Ramona woke up to the sounds of metal grating against the floor. She sat up. Where am I? She thought. She definitely wasn’t in her small, doll filled bedroom. She always left her door ajar there, though why she did it she was never sure. Perhaps it was to protect her from anything bad or evil. Perhaps the light coming from outside during the long winter nights in Toronto provided her a sort of comfort. There was no light here. The room was pitch-black. Ramona struggled to her feet. She didn’t know why but she felt like the weight of the world had suddenly been put on her shoulders. She couldn’t take a step forward without black spots dancing in her line of sight. She felt like she would pass out.
Ramona collapsed to the floor. She grabbed feebly at the walls. She wondered whether she was dreaming. If it was indeed a dream, it was the worst one she’d ever had. She thought of happy things to pass the time. Maybe the dream would be over quicker that way. Ramona remembered herself as a small child. She remembered racing around the backyard of their small Toronto house and basking in the morning air of spring. She recalled her father’s brilliant, teeth flashing smile as he looked at her playing outside. She could still remember every detail of her father’s appearance. Don Salvic was a burly man. He had a strong build, long wavy hair and calloused hands from working as a lumberjack. From the way he looked, it was clear that he was not a man to be messed with. Despite this, his blue eyes twinkled with a little amusement and a sort of gentility that only his daughter knew about.
She tried to keep herself occupied with thoughts of her father but she couldn’t because every time she did, her thoughts wandered off to……….the accident. Ramona wasn’t sure whether she could control herself if she broke down again. Oh, her poor father. What did he do to deserve such a fate? Memories flooded in to Ramona’s mind. She remembered her mother, Diana, leaving her father and breaking his heart. She remembered how her father, Don, struggled to make ends meet for the two of them and how he had to borrow money from a friend to have a house built for Ramona. She remembered his sadness whenever things became quiet in their house and how he used to sometimes look at Ramona as if SHE was Diana.
“You look like her, you know.” Don would use to say. “You look like Diana. You have the same light brown eyes and cute, elfish ears. You have her hair, dark brown. You even share the same look she had when she couldn’t solve a problem. She hated that.”
Don would tell her these things as if Diana had never betrayed his trust, as if she was a fond memory to him. Ramona couldn’t stand it. She hated being compared to that woman, who had left her father and her. Finally, Ramona’s thoughts rested on the accident. She was alone now. Her father was gone and he would never come back. She had no one to comfort her when people made fun of her at school. She had no one to talk to when she felt lonely. Yesterday, she had turned sixteen. It was the first time that her father hadn’t attended her birthday. The orphanage had prepared a cake for her and her friends were at the party as well but it wasn’t the same without her father.
Suddenly, Ramona broke down again. She had struggled to keep it together for so long. For the past year, she had been ignoring her father’s death. She had always had one motto. “Look forward, never look back.” But today she had looked back and she finally understood that she had to cry. She had to let her feelings out or else they would destroy her. And so she did. A lot of time passed before she realized where she was. The dream hadn’t ended. Maybe it wasn’t a dream after all. Ramona got up from her spot on the ground. This time, she felt a little better. Her legs didn’t buckle under the pressure. She took a few steps forward, using the walls to guide the way. She finally got to where she thought was the front of the room. There was no door there but the walls seemed hollow.
She also wasn’t dumb. If the room had truly been sealed in, she wouldn’t have been breathing. “There has to be an air duct in here somewhere.” She said, just to hear her own voice. Ramona looked around the room but she could obviously see nothing. She thought of scaling the walls for the air duct but it was probably somewhere too high up for her too reach. She tried knocking on the walls in front of her to check for any weakened points but none seemed to be there. Ramona was frightened. Why was she in this room? Where was she? This was way too real for it to be a dream or a nightmare.
Suddenly, she heard voices from outside. They came closer to her. Ramona stepped back. Perhaps, someone had come to rescue her. The walls in front of her glowed with a bright light. They gave off so much energy that she had to shield her eyes to avoid getting blinded. When the light dimmed down, the walls were gone. Two people stood in front of her in the strangest clothes she had ever seen. They both wore identical purple cloaks with the hoods folded over their heads. They held strange wooden sticks, each a meter long. On the top of each stick, there glowed some sort of a gem. Ruby maybe? Ramona wasn’t sure but she was pretty sure she wanted to stay away from the sticks. One of the two persons wore a silver necklace.
The one with the necklace spoke out. “Ramona Salvic. We have waited a long time for you.” It was the voice of a woman.
“Who are you?” Ramona said; fear slowly creeping in to her voice. “How do you know my name? What do you want?”
“Your father is in great trouble, girl.” The other cloaked man said; ignoring her questions. “And you’re the only one who can help him.”
“My father’s dead.”
The woman took back control of the situation. “That’s just what they told you my dear. Your father is alive. He is being held by Cyclopes as bait to lure you in for the kill. You must save him but you must do it as we say or very bad things will happen.”
Ramona’s head was spinning. Her dad was alive? He was being held by someone. What was the name? Yeah, a Cyclopes. What kind of a name was that? How had her dad lived? He had died in the car crash.
“You’re lying.” Ramona said. “My father is dead.”
“My dear, why would I lie to you? I have no reason to. Did you see his body? Did they let you see it?”
The silence clearly meant that Ramona hadn’t been allowed to see the body post mortem. She felt dizzy again. Ramona wanted to collapse back down to the ground but she held firm.
“How do I know anything you say is true? Why should I trust you?” Ramona asked.
The woman removed her hood and Ramona gasped. Standing in front of her was a tall woman. Her hair was folded back in a bun. Her eyes were light brown and kindly. Her ears were pointed. She was pretty in a cute sort of way. Ramona was reminded of a woman she knew long ago. Correction, barely knew. She hadn’t had the time to get to know her because the woman had never looked after her. She had disappeared a long time ago. Ramona couldn’t form words properly.
“You should trust me because you know me.” Diane Salvic said.