The wind blew wildly through my hair, tossing it this way and that as I stalked through the dark alleys, the sound of police sirens screeching nearby. I knew these alleyways like the back of my hand, just as I knew where each of them led to. I saw as the mud on the floors parted where shoes had run over it. I followed them until I reached the end of the alleyway which split into two, both blocked off by wire fences. The one on the right had a piece of green fabric caught on the top of the fence, still clean and new. I jumped the right fence and kept fast walking down its length. Where could they be headed? After around ten minutes of tracking the gang of thieves that stole my locket, I saw an abandoned apartment complex across the road. I knew that apartment had been abandoned for a long time. The council had intended to renovate it due to its extensive structural damages, but it had been too expensive to bother with. It became known as an area where homeless people slept, or illegal activities were done. I knew that had to be it. I looked across the road at the old building covered in moss and grime. All along the street were flickering lights, piles of old furniture and rubbish bags. The only people that could be seen peered suspiciously from in front of their front doors, heads turned toward the approaching sound of sirens.

I took a deep breath, ensured my mask and hood were securely covering my features, and darted across the road toward the apartment. I heard the distant shouts of surprise from onlookers. I reached the door of the apartment, the spell of sweat and urine making my nose crinkle under my mask. I grabbed hold of the door handle and tried to wiggle it open, but it was locked. "Still?" I breathed quietly. I would have expected someone to have broken the lock to loot the place by now. But the fact it was still locked made me even more convinced that this was the locket thieves' base. The sound of sirens got dangerously close, but the sound of screeching tires was even closer.

"I've got eyes on him!" someone yelled in the distance as flashlights shone in my direction. I cursed under my breath. Black cars and men in suits began running in my direction, shouting orders. The police cars were still not in view. It looked like Kael's men got here first. I pulled a safety pin out of my pocket and inserted it into the doors keyhole and began wiggling it around until I heard a click. I didn't hesitate to burst through the door, slam it behind me and locket it again. The inside of the apartment was better than the outside, but it still wasn't pretty. The smell of mould and decay paired with the muddy water that lines the floor told me this place really was abandoned to an extent. I rushed up the stairs, placing each foot with care to ensure I could go unheard. Every door I passed I put my ear to the door and tried to hear for a sound. Some doors were easier as they were either already open or barricaded shut. The stairs were old and worn, with mushrooms or dead insects hiding in the corners. But most noticeably, they had footprints, fresh from stepping in mud and water. Whoever stole my locket were either bad at covering up their tracks or they underestimated my dedication to finding it.

The sound of banging on the front door began just as I reached the fourth level and noticed something I hadn't seen since entering the apartment. A light under a door. As I approached it, I heard quiet voices and the sound of metal scraping against wood. I pulled my safety pin out again and began picking the lock as the sound of banging increased downstairs. I only took a moment before I swung the door open, my empty gun pointed out in front of me.

The scene in front of me made me hesitate. An old but well cared for studio with wooden floorboards and bright lights greeted me. Planks of wood were drilled onto the windows, completely blocking any air or potential natural light to seep in. The room was stuffy and smelled of salt and wood. There was no furniture in the room, but the floors and benches were lined with rings of dust where items had previously stayed for a long time. In the centre of the room were the three thieves I had seen outside Kael's auction house: the lady with curly hair and a green dress, the man with a black suit and hair, and the man with a black suit and orange hair. Around their feet were over a dozen large bags overflowing with different seemingly valuable items: jewelry, pottery and other things I couldn't recognise. Among these bags were those they had been carrying away from the auction house.

Snapping out of my daze, I said "Don't move", a bit less forcefully than I had intended. The whole situation caused me to question who I was facing. They blew up Kael's auction house, bested the best gang in the city, seemingly had bags of valuables; they must have been professionals. Yet here I was, having tracked them down and at my gunpoint.

"Hand over the bags", I said. The three, momentarily surprised by my appearance began picking up the items that were spilling from the bags around their feet and shoving them back in.

"You're going to have to try better than that", the woman said as she shoved a necklace into the bag closest to her. "Talaos, help me with the bags, Leitus, make sure we didn't forget anything." The woman said. The orange-haired man, Leitus, got up and began opening drawers and cupboards, while the black-haired man, Talaos, helped the woman shove the treasures into the bags. I frowned. They weren't taking me seriously. They were being so careless they seemed completely comfortable saying their names in front of me. I questioned for a moment if they were fake names, they weren't exactly very common names, but I realised a moment later that information was irrelevant now.

"I will shoot!" I yelled, but they didn't even flinch. The sound of the front door downstairs slamming off its hinges could be heard a moment before the door made contact with the wet ground. Then, the sound of Kael's men running across the wet floor and up the stairs, knocking down each door as they went.

"Do you really think you can fool us that easily?" The man with black hair, Taloas, scoffed. He was a young man and seemed not much older than me. My gun lowered slightly. "Do you think your friends are the only ones who can hack cameras?". Right. It was them who froze the cameras surrounding the vault. They must have seen that I ran out of bullets.

"Fine" I lowered my gun. No one made an effort to draw their own weapons which gave me some weary level of confidence. "But I need my stuff back".

