, despite my countless efforts to tidy it—a couple dishes lay out on the counter, a few crumbs here or there. At least Nathan hadn’t come home to this. I started cleaning it up to keep myself occupied.

Another voice lingered, subdued by the relentless wind outside. The door creaked open again, and my brother Kori stumbled in. He was talking on the phone with some of his friends.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m open Sunday,” he said.

I watched as he awkwardly tried to slip his backpack off. Why he didn’t just set his phone down first, I couldn’t guess. In his trivial effort, his bag’s strap knocked his phone out of his hand and onto the dark wooden floor.

He panicked and ran to pick it up, hurriedly checking it for any cracks. I honestly didn’t get why. His phone was pretty much shattered already. It was a miracle the thing still worked—couldn’t get much worse than that.

“Alright, I gotta go. See you guys in a couple days,” he finished, tapping the ‘end call’ button and setting his phone on the clean-ish stone countertop.

“You did all that to say ‘gotta go’, dude.”

He met my glare and groaned. “Okay, what pissed you off this time?”

“Take a guess.”

Meaningless, mediocre, rude. That was how we talked, day in, day out, just barely not hating each other.

“Oh, it’s ‘cause Nathan’s not home yet,” Kori said.

“Good guess.”

“He’ll probably be here tomorrow night. Life happens, I guess.”

“Life happens? When are you gonna stop telling yourself that?”

“I’m not, ‘cause it’s true! Like, we’ve gotten held up in traffic before, right?”

“Ugh. Get over yourself.”

“‘Ugh. Get over yourself’.”

Meaningless, mediocre, rude.

“…Hey, it’s the full moon tonight,” I muttered.

“Oh, okay. Didn’t know you were still obsessed with that whole Dianoct thing.”

“I’m not obsessed with it.”

“You know it’s just a kid’s story, right? Like, literally, how would the full moon change what the sky looks like? Wouldn’t that just make it harder to see the stars?”

“I’m not obsessed with it, dumbass. So shut up.”

“You are.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re still wearing that charm dad gave you.”

“Mind your damn business, Kori!”

“Okay, jeez.”

The room filled with silence for a moment. Silence was peaceful. Silence was calm. But not now.

The silence broke with the buzz of Kori’s phone. He looked at it tentatively.

“Nathan says he’ll be home tomorrow.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

-////-

Time whizzed by, and after studying for a few hours, I noticed a glint of orange through the blinds. I was bored of studying, anyway, so I stood up and stretched my back. I could feel it crack as I extended my arms to the ceiling.

I checked my watch—the screen displayed ‘7:33 PM’ in its blocky font. When I pushed my chair in and opened the door to the back porch, I was met with a frosty slap. Despite the relatively middling temperature, the wind chill was sharp; I grabbed my hoodie from the rack before walking out.

The sun ever-so-gently dipped below the sea of land, its radiant glow fading over the trees on the horizon. As I watched the moon rise from the east, I instinctively reached for my pocket.

The charm still had its metal shine after many years, though it was worn and smudged. The orange gemstone embedded within still sparkled majestically, as if placing a tiara on my forehead, proclaiming me as royalty. The sun was out of sight now as I clutched the amulet in my hand.

Remember me with it, he’d said.

Hard to remember someone who always forgets about us!

I brought my hand up and chucked the amulet at the ground. I could taste my own hatred on my tongue as it cracked against the wooden planks.

It took me a moment to properly assess what I’d just done. When I did, however, I was quick to locate the dented charm. The gemstone was scratched and dirty, which ripped a hole in my heart. I quickly tried to rub it off with my undershirt.

When I took the brim of my shirt off of the stone, I noticed something peculiar. The last bit of dusk glinted off of its hexagonal form at bizarre angles, creating the image of an arrow. It was a bright white against the orange stone, unnatural at this hour. What…?

I caught a glimpse of Kori’s vest as he turned the corner. I quickly pocketed the charm before he saw it.

“Shiera? Why are you out there?” he asked.

“Why does it matter to you?”

“Because I don’t want to drag your frozen body back in.”

“It’s not even that cold! I’m not gonna freeze to death.”

“I don’t know, Shiera. Seems pretty cold to me.”

“Wha– You’re not even out here!”

