After spending the entire day searching for the gate they had first entered through, Mayang and Joenathan finally saw it appear as darkness began to fall and the lights along the sidewalks and on the skyscrapers flickered on.
Yet something was strange. Night here was never truly as dark as night in their world. It looked slightly grayish. The stars and moon were there too, but they could never shine as brightly or appear as clearly as they did in the human realm.
“There it is—the gate!” Joenathan exclaimed, pointing.
“It finally showed up,” Mayang murmured.
But when Joenathan took her hand and pulled her into a run toward the enormous gate, something suddenly slipped into the deepest part of her heart.
She felt a heaviness at the thought of leaving that place.
Just as Mayang reached the still-closed gate, the handsome jinn prince ran out to find her.
At the exact moment the gate opened and Mayang stood on the threshold between the human world and the jinn realm, the prince saw her. Their eyes met for a few seconds before Mayang finally vanished into the border between the two worlds.
The prince shouted for her to stop, but it was already too late.
“Wait!”
Mayang saw and heard the handsome figure shouting toward her.
Mayang and Joenathan suddenly passed out when the gate closed. Villagers found them lying at the edge of a cliff beside a sloping road.
“Dead bodies! There are dead bodies!” a man shouted.
The people nearby quickly gathered around.
“They’re not from around here.”
“Maybe they own that car.”
“They’re still alive!”
“Maybe they were brought into Wentira.”
Everyone gathered there had their own speculation, but everything they said was true.
A man in traditional clothing pushed through the crowd. He was the local village elder, who knew the Hidden City of Wentira very well.
In fact, he could easily recognize the people of Wentira whenever they entered the human world to shop at a traditional market.
“Lift them up and bring them to my house.”
The villagers worked together to carry Joenathan and Mayang down the slope from the cliff.
Once they were inside the elder’s house, he kept staring at Mayang.
“Why has the Elder been looking at that woman so strangely?” one of the villagers asked.
“This woman has a different scent.”
“What do you mean, Elder?”
“She has a golden thread in that world. But its location is very far from here.”
Half an hour later, Joenathan woke up with a dizzy, unbearably heavy head. He had to tap it repeatedly with his own hand.
“Where am I?”
“You’re in my house. Don’t worry. The villagers found both of you unconscious on the cliff,” the village elder replied.
“Unconscious on the cliff?” Joenathan repeated, his head still heavy.
“Drink this first.” The elder handed him a glass of plain water.
“Drink half, and use the other half to wash your face.”
Joenathan did as he was told, then suddenly remembered Mayang.
“Mayang?!” he cried in shock.
“She’s still unconscious. Just leave her for now and let the effects wear off. She’ll wake up on her own,” the elder said casually as he took a drag from his hand-rolled cigarette, smoke billowing in front of him.
A few minutes later, Mayang regained consciousness and began looking for Joenathan.
“Joe? Where are you?”
“May? You’re awake?” Joenathan hurried over to her.
“Where are we?”
“We’re in the village elder’s house. The villagers rescued us.”
The village elder bent down and patted Joenathan on the shoulder, signaling him not to talk to her too much.
Joenathan moved aside, and the elder gave Mayang a glass of plain water.
“Drink this first.”
Just as Mayang was about to drink it, she suddenly froze.