The ladies were chattering outside, their giggling and impatience getting louder.
Riven put his palm on his face, when five points of contact were made a black mask appeared on his hand. His height returned to normal, and so too did his eye.
Riven's visage immediately quietened, the fatigue and pain slowly subsiding. But there was no time for respite.
He crouched over the out-cold Liliana and rolled the sleeves of his robes up.
His left hand had the same purple hue as his eye. His hands were quite slender and pleasant in shape. His fingers were long, they would be attractive if not for the purplish-red colour and the black nails. On the back of the hand, a pentagram etched in a deep and dark red, so dark that one could mistake it for black at first glance.
His right hand was a metallic white. On it was an embedded cross-shaped gemstone that glowed green.
With his left hand, he reached under his robe, and on his neck, there were many different necklaces and charms. Feeling around, he found a gold dreamcatcher necklace with blue gemstones and pulled it out.
He held the dreamcatcher above Liliana's sleeping face and rattled it, illusory and sedative jingles lulled her subconscious.
Her unconscious face eased a little.
He bit his left hand, and blood began seeping. He apologised out loud before opening up Liliana's uniform and then unbuttoned her shirt, exposing her stomach.
With the blood dripping from his finger, he drew a circle on her stomach, he then drew a maze within the circle. The maze had concentric layers and inward-laying paths with radial arms that spiralled towards the centre, which was a solid circle around her her belly button. At the "entrance' of the maze which was at the top of the circle stood a simple figure of a human.
He then left her side and grabbed the candle that sat on the shelf hanging above Liliana's bed, bringing it over to her side and tipping the flame onto the solid circle at the centre of the maze.
The blood circle was set alight, first the blazing flames were bright orange, before taking a dark red colour, and eventually settling on a black, simmering flame.
Placing his right hand on Lilian's forehead, Riven began chanting in the ancient Coptiric language.
As he spoke, the black flames along the maze flickered in synchrony with each syllable.
"Open, gate of woven thought,
Let the mind be still.
I descend, I descend,
Into the palace of your mind.
Be at ease,
You will suffer no harm."
Riven felt himself being pulled somewhere, not quite sure which direction his consciousness was fading, just away from his own body. That's all he knew.
He found himself in the familiar scene where Liliana had discovered his secret.
He also had a strange feeling that there was a temporary stop in between, between the real world and this dream realm, but when he tried to think about that place, he forgot about the thought entirely.
Riven looked at himself, he was in black and white while the scene was in normal colour.
The scene played as before, Riven jumped up in fright, hit his head on the rack and buried his head on the sofa. Before he got up, the real Riven took the black mask and placed it on the Dream Riven's face, who didn't react at all.
He sat back up to face the stewardess, who had a concerned look of pity on her face. He looked terrifyingly exhausted.
"Excuse me sir, are you alright?"
"Ahh, don't worry about it hehe. Here's my ticket."
"Thank you sir." Liliana gave a dazzling smile. "I'll bring you some water and ice."
And with that, she continued checking the Cabins for tickets. Just a standard ticket check after a pit stop, nothing unusual happened.
As soon as he confirmed that all was good, Riven — bolted.
He retreated his journey to Liliana's room with haste. This time, nobody tried to stop him, but he was much more nervous than on his previous journey here.
"Come on, come on." Riven tackled the door to Liliana's room and stared down at the circle etched on the centre of the door. Thankfully, the fire was still alive.
It was the blood maze he drew earlier, with his right hand once again, he slammed his hand onto the center of the circle and blurted out in ancient Copitiric.
"Open, gate of woven thought,
Let the mind be still.
I ascend, I ascend,
Exit the palace of your mind.
Be at ease,
You have suffered no harm."
Riven fell. He fell back into his body and felt grounded in the world again. He let out a sigh of relief, his body was cold, warmth languidly bled back in as he lay sprawled across the wooden floor.
Looking over at Liliana, Riven saw that the girl was peacefully sleeping, the circle on her stomach was no longer there.
He buttoned her back up, scooped her and put her back on the bed.
Outside the door, the chattering was reaching the limits of its patience. Riven really underestimated how bored these older sisters were.
They started knocking on the door. "What's going on in there? Are you guys okay?"
"She didn't actually say yes to the kid, did she?"
"..."
"Don't even joke about that." One of the male stewards broke the silence.
The door to Liliana's room burst open.
The little boy sprinted out with tears in his eyes, shouting about how love isn't real.
The workers were left dumbfounded at the scene, just what did Liliana say to him.
"I told you we shouldn't have entertained him, Liliana clearly wasn't in the right mood to deal with this shit." the steward that was previously intimidated into silence by the women was flaunting his successful prediction.
…
Back at the entrance to the staff-only zone, Riven took the mask off and caught his breath. The guard was still unconscious. Riven moved his body to make it look like he was dozing off and continued making his way back.
He walked through the common room and was once again subject to the judgmental gazes.
Finally reaching his cabin just a few minutes later, Riven muttered to himself. "Now time for some peace and quiet."
It seemed like the religious-freak girl left, or maybe she fell asleep.
Riven opened to door to find that it was the latter. It hadn't been that long, he didn't expect her to really have fallen asleep that quickly. Maybe Adam's lectures were so boring that even someone like her couldn't help but doze off.
He looked at the briefcase where Adam lay inside, the "record player" that he took out for her. The briefcase was empty.
There was a man there, seated next to the case.
He was tall, he couldn't tell exactly how tall since he was seated. But he was at least two metres tall.
His skin was an unnatural colour, completely grey, it was like granite. He wore a half top hat and a black suit with a white shirt underneath.
He wore a smile so wide, unnaturally wide, the crescents of his eyes and the width of his mouth irks you.
The smile revealed his yellow teeth and his eyes narrowed into curved slits that looked down on you like prey.
In this man's hand was Adam.