Kori stared at me. It took me longer than I’d like to admit to realize I’d left the door open.

“Hey, if you’re so cold, close the door then, dumbass,” I retorted.

“You opened it!”

“Crazy how you’re spending all this time complaining instead of closing the door, huh?”

Without another word, Kori stepped forward, sneered at me, and shut the door. I scowled back at him through the glass. He made a clawing gesture at me—I made one back. Meaningless, mediocre, rude.

When he turned his back and walked away, I unveiled the amulet again. Despite being in shadow, a reflection still appeared: the same arrowhead as before, like a compass needle pointed right at my soul.

I turned to get a better look at it, but, weirdly, the reflection shifted as I rotated, maintaining its direction. It’s pointing… back at the door. Like it wants me to go back inside. Damn, did Kori possess this thing?

The wind bellowed through the yard and blew my hair all over—I heard a slight rustling in the woods, like what would come from a fox or a deer. Normally I would check it out, but I had more pressing matters. I opened the door and walked back inside, making sure this time to actually shut it behind me.

“You’re back already?” Kori asked, hunched over on the counter. He was texting someone, probably not Nathan—he didn’t even look in my direction. “What were you even doing out there?”

“Trying to figure this thing out,” I replied.

“What thing?” He looked up and saw the amulet. “Oh, the Dianoct bullshit. You know it’s just, like, a funky rock, right?”

I turned it around in my hand—the reflection still formed an arrow, now directing me towards the basement door. “Yeah. It’s just being… really funky right now.”

“Hold on, lemme see.” Kori stood up and pocketed his phone before shuffling over. I rotated it so he could see the odd behavior.

“Isn’t that weird?”

Kori stared at it for a bit. “Yeah, that– that is funky. It’s like… an arrow, kinda.”

“I know! And it was facing this way earlier. It’s leading me somewhere.”

“Should we keep following it?”

“Nothing better to do, right?” I said. “Well, unless you still haven’t done your homework.”

“Oh, come on. I’m consistent with it, you know that.”

“Yeah, consistently not doing it.”

“Well, you’re consistently a bitch. Grrrrr.”

“Grrrrr.”

I opened the door to the basement and quickly descended the staircase step by step. Kori took two steps at a time, which I could never get behind—it made sense going up, but down? Really? You could totally trip and die.

Rounding the bend, we stumbled upon a bizarre sight. The basement window was shattered; glass coated the floor like a blanket. There were holes and tears in our drywall. Scuff marks littered the room, even on the ceiling. It looked as if a miniature war had taken place.

“Hey, you didn’t, like… come down here and go apeshit, right?” Kori asked, a little trepid.

“Yeah, my bad.”

“Wait, really?”

“No, idiot.”

“Okay, that’s what I thought. Just had to make sure.”

The wind cut through the newly opened window, sending a shiver down my spine. I held up the amulet—it pointed towards the door to our storage room. This shit’s getting weird. Is it even worth following this thing?

I tiptoed around the glass and made my way to the door. With a twist of the handle, I peeked inside. A strange cyan glow met my vision before anything else, lining the doorframe’s edge. Opening it a little further, I found the interior of the room had been swapped for some kind of stone bunker.

“Hey, you didn’t, like… come down here and give our storage room a makeover, right?” I said.

“Yeah, my bad,” he replied.

“Don’t even.”

I pulled the door all the way open so Kori could see it: moss lined the cracks in the stone foundation, a blue-green hue in contrast to the stark grey of mottled rock. There were rusted weapons strewn about the floor, broken blades and dented shields all over. Essentially, it was not our storage room.

Kori stood back, dumbfounded. “Shiera, I got a question for you.”

“Yeah.”

“The fuck is up with that charm?”

“Good question.”

I took a step through the door—the cold air in the bunker felt heavy on my skin. I clutched my hoodie and turned around to Kori, who had come closer to the entrance. My breath formed clouds.

I called over to him, “You coming?”

“Woah, your voice is deeper.”

“What?” I pressed my hand on my voice box. “I– I guess it is? A little bit?”

Suddenly, the doorway began to flicker, as if the lights were going out. Kori’s voice faltered in and out. “Shiera, get back here!”

“Let’s stay calm. Uh… just come through the door and we’ll figure it out, okay?”

