EXILED TO THE EARTH

She only saw a lonely place, her eyes wide open, and she stumbled towards nowhere.

The pretty girl touched her face. She stared at her hands and was puzzled. Her head was hurt, her hands were extensively bruised, and she was bleeding acutely.

It was a quiet street, and she kept trotting confusedly. She ended up near a crossroad; and hesitated to move on. She glanced around and a cop spotted her.

The girl stopped abruptly. Her face read somewhat odd to the cop. He studied her expressions for sometime and then moved towards her. The girl, too, slowly came up to him.

'Do you need some help?' The cop asked. 'You're bleeding so much! What happened?'

The girl needed help; she needed to know her own name, her purpose, the place, for instance. 'Wha ... whhat ... where ami?' she asked him with a blank face.

'What?' the cop said confusedly.

'Who ...' the girl whispered but then didn't find it useful. She paced away from the cop.

But before anything else could happen, both of them vanished.

However, the girl was the only one to be drawn into a blue path by a mystic force. She was moving fast in that sky blue path with faded white patches all over it. Neither had it clear walls, nor a floor or a ceiling. It was a round and bent tunnel; such that you'd think it terminates after the distant bend. But though the girl had been carried in the path pretty while for now, it was still all the same; no end, same path, same bend and no self control.... she had to travel.

However, the tunnel had an end, though the girl never knew where, because a terribly bright white light made her tightly shut her eyes, her hands on her face.

She immediately felt ground under her feet. Loosening her hands from over her face, and opening her eyes, she found a few glowing and divine-looking figures standing in front of her. There was endless dark vicinity and no visible ground. She was in the space, the universe.

There was no air and she couldn't breathe. She began to feel suffocated, while the others stood comfortably. She expected the divine people to help, but what followed revealed that the figures were not-so-divine.

'Welcome.' one of them said to the girl. 'Semester Forthe Visinus. Oh well! Her Mocian ears can't listen to what I say, friends. She can't pick up the fine sound waves of the speech of our kind. These ... these Mocians can only hear sounds that travel through air-like mediums you know? Can we have some fine adjustment here for this purpose? Oh how I want Semester to hear what I say.'

A swift looking woman at the back, wearing clothes in shades of green like all her fellow ones, came forward and said to the man, 'in no way can she hear us until she has her original body back.'

So Semester, the girl, now had no interest in knowing who she was, what her name was, because she just couldn't breathe. She collapsed on the invisible floor.

'Suffocating?' the supernatural man continued. (pause) 'I think let's bring her to her original self.'

'What?' came a second voice. (though Semester was not listening at all. She was in a desperate condition, but still alive.) 'You mean you'll ask him to give her back her memory, Joz?'

'Oh stop it! That's such a foolish question. We'll never do that. Or who are we to think about it? The lesser she knows, the lesser problems she'd create. Yeah ... He took her memory out of her mind just for her exile. But even if we've called off the exile, we ... oh we just can't afford to waste our time in such crude discussions. The officials may trace us. Our protective shields are good and strong, but we ought never to underestimate the officials. I was talking about making her a spirit again.'

(Semester was still alive.)

'Suffocating?' The man asked again. 'But you won't die. You, like us, are a spirit. Spirits don't die; they just end when they are fifty slouts old.' He laughed out loudly and said. 'Slouts? What is that? Little Semester knows nothing!'

The man continued. 'I'll make you the real yourself. This is gonna be how you've always been, except for the few moments you just spent in that tiny planet. Er, Urth.'

'Earth,' someone corrected.

'Oh come on. Let us say Moc de Lilac, why to get confused with silly non-spiritual terms.'

The adjacent woman pulled the sleeves of her shirt and held her wrist where she wore a pink band. She muttered something and a ball of pink light enveloped Semester.

With that, Semester didn't suffocate anymore, though still she wasn't breathing. Breathing was no more a necessity. She too was a divine and glowing spirit now.

Now she looked up slowly, still only a little sign of relief on her face.

'Welcome, Semester Forthe Visinus,' Joz repeated.

Semester could listen now to what he spoke, but she still was perplexed. She wanted to listen now.

'Why are you looking at me girl? Now I am not going to gossip with you. Ok everybody, what next?' the evil spirit continued.

'Talk to Sir about this.' Joz suggested.

'He'll slay us if we disturb him,' another said.

'This is the most important undertaking right now. He'll slay us if the officials rescue this girl.'

'All right,' the other said and went a little aside. He shut his eyes and said something. He seemed to talk to someone.

Such a desperate captivity; Semester didn't know where she was and why she was there. She didn't know her past, had a terrible impression about her present, and was clueless about her future. Obviously and obnoxiously, neither did she know what a protective shield was nor how it worked. Although she could guess something called Officials were possibly better than the bad spirits that stood in front of her; as we know it : enemy of the enemy—a friend.

Semester decided to speak. 'What's ...' she said slowly.

'Did you make a sound?' Joz said abruptly before Semester could try to complete. 'Ah, Semester,' he came up to her, 'you haven't yet got a word of what we are talking, right? You know, that's good. And keep it up. Er, you don't have your memories, that's really good. That planet—Moc de Lilac—we just sent you to ...' He abruptly turned and asked one of his companions, 'Have you burnt that Mocian to nothing? That man who...