1 The Marketplace

Last thing I remembered was falling asleep. The next thing I remember, I see my younger sister walking down the street late at night.

"Oh no, did I sleep walk again?!" I wondered out loud.

I rushed to catch up to her, calling her name, but she didn't respond. Then I noticed a shop... it was a butcher shop.

'Strange...' I think to myself. 'I've walked this street many times, yet I've never noticed a meat shop before.'

My sister, Mae, walked into the meat shop. I quickly followed her and grabbed her by the hand.

Looking around, I saw several people chopping up meat on tables. They ignored us, only focusing on chopping up the meat they had laid out before them. We continued walking deeper into the store, where I saw in the back, it was more like a fish market. It almost reminded me of the market that I used to go to back when i lived in the Philippines.

We walked past the stalls of fish and the people selling them, till we reached the back. But instead of reaching the back wall of the store, we stepped out of the fish market only to see something totally amazing. No longer were we in a building, but instead we were now outside. Looking around, it appeared as if we were in some type of bazzar. It was bustling with many people shopping and walking by, with several sellers calling out to people in attempt for them to come observe and buy their wares.

But suddenly stepping out of the butcher/fish market building into an outside market wasn't the most strangest thing... it was the people that really stood out the most.

At a glance, many of them appeared to be human. But when I looked closer, I noticed the differences in the people. Some had strange features such as pointed ears, flat noses, skin that seemed almost stretched tight across their face, sharp teeth, and skin coloring that was unlike that of a human.

A passersby who appeared to be a female with greenish-gray skin and sharp teeth smiled at me and my sister as she passed by. My heart leaped in my chest as I nodded back at her. Gripping my sister's hand tightly, i told her to stay close to me and not to speak. Mae nodded to show that she had heard me, as she stared silently at something that looked like a huge blob of brownish-green slime. We both stared at the slug-like creature as it went past, making a weird squishing noise as it moved.

I was terrified at all the strange people around us, people that we humans would call monsters. But even though I was terrified, deep inside I felt an excitement that I had never felt before. A friend of mine had told me stories... stories about beings who were not human. Non-humans, he called them. He didn't seem the type to lie, but his stories did sound outrageous. But as crazy as they sound to people, I still loved to listen to them. He had told me about them living on another plane, parallel to our world. Some even live among us, hiding their identity, looking and acting like humans.

So even though I was nearly frightened half to death, I was also thrilled to be about to see this other plane, this other world where other beings existed. So instead of turning back and going back into the fish market to return home, I clenched my sister's hand tightly and stepped into the crowded marketplace.