Free Otherland by Almondie Shampine

she’d done wrong. It was perfect.
    High above the human world, all he had to do was sense her. What had taken his human body years took only moments now. It was almost as though she’d done him a favor by killing him. She’d made it so much easier to find her.
    He swooped toward the direction he sensed her, while remaining in the night sky, but just as he was about to drop down into the shadows, he received the summons. So close. Too close. He debated on ignoring it and continuing on with his business, but if he could sense her so quickly, would the Hunters be able to do the same with him?
    It would take time to terrorize her to the point of her becoming a non-human, so he decided to return for the summons, as greatly as it annoyed him.
    He thought he’d wind up in the same place he’d been before, the meeting spot before coming here, where this world seemed so far away. Instead, it was someplace in-between where he could still sense where he’d been.
    “Why did you summon me so quickly? I only just reached the place I needed to be,” he said angrily.
    “Where is the Light knight?” they asked.
    “How am I supposed to know? Am I his keeper? My mission was to bring back the girl, not to babysit some human. If he can’t keep up, that’s not my problem.”
    “Have you found her?”
    “I only just got there before you summoned me. I could have had her by now. You’re serving to only waste my time. Is this how it’s going to be? You summoning me when I’m trying to carry forth my mission? If I have her in my grasp and you summon me, am I somehow supposed to choose between coming at your beck and call, and actually fulfilling the mission I was provided?” the darkened criminal vented angrily.
    “You call this place enlightened, when really you’re not much different from the human world, constantly disrupting the very thing you say you want, because you don’t have the patience to allow the time needed to take care of it. Now, knowing Aliyah better than all of you, she could be jumping a plane to half-way across the world in sensing my presence, while you rudely intercepted me from getting to her.”
    Suddenly, the Light knight arrived. “Sorry I’m late, Elders. The Lost ones can be quite demanding of one’s time, especially when you’re thrown into their clutches,” he looked at the Dark soul with a scathing look. “I came as soon as I could. I thank you, Elders, for your summons. Dark soul, this time I’ll allow you to lead the way.”
    Only then did Dwayne realize that he’d been a pawn, a pawn all along. They were using him. He hadn’t been meant to find her and bring her back there, only to lead them to her.
    But only he knew who Aliyah really was in the human world. He could lead them elsewhere, and they all knew that souls got taken by the Lost souls all the time. He just needed to bide his time, mislead the Light ones, and act like he’d been swallowed by the Nothingness. Then, and only then, could he fulfill his mission.
    “We got word of a human found walking the white path toward the portal to the Darkness. She was able to escape, but not before providing her name. She did not call herself Aliyah. She said her name was Lydia,” the Light elder explained.
    “Humans often mistakenly find their way onto those paths when they’re in a deep sleep. Did she actually go through the portal or was she frightened away?” the Light knight questioned.
    “No, she returned to her world.”
    “This is a waste of human time. Can we get on with it?” the Dark soul said in irritation.
    “She was wide awake and was able to see and speak with the fallen angel placed on the border.”
    “So what are you saying, Elders? That there may be another human, other than Aliyah, that possesses her same abilities, or that Lydia and Aliyah are one and the same?” The Light knight inquired, enjoying the Dark soul’s impatience.
    “We cannot say for sure. We just thought this might be valuable