BANISHING BOUNDARIES

She could sense it getting closer. She was getting closer. Was it luring her into a trap or really running away from her? She still couldn't tell. But the space between them was steadily narrowing and she grew surer of herself. Her forms were shifting back and forth in cautious anticipation, like a shimmering holographic image. She found it harder to conceal her charisma* anymore, let alone subdue it. It danced around her in myraid hues like a rainbow in a bubble, casting an eerie glow over her pale wheatish skin. She didn't seem to care though. She had abandoned any pretense of a normal life 6 months ago. For 6 months she'd sat in the same place, in the same lotus position that she'd assumed to begin her search. Her body had never left that room, and it probably never would again.

Soon it would end. Sooner than it would have begun.

''Wait up my friend, I almost have you'', she whispered under her breath, willing her patience to see her through. She'd come a long way since the first time she'd felt it's presence, almost a decade ago, on the morning after her 21st birthday...

I. DAWN

As she'd walked from her dorm to the science block, she kept glancing over her shoulder expecting to see something, someone following her. She'd overslept, missed half a day of classes already and of course, was miserably hungover and attributed her lack of memory for the most part of the previous evening and her jitters to some spirited excesses from before.

Damn you Amara Shanti Prescott*, you're in trouble again, she muttered to herself as she walked on, still casting backward glances every few yards.

The lecture hall was empty when she got there as she was a quarter hour early for the second session. This vaguely surprised her since she seemed to have covered the distance in less than half her usual time. Too tired to wonder, she figured she'd misread the time when she'd started out, picked a seat furthest from podium and curled up for a little nap.

*to be explained subsequently