“No! You come back here!” Kori yelled. “We don’t know if this is some sort of wack-ass trap or something! You wanna stay and find out?”

While Kori yapped his mouth, I started looking for an exit on my side. The moss trails guided my eyes to a hatch in the ceiling above me, which would have been fantastic if I could defy gravity. The hatch itself wasn’t too far out of reach, but I’d need Kori’s help grabbing the twist lock.

“Come on, idiot. I’m not missing out on the first interesting thing that’s ever happened in this damn house.”

“Shiera, trust me, this is a bad idea! Get back here!”

“Dad told me to trust my gut, not you. Come on.”

“Yeah, and Nathan fuckin’ left us after mom died, didn’t he? So whose word are you really gonna trust?!”

“I– I…”

The barrier between us phased in and out of existence, as if barely held together. The arrowhead on my amulet did the same. I watched as Kori disappeared altogether, maybe the last time I’d ever see him, begging for me to come back…

Then, just as the gateway dissolved into the wall, Kori dove through and fell to the floor, skidding and rolling against the stone below. His eyes flicked back and forth as if he were dizzy.

“Hey,” he said, face pressed against the ground.

“Hey.”

“You’re lucky some bitchass pushed me through while I wasn’t looking.”

“Yeah, sure, bud. Glad you made the right choice. Now get up and help me reach the exit.”

Kori scrambled to his feet and searched for the door he’d come from, only to find nothing but a faint cyan outline where it had once been. His breathing quickened. “We’re not… trapped in here, are we?”

“Not if you put your lazy ass to work and help me open this... vault-door-thing.”

“I– fine, what do you want me to do?”

“I’m gonna get on your shoulders. Kneel down for a second.”

“...Not really in the mood to argue right now,” he grumbled, dropping to a knee. I situated myself upon his collar and extended my arms up for the twist lock as he stood up with a grunt.

I wrapped my hands tight around the rusty handle and twisted with all my might. It took a Herculean effort, then, to actually open the hatch, which had been sealed with dirt and grime. When it flung open, the first thing I saw was the night sky.

Kori, tired, set me down and looked up at the hole in the ceiling. “Yo, what constellation is that, Shiera?”

“Pfff. You think I still remember them all?”

“You totally do.”

I looked up at the sliver of sky for a moment. The atmosphere glowed a slight violet around each star, as if an aurora encircled every point of light. I ran through my mental database and wound up clueless.

“…I have no idea. And for the record, yeah, I can still name ‘em all.”

“Yeah, okay, clearly not all of them.”

“Look, dude. If you lift me up, I’ll prove it.”

“Then how am I gonna get out of here?”

“Wha– I’ll just pull you up after, dumbass. Unless you want to stay stuck.”

“You sure you’ll actually help me?”

“Yeah. You’re my brother. If it were, like, anyone else? Hell no. But yeah, I’ll help you. You know that.”

“Trust issues much.”

“Nothing wrong with being cautious, right?”

“Nothing wrong with actually having friends, right?”

“Shut the fuck up and lift me up here, thanks.”

Kori grabbed me around the waist—something which would have been much more awkward had he not been my brother—and held me up as high as he could manage. I grabbed onto the rim of the opening and, with a slight boost, pulled myself up and out of his grasp.

When I stood up, I found a small, ruined shelter surrounding me, concrete slabs and debris scattered about. A little further ahead, I found grass—though, not the usual sort, what with its odd teal hue. I was just about to look up at the stars, when–

“Shiera!”

“I know.” I turned around and leaned down on the dusty ground, extending my arms through the hatch to lift Kori up. He nearly pulled me back down, but after a short struggle, we’d both made it up.

I looked up again at the stars then, and, trying to pinpoint a single constellation, I couldn’t find any at all. I searched the sky for Polaris, for Ursa Minor, for anything I could use to get my bearings straight.

“Wha… what…” Kori mumbled, transfixed.

When my vision leveled with the horizon, I started to understand. From gaping fissures in the ground erupted heavenly light—what appeared to be sunlight. Auroras of magenta sifted just above the clouds, yellowed by the light of the rifts.

And in the blue-green plains before us, we heard the clanging of swords and smelt the tang of blood. The light, the stars, the war—a mural, splayed before me in full-color print—brought only one word to mind.

“…Dianoct.”