"Good luck with that" Talaos said. "You can try to take it. If you want us to hand over all these bags you better, make some kind of effort for it".

"I don't want all the bags" I stated. "I just want one item from it. Then I'll leave you be".

"What is leaving us alone now," the woman said, "after you lead them to our base", her arm moved to roughly point in the direction of the banging doors. They didn't sound far away now, perhaps just one floor under. "I'll give you credit, we didn't expect you to find us, let alone so easily."

I raised an eyebrow. So, they really did have low expectations from the beginning. "And that's why you didn't bother to be careful".

The woman looked up at me and responded, "yes".

"Well, I'm here now and you can't possibly hope to escape with all that." I pointed toward the still overflowing bags. "So, you might as well give me what I ask for. You don't want the Ashens as your enemies."

The woman shrugged, saying nonchalantly, "not my problem. We don't plan to stick around." My teeth were grinding as I heard Kael's men reach our floor and begin banging on the doors. I pulled out my knife, the three thieves glancing at it.

"Well, I'm not leaving here until I get my locket." Could I take them all on? Likely not. But could I harm them, stall them until Kael's men burst through the door? Maybe. At least I knew where Kael might hide it. I knew nothing about these people. Plus, I needed to try, even if it meant getting caught, or worse. The thieves glanced at each other, an unspoken caution in their eyes. Were they finally taking my threats seriously?

"This one?" the woman asked, sticking her hand into a bag and pulling it out. It was exactly as I had imagined it, just how it looked in Gran Shelly's stories. It a worn but shiny gold colour, with a large green gem on its front, and a gold chain attached to its top.

"Yes. That one!" I said, the urgency rising in my voice as the men outside began banging on our door.

"What's it to you?" the woman asked, her brows coming together in an expression I couldn't identify.

"It's my late grandmothers! I didn't know it was valuable. She wanted me to have it!" My voice rose over the banging door as I looked on with dimming hope as the locket, for the first time, was almost in my reach. The woman's expression seemed to fade, then she stashed the locket the away in her dress pocket.

"You'll be able to apologise to her soon." the woman said as she leaned down and put her left hand into her boot and pulled out a small gun, something like an antique revolver that was thin with a longer barrel. So, she does have a gun! She turned the gun toward me with a flat expression. I quickly crouched onto the ground, dropping my knife and putting my hands up.

"No! Wait-" My plea for my life was cut short as choked on my words, the sight in front of me leaving me momentarily awestruck. The woman had kept her gun firmly pointed toward me with her left hand, while her right lifted up and faced the wall behind her. Like a magician's trick exquisitely performed, out of a ring that sat on her middle finger came a ray of colours. Pinks, blues and purples swirled out of her ring and manifested as a circle against the wall, like a large puddle of liquid fairy floss. After the circle of swirling colours manifested into a full circle against the wall, the colours stopped coming forth from her ring and her arm relaxed at her side.

I stared at the swirling circle, both enchanted by its mysterious beauty and attempting to understand the mechanics of it. It was both familiar and yet completely unfamiliar at the same time. Was it a projection? It couldn't be, it looked too real. Is it an illusion? Yes, that's quite likely. Unless of course this whole thing is just a dream. If it is, where does reality end and the dream start? Did I ever attempt to rob Kael? Did I even meet up with my old gang? Is gran Shelly even dead?

I was snapped out of my thoughts as the mystery of the colourful circle grew with what I saw. Talaos grabbed a bag of treasures and threw it into the colourful circle. The bag went right through it, disappearing as if it were a portal to another world. Bag after bag the two men threw, while the woman kept me at gunpoint, although her eyes were focused on the door as the hinges flew off. Talaos holding one of the last bags, stepped through the portal himself, vanishing. I looked on with quiet admiration at this beautiful blur of colours. The orange-haired man, Leitus, followed after him, carrying the last bag of treasures, just as the door slammed onto the ground.

"Good luck with that" the woman said with a slight smirk. She pointed her gun away from me and toward Kael's men as they began rushing into the room. She shot wildly in their direction, each bullet landing on the floor, ceiling or on one of the far walls. The men slowed down and began taking cover to return their shots as the woman stepped back into the colourful circle and disappeared.

"That's one of them! Get him!" A man yelled and I realised I was now in a room alone with them. The fact that they were not attempting to shoot me on the spot told me they likely wanted to question me. But once they were done, I was either going to be dead or in prison. After all, I had no way of proving it wasn't me who blew up the auction house. But the more important matter was on the other side of the colourful circle. Those thieves still had my locket.

In a moment's decision, only a second after the woman vanished through the circle, I made up my mind. I grabbed my knife, stood up, and ran. Ignoring the shouting and footsteps behind me, or the unknown that lay ahead, I bolted right toward the circle. A moment after I felt the pressure of a hand pulling the back of my collar, the colours of the circle engulfed my body and the pressure was released.

I felt like I was floating still in a pool of water yet spinning in circles in the air. Then a moment later, I was back on my feet.

-Interdimensional Pirates
-April Bluebird/@BlueWhiskers1
-21/Sep/2025
-Chapter 7: Colours
-2281 words
-466 👁‍🗨, 43 🌟, 47 💭.