The door opened slowly, and the sharp creak of its hinges echoed like a scream in the oppressive silence. Konstant closed his eyes for a moment, not out of fear, but because the morning sunlight struck him like a blow. It was a warm, blinding glare that flooded the warehouse, illuminating every corner where they stood.
He raised an arm to shield his eyes, blinking hard against the colored spots dancing across his vision. Gradually, against the white brightness, a silhouette began to take shape in the doorway. It was tall and broad, blocking much of the light, but not in a solid way. There was a deliberate slowness to the figure's posture.
Konstant's eyes adjusted.
The man was very old, though "old" was not quite the right word. He seemed more like an ancient elder. His hair and beard formed a cascading fall of unkempt snow over his shoulders and chest. Yet the white was not pure. At the tips and woven through the strands, there was a yellowish tint. The sunlight behind him created a frayed halo around his head. He wore a long, worn leather coat, stained with dark marks that could have been dirt, oil, or something far older.
For an absurd moment, the comparison was unavoidable. If he had been dressed in red, he would have looked like a dark fairy-tale version of Santa Claus. But when the man stepped inside and the light revealed his face, the illusion vanished. His skin was a map of deep lines, especially around the eyes, which blinked slowly, like those of an owl studying its prey. Thick blue veins stood out on the backs of his hands, which rested calmly at his sides.
He did not smile. He did not frown. He simply observed. His gaze moved from Konstant to Keiko, lingered a second longer on Rady, who was curled into himself, and then returned to Konstant. That silence carried more weight than any shout.
Rady's muffled whimper seemed to trigger Keiko. She took a deep breath, as if preparing to dive underwater, and stepped forward, placing herself between the imposing figure and the two boys. Her fists rose into that same awkward but determined fighting stance. "Stay back! I'll scream! I know how to fight!"
It was an obvious lie, but she held the pose.
Konstant had stood up when the door opened, positioning himself where he could see both the old man and the exit. His eyes never left the figure. He noted the relaxed posture, the hands that remained open and empty at the man's sides. The old man's face showed neither rage nor false kindness. There was only a deep, almost clinical interest in his eyes. Nothing about him suggested an imminent attack.
The old man did not seem intimidated. His gaze swept over all three of them with genuine curiosity. Slowly, he raised his hands, palms facing them in a clear gesture of peace.
Then he began to speak.
The sound of his voice did not match his appearance. From that white beard and deeply lined face came not a rough, aged rasp, but a flow of sounds that were fluid, almost musical, and deeply wrong. The syllables formed in strange ways, consonants brushing the throat in a manner no human mouth should be able to produce. Konstant had heard other languages before, like English and Spanish, but this was completely different.
And yet… he understood it. Perfectly.
"Calm yourselves, children," the old man was saying. Konstant heard the strange sounds while simultaneously grasping their meaning. "I have no intention of harming you. If I wished to do so, I would have done it while you slept. Why wake you first?"
Keiko had lowered her fists slightly, total confusion on her face. "How… how can I understand you? Are you hearing this too? He's not speaking our language."
"I am too," Konstant admitted, his voice trembling. He took a deep breath. "I hear strange sounds, but I understand the meaning."
From the corner, Rady whispered, "Me too. I don't… I don't like it. Something is wrong."
The old man nodded as if this were perfectly normal. "The Blessing of Comprehension. All Mystics receive it. It makes things simpler, does it not?"
"Mystics?" Keiko asked. She pressed a trembling hand to her forehead. "What are you talking about? Where are we? How did we get here?"
Konstant cut in before panic could take hold. "Please. Just tell us where we are."
The old man studied them, his expression growing more serious. 'You deserve answers,' he said, gesturing toward the open door, 'but not here. Come with me. The sunlight will do you good, and there is a more comfortable place where we can speak.'
He didn't move. He just waited, his hands open, looking at the three of them. They felt comfortable with the quiet, but it also made them feel like they had to make a very important decision.
Konstant exchanged a look with Keiko. She was still tense, her fists only half open, but curiosity and a desperate need for answers battled with suspicion in her eyes. Rady remained a statue of fear in the corner.
They looked at one another. Then Keiko whispered, "What if it's a trap?"
Konstant thought it through. Standing still would not help them, and the old man was right. If he wanted to hurt them, he already would have. And there were the stars, the strange language, and the question of how all of them had ended up here. Everything was too strange, too mysterious. They needed answers.
"Staying here won't give us any answers," Konstant said. "And I think we need to know what's happening."
Keiko bit her lip, her decision finally settling. "Fine. But we stay together. The three of us. Always." She looked firmly at Konstant, then at Rady, as if sealing a pact not just with words, but with her gaze.
Rady couldn't hold her stare for more than a second. He looked down at the floor, but made a visible effort and nodded as well, almost imperceptibly. For him, that "always" must have sounded like an anchor in a sea of panic: frightening, yet the only solid thing left.
"I agree," Konstant said. He paused for one last deep breath. The air in the warehouse was heavy with dust and fear. His gaze moved from the open door and the unknown world beyond it to the faces of Rady and Keiko behind him. The anchor.
Then he swallowed hard and forced his legs to move. The first step was the hardest, nearly a stumble, but the next ones were steadier. He passed the old man, who stepped aside with a courteous gesture, and walked into the light.
The sunlight struck his face. He closed his eyes, raising a hand to shade them. He blinked several times until he could see.
