A Guardians Mystery

    Us guardians use magic to protect the stories that reside within books. We work behind the scenes to make sure a story’s preparation and progression is going smoothly, to fix mishaps that may occur. This magic was given to us at the very beginning of time, and has been passed down to the woman in my bloodline since then. There are only two of us alive today though, my grandma, and me. I can’t say that I have done much as of yet, all that credit goes to my grandma who has been doing this for most of her life. She’s getting older now though, which is why I’m starting to step into her role. She has officially taught me everything she knows, or so she says, now I just need the experience that my knowledge will aid. Granny always says that the only source of Knowledge is experience, and that you need experience to gain wisdom. 

    Today is my first day alone. I’ve been on the job before, but I have always had granny by my side to assist and guide me when I needed it. 

  “Okay… so I’ve checked a few times now, and I have everything that I need granny”  I recite anxiously again, turning around to face granny when I hear her footsteps stop in the doorway. 

    She slowly looks me over and leans on the doorframe. “As you have said a few times now Kendria” she muses. 

    I slightly roll my eyes and respond with a dry laugh.

  “Ha. Ha, that was so funny” I look at her with boredom. 

    She snickers a bit and looks me in the eyes with a lighthearted smile.

  “You have nothing to worry about, you are prepared for anything. You have learned it all and at the very young age of 18 no less” she then notices my tense body language and her smile fades as her eyes narrow.

  “You are allowing your anxiety to cloud your judgment and confidence” She decreed, then paused “again” 

    Her words cause me to look at the floor.

    She sighs as she walks up to me, and reaches up to gently hold my face in her warm and steady hands.

  “You have been training immensely for ten years now. Day and night. You are very bright and by now, you no longer need my assistance, you are stronger than I was at your age. I have complete faith in you Kendria” she enunciated in her croaky, yet dulcet voice.

    Her words caused the weight to be lifted off of my chest, a warm smile spread across my face, and with great appreciation, I acknowledged her words.

  “Thank you granny, I needed that” She smiled and gave me a comforting hug, then stepped to the side and reached behind me to grab my bag. It had everything I would need for the mission today, plan A, B, C and all the way to plan Z. I have nothing to blame but magic because there’s no way I would be able to fit all of this into a normal bag. 

Granny swiftly grabs my hand and strolls out the doorway.

  “Okay, enough overthinking. Time to go, come on”, with me following, we head to the library, where my mission will begin. 

    I chose my favorite book as my first mission. It’s more comfortable to me personally, plus I’ve always wanted to experience the world inside of the book. The book is titled ‘Cyber-tech Wars’. It takes place in a high-tech futuristic neon city that operates on the electricity that is generated from a tree. 

    In the book, the protagonist Luan, and his childhood best friends Osman and Zira, fight behind the scenes of a war against an opposing city who is trying to take over. The trio go through a lot of action, adventure, and technology to save their home but discover that Osman was actually a traitor all along! What a plot twist I know!

    Granny approached the library door with one hand holding onto my bag. I tried to get it from her, but she waved my hand away. She then steps to the side and looks at me, and knowing what she wants me to do, I prepare to open the library door. The library is a very sacred place, so this door appears to be a bookshelf, but behind it lies a pocket space library in-between this realm and another, it can only be opened by a guardian in our bloodline.

    Magic runs like water and the goal is to allow it to flow like water as well. After doing a few fluid movements, I gently knock once on the four corners of the bookshelf, then take a deep breath to stabilize my energy, and begin my chanting. Our chants are in the language of Yoruba, which is where my family is originally from, it is our mother tongue. Throughout time of course, our people have moved around and I cannot say that I am anything other than african-american sadly, but the language is something I hold dear.

  “Mo paṣẹ fun ilẹkun yii lati ṣii” I recite in a low voice, and with a final touch to the center of the bookshelf, it opens. 

    The library has always been a safe haven for me, for some reason. I have always been more comfortable in the library than anywhere else. The subtle smell of lavender and sage has always seemed to calm me and give me a clear mind, it was like a warm hug of comfort at times. 

    As I walk into the library and towards my chosen book, granny goes to stand next to our reading stand that is positioned in front of the portal, which is what will take me into the book realm. The stand looks like vines that have grown from the earth.

    I take a deep resuring breath and walk towards the stand with a mumble.

  “Okay. I got this, nothing to worry about” I declare.

    Granny tilts her head to the side and a small but comforting smile spreads across her face.

  “Yes exactly, you surely do” She has great hearing for her age. 

    I place the book down as I make it to the stand with the face of the book, facing me. Beginning the routine to transition into the book, I knock once on all four corners of the book, each knock filled with the intention to activate the book, afterwards, I cast a spell on the book and walk towards the portal with the book in hand. Next to the portal is what looks like a coin hole, which is kind of what it is, but for books.

    You place the book into the coin hole-like contraption and the portal connects to the world of the chosen book. After doing so, I take a step back and look at granny as she finally gives me my bag with a nod of approval and determination. I place my bag on my back and give granny a tender hug goodbye before stepping through the portal with a confident smile on my face. 

    I have been in the realm of this book for a while now. I wear a watch on my right wrist to keep the time, which also has a map setting that shows me where the plot point is, it can be anywhere honestly, but luckily this one is located in a huge tree that this city praises. I am in a time crunch, but I can’t help but explore and maybe fangirl a bit over this world building! I have luckily made it here at night time, so the city is lit with bright neons and color. The air here is so electric and clear, for a highly futuristic civilization that completely operates on electricity, one would expect the air to be clouded with pollution and gray clouds but the earth seems to be healthy. The sound of the busy city was so immersive.

