Chapter 3: She transmigrated!
She gazed toward the west, and from her vantage point, she could see an expansive plain stretching endlessly, a vibrant tapestry of lush greens interspersed with earthy patches of brown. The sun bathed the land in warm orange light, highlighting the undulating contours of the terrain.
Towards the horizon, where the land seemed to end and kiss the fiery sky, she could see the unobstructed outline of the five hundred kilometers Zandaya mountain range.
She remembered the last time she saw that full view was a month ago when she successfully climbed the Ourea peak at a record-breaking time of just half a day. She could only glimpse fragments of the silhouette formed by the rugged mountain ranges in the distance if viewed from the ground. The towering skyscrapers and sprawling residential buildings obstructed her view.
But now, she could see Zandaya in the same way that she viewed it atop Mount Ourea.
Lara stood rooted to the spot, a sense of disorientation washing over her. The surroundings felt both familiar and unfamiliar, as if she had stepped into a dream.
The tree in front of her used to be massive but now looked thin. She thought it was the same tree, but how could she encircle it with her short arms? When she was ten, the banyan tree was somewhere six children could hide from the other side without being seen.
So, It wasn't the grand tree of her childhood memories, the one she had climbed with abandon during sunny afternoons. Instead, this tree loomed differently, casting elongated shadows on the ground in the late afternoon.
But she couldn't mistake the Ourea peak. Wasn't this the very landmark at the crossroads where her life had taken a sudden, jarring turn just three days prior? The memory sent a shiver down her spine, blurring the line between past and present.
She looked at the narrow, dusty road filled with potholes from a recent rain. What happened to the asphalted highway that could accommodate three cars on one side and another three on the other? Where were the lamp posts?