The air was different. Cleaner. Lighter. But it lacked the familiar scents he knew: pine from the forest, damp mold from the cabin. Each breath came without the usual weight, and instead of comforting him, that lightness filled his chest with unease.
The warmth of the sun was real, soaking into his skin, loosening aching muscles.
When his vision adjusted, he saw where he was.
It looked like a village. Small, built on a hill. A wave of disorientation washed over him as he processed the scene.
There were no buildings, only low houses of wood and stone with tiled roofs. No streetlights, no power lines, no antennas, no modern technology at all. The roads were packed dirt. Smoke rose from chimneys, and the air carried the scent of burning firewood.
The people wore strange clothes. The men wore simple tunics or shirts made of a fabric that resembled burlap: thick and coarse, with loose-fitting trousers. The women wore long dresses in earthy tones: brown, beige, moss green, and gray. None of the denim or soft cotton he knew. These fabrics were rough, faded by use, many patched and stained with dirt.
For one desperate moment, Konstant's mind clung to an explanation: an indigenous reserve, an isolated community preserving an ancient way of life. The simplicity, the natural fabrics, the absence of technology all fit. He almost managed to believe it.
Then his gaze fell on a woman at the corner.
She stood nearby, carrying a woven basket full of grain. She wore an almost white linen dress, its hem stained with earth, and an apron tied at her waist. When she saw them, she stopped completely. Her eyes widened.
Several others stopped to stare. A man dropped a tool. Two barefoot children stood frozen, pointing.
Konstant felt his face heat up. He hated being looked at like that.
Then he saw something that shattered any remaining hope and erased the idea of an indigenous reserve entirely.
Near one of the houses, a woman was working with a barrel of water. But she was not using buckets or pitchers.
The water was floating.
Small, perfect spheres, perhaps the size of oranges, hung suspended in the air. Five or six of them, slowly rotating. The woman moved her hands in gentle motions, and the spheres responded, drifting toward plant pots, where they split into droplets that fell onto the soil.
Konstant blinked. Closed his eyes. Opened them again.
The water was still floating.
Behind him, Keiko stepped outside. "Konstant? Where are the cars? The lights? The poles? This looks like…"
"Medieval," Konstant murmured. "Like the Middle Ages."
"But there's floating water," Rady whispered, his thin voice trembling. He had come out too, standing very close to Konstant. "Water can't fly."
"I know," Konstant said.
Then, almost against his will, he looked up.
The strong sunlight finally allowed them to see one another clearly for the first time. Three children in modern clothing, painfully out of place in that ancient village. Konstant tugged at the hem of his worn jeans, aware that their simple clothes marked them as strangers in this world.
But any further thoughts about appearances vanished when Konstant finally lifted his eyes to the sky.
For a brief moment, everything looked normal. The sky was blue. Clear. Beautiful. Cloudless.
Then he truly saw it.
The sun had a blue ring around it.
Not an illusion. Not an atmospheric halo. A solid, perfect circle of vibrant, intense blue, electric, neon blue, a color that did not exist in nature. It sat perfectly centered around the sun, like a target in the sky, precise and flawless, as if drawn by a divine ruler.
All concern about clothes, the village, and the floating water suddenly felt small and distant. That thing in the sky was the final answer. The clothes were not the problem. It was the sky itself. This was not simply a strange or ancient place. They were standing beneath a sun that had never, not once in his entire life, shone over Earth.
Konstant stood frozen, mouth slightly open, unable to process it. His mind searched for explanations and found none. Earth's sun had no ring. It could not have one. It was impossible.
And yet, there it was.
"My God…" Keiko whispered behind him, her words stunned. "That's not possible."
Rady made a soft sound, no longer a whimper but a stifled breath. Konstant glanced at him and saw the boy pale, eyes locked on the sky. But unlike in the warehouse, Rady did not panic. He simply stood there, frozen, absorbing the impossible with silent shock.
"This isn't…" Keiko tried again, her voice rising. "The sun doesn't… IT'S NOT LIKE THIS! THE SUN DOESN'T HAVE A BLUE RING!"
Her voice broke at the end. She clutched her head, fingers tangled in her hair. "The sun is yellow! No rings! NO BLUE RINGS!"
Some villagers stepped back at her shout, while others drew closer, whispering among themselves. "Poor children," "They must be confused," "Have they never seen the sun?"
Panic began to rise in Konstant's chest, the sensation that everything was collapsing. But he had to stay in control. Or at least try. Rady stood frozen beside him, clearly overwhelmed but not yet breaking. Keiko was seconds away from falling apart.
"We're not on Earth," Konstant heard himself say, his voice flat and mechanical. "This isn't our world. It's somewhere else."
The words made it real. Undeniable.
A heavy silence fell, broken only by Keiko's ragged breathing. That was when Konstant realized the old man had not moved. He stood a short distance ahead, watching them with an expression no longer of simple curiosity, but of endless, sorrowful patience. His eyes, beneath thick white brows, studied them the way a physician might study a rare illness, with knowledge but no easy cure.
The villagers backed away, giving space. They looked at the old man with respect, almost fear. The air around him felt different. Authoritative.
Then, while Konstant's admission still hung in the air, the old man spoke. His voice was not kind. It was gentle in the way someone delivers terrible news, knowing there is no way to soften it. A voice shaped by many hard truths.
He said no, and the word struck like a blade. "This is not your world." He paused, letting the statement stand without comfort. Then, with a firm voice that turned the words into a final decision, he said, "Welcome to Excelsis."