    It’s a neon city with very high-tech vehicles and buildings that almost touch the glittering sky, and people here are dressed in bright and dark cyberpunk techwear fashion. I have to say that reading the words off of the pages of a book is nothing like physically being in the said book — I was snapped  out of my thoughts when a person bumps into me.

  “Hey! Watch where you’re going!” I quickly apologized and walked away from them. I then steal a glance at the person, and it caused me to pause and stare at them with a scrutinizing gaze. I wasn’t surprised that they had bumped into me, it was a busy city and the citizens here were rude. What did surprise me though, was that the person who bumped into me was Zira. The female protagonist of this story. Something was wrong. This was completely out of her character. 

    Trusting my intuition, I turn around and skulk behind her to further observe her odd behavior, and after a while, it becomes painfully clear that something is wrong. Zira is the rational one of the trio. Sure she was blunt, but she wasn’t like this, she was observable and introverted, but now she was loud and just outright rude. It was like she was a completely different character.

    With that in mind, I check to see how far I was from the plot point and luckily, I wasn’t far at all, it just wasn’t walking distance, so I bought a motorcycle from a shop that was luckily across the street. Good thing I’ve trained for this type of thing, and know how to ride a motorcycle. A yaiba motorcycle with neon purple and blue rims, a sleek black finish, padded seats and an electrical screen that displays the bikes battery percentage. I board the motorcycle and put on my helmet. 

 “These controls are amazing, and thank goodness I have my cornrows in”, I then head to the plot point. 

    Not long after boarding the bike, about 10 minutes later, I got to the plot point. The plot point resides in something that is important to a story, and in this story, it’s in this large tree that basically keeps the city alive. From afar it looks like an actual tree, but up close…the words on a page doesn’t do it  justice at all. 

    It was described as large and small electric cords that joined together to form a tree. The cords came from the ground like roots and the cord ends were like branches that gleamed in the night, it was just that, but the view couldn’t be put in words. It was night time and the dark sky had glittering stars in it. It’s funny how even the sky appeared to be lit with neon lights, but the tree gave off this subtle blue hue. Bathing in the beauty of this sight for a while longer, my mind drifts back to the task at hand. The plot point.

   I stride up to the tree and soak in its presence once more before I flow some of my magic into my hand and place it on the blue hue of a barrier around the tree. My magic caused it to appear as if there was a ripple effect on the tree. The blue hue faded away in the spot where my hand had laid, allowing me to touch the actual tree with my watch and upload the plot point into the watch.

    When I step away from the tree, the barrier quickly reforms and when I look at this story’s plot point, everything seems to be fine. That can’t be right, something was obviously wrong.

    I walk away contemplating the situation at hand. This just doesn’t make sense. I was once again snapped out of my thoughts when someone bumped into me. Again. Seriously, what is up with people bumping into me today?! I quickly turn around slightly irritated only to face Osman, a character part of the trio and the ultimate villain of the story. He also seems different though. 

  “Oh” he paused “sorry about that”, Now this was a bright red flag because Osman was the rude one, 

He was supposed to tell me to move out of the way like Zira did, yet he walked away.

    I stand slightly leaning on my bike as I drift back into my thoughts, mind racing. What was happening? And most importantly, how? My attention drifts back to an approaching Osman with a dazed look on his face that I failed to notice during our first encounter. My eyebrows rise slightly. How peculiar. 

    He raises his hands and stares at them blankly. “I don’t know who you are, but something isn’t right here. I feel like I’m supposed to be doing something, but…I just can’t remember what” 

    His voice was eerily void of emotion. I cross my arms, raise my head,  and narrow my eyes in concentration.  “Are you saying that you feel as if something is wrong here?” 

  “Yes?” he stammered unsure “No?” he continues, “I dont know!” he panics and rambles away.

    My eyes follow him with piqued interest. “How peculiar indeed” I mumble. With this new info, I figured that more clues had to be present in the city, so I made my way there.

    On the drive there I try to think of a way to figure out what’s going on, who or what is doing this and what is their motive? Where to look first?

    Where to look first, if not where the story starts? 

    With the main character. 

    Luan.

  “This story hasn’t started yet, so the plot hasn’t either, I have about 10 hours to get this done before it does” 

    I speed up my bike and head to a destination on the edge of town where this story begins. Luans house.

  “If I can meet Luan, we can figure this out. I just hope that he hasn’t changed too”

    I walk up to Luans door step, I knock a few times and almost instantly, Luan snatches the door open, frowning. 

    My face lightens immediately. “Just the person I wanted to see!”

    He looks at me in utter confusion. “Hm? What are you talking about? Who are you??”

    I step into the house hastily, grab his wrist and pull him to his room. “We can talk in your room”

  “And how exactly do you know where that is!?” he exclaims in frustration.

    After calming Luan down and explaining who I am and why I am here, I also mention that this is my fist mission. I then mention that something was going on and that this stories’ characters are different somehow.

    As I was talking, it looked as if Luan knew something, but wasn’t saying anything, so I took a deep breath and express to him “ Look Luan, I understand that you see me as a complete stranger who just barged into your home, but I really am here to help, so if you know anything, please don’t hesitate to tell me, please. So we can solve whatever is going on” 

    Luan looks at me with uncertainty, but after a while of silence, he stammers“Someone, I have no clue who, but someone is somehow erasing everyone’s memories” 

    My eyes widened, this was something unheard of. “Erasing Memories?” I ask shocked.