Bright light flashes before my eyes, I’m moving but I can’t tell where. Suddenly it feels like I’m being pulled in every direction at once while simultaneously being compressed to a single point.
‘Maybe I’m finally dying? Might get some relief for once.’
Finally after a seemingly endless amount of time enduring that absolute discomfort the light starts fading and my vision returns.
‘Looks like I’m back to the land of the living.’ A dark chuckle escaping my lips, as I shakily raise my hands to shield my eyes from the first rays of sun I have seen in months.
Looking at my hands it’s pretty obvious I didn’t die. My fingers are still shredded and ruined from trying to claw my way out of that dark hole, thinking only of trying to escape the improvised prison made of the remains of my own home. The fingernails are gone on all of my fingers, ripped and torn away, the white of bone showing on several of them. Surprisingly I can’t feel any pain in them anymore. Probably from the nerves being gone.
‘I guess I still desperately wanted to live even after the last of my improvised shovels broke.’
Running out of food and water are all really good motivators.
Food was the first to run out...
It’s immediately obvious once I start looking around after my eyes adjust to the light. I’m not in Kansas anymore, not that I have ever been to Kansas to begin with, but it seems fitting. I’m in a large room surrounded by a large amount of people, all in modern clothing, looking just as confused as I feel. The brick walls adorned with tapestries and torches, the bright sun shining through stained glass windows at the front of the room. At the front and sides of the gathering are what look like a group of soldiers wearing primitive metal armor and weapons.
I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something’s wrong with this place, everything feels just left of off, the air feels different, almost clinging to me, I feel heavier somehow… I’m in desperate need of food, I can’t think like this. On the ground surrounding the group is a large drawn rectangle absolutely filled with several intricate shapes, complex interlocking patterns, and script I don’t recognize. I don’t know it for a fact, but by what almost feels like instinct, looking at those shapes-
“This is what brought me here.”
Of course.
In the end it wasn’t my own effort or desperation that saved my life and brought the sun back into my life, I was saved by seemingly pure chance. Just thinking about it fills me with nothing but bitterness and Disgust. Saved? Me?! That’s as much a joke as anything else I’ve heard.
‘Nobody saves me.’
“That’s EVE. Why is she here? She’s supposed to be dead.”
My thoughts are interrupted by someone saying my name under their breath, with something approximating fear. My ear twitching and angling in his direction, to hear better, my gaze following; our eyes meeting far across the room with the most average looking man I have ever seen.
‘Looks like someone in the group recognizes me.’
That’s the problem with being infamous. You have no idea where you are and there is still somebody in the crowd who knows who you are.
‘Don’t recognize him, but that’s not saying much, his own mother probably couldn’t pick him out of a line up.’
Right after the male voice started whispering. One of the soldiers at the front who looks more important than the rest cries out in alarm looking and pointing directly at me.
“Is that a half-breed?! Why is there a fox here?!”
‘Half-breed? Fox? What? Oh, right, the ears… and tail. No I’m definitely human. Guess they’ve never seen someone changed by their connection before? Maybe I can talk my way out-’
“Surround and seize it!!”
‘Guess not. I’m too tired for this.’
After that everything descends into chaos. The soldiers pull out their swords, and move to surround me. The others in the crowd are quickly moving away from me in a rushing stampede, but I notice one making a beeline right towards me from the furthest point in the room. No hesitation on that one.
One of the soldiers surrounding me is carrying heavy looking manacles inscribed with similar complex patterns as the ones on the ground, the inscriptions make the hair on my neck raise. I don’t know what they say but I am absolutely not letting those be put on me.
‘They were obviously prepared for something to happen.’
Probably not me.
Taking in the sight of the soldier approaching me I start analyzing his posture looking for any tells on how to take him down quickly. Mid-thirties, slight limp originating from his right hip. Old injury? Left foot angling outwards slightly to compensate for the change in his gait, he’s looking around at the other soldiers surrounding me more than he is at me, he’s expecting their presence to motivate me to cooperate.
It won’t.
Alright, the time for thinking is over. I close my eyes and take a deep steadying breath…
My eyes flash open right as the man starts extending his hands towards me, I immediately lash out with my right foot directly to the inside of his left ankle, causing it to roll outward with a crunch and the sickening pop of torn ligaments, while simultaneously launching my right elbow to the side of his jaw, breaking it and knocking him unconscious before he is able to even feel the pain, a small consolation. Grabbing the manacles out of his hands as he is falling to the ground I use them to wrap around one of the swords swinging for my shoulder using them to pull the retaliating soldier off balance and into the path of several others. As I wrench the sword free of his grip I notice a moment too late as a fist comes crashing towards the left side of my face with far more speed than any of the soldiers had shown so far.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
‘Damn that was a quick and quiet approach. Seems he’s got a connection too.’
All I saw was a wrist watch before everything went black…
In a haze a memory comes in the dark.
I’m in a dark cell crying from another session Father calls training, I think he just wants me gone. My broken hands are curled against my chest, my uniform and hair stained with old blood.
I’m staring at a blank wall just waiting, for what I don’t know, but I feel it in my heart like a tendon that has been stretched too far.
I don’t wish for the pain to fade or the wounds to heal, they’ll just add more. I don’t wish for freedom, freedom is temporary without the strength to hold it.
I look at my white hair and all the blood stains in it.
I like how white my hair is.
I don’t want to bleed anymore… that would be enough…
Finally I feel that pain in my heart SNAP.
Collapsing to the ground on my hands and knees I start vomiting blood… so much blood. My skin starts turning pale from the loss, but still it continues to flow from my mouth until there is nothing left and I collapse in the pool that had formed below me.
A short moment after my collapse, the hair that was now floating in the pool beside me starts turning red from the tips and slowly up to my scalp, getting darker and darker until the pool around me is completely gone, with it the color comes back to my skin.
Slow and shallow my breathing returns, but there is no heartbeat.
---
Siraceal was so busy observing EVE standing across the room he pretty much missed everything else that was occurring, like the legendary figure Jun Atlas standing right next to him stiffening violently when he muttered her name. He had eyes for nobody else. He would recognize the daughter of that sociopathic dictator anywhere.
‘We placed so many explosives around the mountain her home was located within that it collapsed in on itself, turning into nothing but rubble and a hole in the ground. That was four months ago how is she still alive?’
When you look at EVE it comes in waves, like her father, she demands your attention by force…
She’s the tallest person in the room, at least six foot eight.
Beautiful in the way an apex predator is beautiful, you can appreciate how it looks as long as it’s on the other side of the safety glass.
Her muscle is literally rippling underneath her skin, never settling into a comfortable position, like she’s ready to burst into action at a moments notice.
Also she looks like the explosion had just occurred, her clothes are barely holding on by a few threads, her hands are absolutely shredded with no skin visibly intact, and she’s swaying side to side like a drunk barely staying on her feet.
The only evidence of time passing is that she looks like she’s suffering from severe starvation.
My voice leaks out of my mouth.
“That’s EVE. Why is she here? She’s supposed to be dead.”
Then I made eye contact with those blood red feline eyes, pupils expanding like a cat that had found a new toy to play with, alongside a knowing smirk. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up alongside an itch that can’t be scratched, and that’s when a question hits me.
‘Does she know what we did?’
After that brief respite of inaction, everybody breaks out into motion. The soldiers scream some nonsense about a “half-breed”, the crowd of people start rushing my direction away from where the men with weapons are, and in the chaos the man that was standing next to me was attempting to sprint through the rush of people straight towards EVE. I recognize him too.
‘Whats going on? Why is Atlas and EVE here? I wonder if there are anybody else with connections here?’
I can ask questions later, the crowd is pushing me away as I try to watch the action. Then it happens.
EVE lashes out at the guard with practiced precision as I hear the stomach twisting sound of bones breaking, the man making a strange choking gurgling noise as he falls to the floor, EVE taking the manacles out of his hands with such ease it looked like he was just casually handing them over to her. She then proceeded to use them to defend herself against the fifteen guards that had surrounded her twisting and pulling back and forth to keep one in the way of the others.
Until Atlas reached her, that is. Storming in like a hurricane, fist crashing against her skull with a loud crack, and with that just as fast as it began it was over with her falling to the floor completely unconscious. Still breathing somehow.
‘How did he manage to get that close to her with no notice? she heard me muttering from clear across the room.’
Atlas seemed to be wondering the same thing, he was looking between her and his fist, head shaking with quiet puzzlement. Muttering something under his breath while I walked over to him trying to ignore every instinct that screams stay away.
“What’s the problem?”
In reply he simply stated “I tore off her ear with that punch, cracked her skull by the feel of it, and looking at her hands I can see bone in several places, yet there is no blood.” Then continued “I only know Pesti- EVE by reputation. Yet you knew who she was, spotted her immediately in fact. Then stated that she should be dead. Why? What do you know?” He started asking in a tone that suggested I better be perfectly clear with my reply.
“… Uhhh.”
The sudden interrogation is thankfully interrupted by the guards surrounding the unconscious EVE yet again, this time successfully securing her hands behind her back with the manacles. One of them walks up to her placing his hand on her neck and saying several things I don’t understand with a grimace on his face, when he removed his hand a tattoo of strange script was wrapped around her neck. After that they placed her and the unconscious guard on a couple stretchers and carried them away and out a side door.
Seeing that Atlas quickly ran over to the man who had placed the tattoo and asked what they were doing with EVE. Citing the fact she was incredibly dangerous and shouldn’t be left unsupervised.
The man simply smiled and said that they know how to handle those demons.
Then he raised his hand to interrupt further argument and casually walked away back to the front of the room, calling everybody to gather quickly, so they can proceed with some explanation of what is going on.
After everybody had gathered together he brought out a paper and began reading off of it like it was a script he barely spent time preparing for. With every word he spoke, a ring on the hand holding the paper would shimmer like I was looking through a mirage.
“All of you have been brought here more as a byproduct than through any deliberate planning on our part, though we had some expectation that it would result in people like you being pulled here. Your world was connected to ours by an experiment gone wrong some sixty-three years ago. Since then the connection with your world has been causing great dysfunction in our ability to utilize Aether from within this kingdom, these disruptions probably resulted in mutations and unexplainable phenomena on your world.-”
‘Is that why our powers felt like they were connecting back to something?’
“-These disruptions have resulted in our kingdom being weakened and us being pushed back more and more by our enemies.”
He took in a big breath and then continued.
“Below you on the ground is the formation we used to remove that connection along with the settlement of the aforementioned fluctuations. The resulting backlash from severing such a long running connection amounted to a return to our power along with those of you present. We do not know what happened to your world afterwards, so don’t ask. Because you lot have been displaced, with no way back after the severing, we will be giving you a place to stay for six months alongside a stipend with the expectation that you will integrate yourselves within our society and lead law abiding lives.”
The crowd starts breaking out in murmurings, and barely contained outrage.
“Stating that, we will be taking a few questions before departing.”
