Feeling disoriented and light-headed, she wasn’t given any time to think about what she just experienced. By the time she came to, she was about to meet the light at the end of the tunnel. Once again, she forced all the mana she could into her feet. Only this time she wasn't calm. Her mana was boiling as it ran throughout her entire body. The only hope she was given was that her heart was beating abnormally fast, giving the tiny bits of mana she could control to go to her legs quicker than normal.
As she made contact with the ground, she repeated her original action. Leaning forward, she was able to absorb the extra force generated from her impact. This caused a large strain throughout her entire body. This time she kept her legs tucked in the best she could as she rolled and instead of continuing to roll forward like she originally did. She reached a full spin before using the last of her strength through the pain as she kicked off the now wobbly floor the very best she could. As she did so, her eyelids felt heavy.
Her heart that was beating a mile a minute was very quickly slowing down. With an unknown fear, she tried to fight off the drowsiness, only to fail. She didn’t even feel if she landed on solid ground. The pain that was running through her body was slowly disappearing, causing even more panic to rush through her mind as she could no longer stay conscious. Not knowing if she was going to ever wake up again.
Cold, very, very cold. Everything was hazy. The air and the surrounding space was empty and filled with darkness. She couldn’t feel pain or fear. She in fact couldn’t feel anything as she could only look around aimlessly as everything around her was dark with fog that blocked off anything that might be in the distance. All she could feel was the cold air around her. Finally settling down, she curled up her legs and put her arms around them as she tried to rub some warmth into them. As her thoughts wandered.
Questions from where she was, what was going on, and why she was here. As question after question entered her mind, she had no answers. In fact, the more she thought about it, she couldn’t figure out who she was. As time went by, the space was getting colder and the space was starting to spread itself out. Soon she couldn’t sit down anymore as she saw a little girl sitting emotionlessly on a wooden porch.
The girl seemed familiar, and it took her a while to figure out who she was. By this time, the rest of the fog was fading. The surrounding area was filled with wooden houses. Nothing fancy, but they were built rather sturdily. Each house had at least one window with a light on. She didn’t physically go looking, she just knew. Soon the door to the porch she was on opened and an old man appeared. His face was fuzzy, and she couldn’t make out his features.
As the old man approached the young girl, she was filled with anxiety. It wasn’t that he was approaching the young girl from behind, but that no matter how she tried to remember the face, she couldn’t. Finally, when he reached the young girl, he sat down next to her before picking her up and putting her on his lap. After covering them with a blanket, the air was filled with small ice crystals. And yet the cold that threatened to freeze her was gone as she was filled with so much warmth that instead of worrying about the snow she could only look up like the little girl at the beautiful sight in front of her.
Looking up at the same black sky, the young girl had never stopped looking at. She could see it was snowing. As she turned to look back at the young girl, the two were covered in fog as a white screen rushed at her from all directions. Sitting up as she tried to get up by reflex. A shooting pain from her head down her back to her legs, she was in pain so pronounced that it caused her to turn pale as she couldn’t breathe. Finally, after laying back down she could feel the cold hard ground on her cheek, she was finally able to breathe again as she swallowed air greedily.
She couldn’t help but want to wipe the tears from her eyes, but she had no strength to do so. All the strength she had recovered was lost due to her actions from trying to sit up because of that dream. She had it every so often. While it didn’t change much, this one was different. The progression of the dream was the same. Only she knew who she was and could see the old man’s face.
Every time she woke up, she would feel depressed and a great amount of sadness. But at this moment she couldn’t hold it back anymore. She bawled her eyes out as she let the sadness wash over her. She was currently separated from the only other person that knew she was here. His hand had been cut off, and it was unknown if he was able to stop the bleeding or if he was even alive. For all she knew, she was now alone in this place, not even knowing where she herself was. Nobody would know where she had gone, and her chances of escape were minuscule.
Just thinking about it caused her to cry even harder. No matter how she saw it, even through blurry vision, she was currently in the inner halls. A place she had no confidence to survive alone, even with her dragon blood. If she had to guess, it had taken at least an entire hour to calm herself down. By now, she had pulled herself away from the center of the room and sat up against a wall. To her left was an opening into a hall, while the right and the rest of the room was enclosed. The center of the room looked normal, but she knew there was a trap floor that held sharp spikes underneath.
Before she could try finding a way out, she took her backpack off as she rummaged through it. Crying had let her release all her pent-up emotions. She felt a bit empty, but she knew this was just exhaustion. After inspecting her body, she was able to determine she had cracks in a number of her bones from her feet to her knees. It was likely that the majority of her skeleton was a bit brittle and would continue to crack or break should she force herself to do anything strenuous before she gave herself time to recuperate. She needed time to release the stress and return to a stable state.
With a deep breath, she used two bars that were used to support the contents of her bag, along with some gauze to make an emergency splint. With everything in place, she had to close her eyes and breathe. Clearing her head. She calmed herself down, slowly opening her eyes as she kept the same mindset. She numbly ignored the pain as she focused mana into her right palm as she slapped it down on her left leg. Choking slightly as she tried to exhale as her body gasped from the pain. With no time to waste, she folded one side of the gauze under one of the bars and wrapped up her leg as tightly as she could as she ignored the pain to the best of her ability.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
When everything was said and done, she knew there was nothing else she could do. She could feel herself shivering not from cold but the pain that was coursing through her body. As she tried to distract herself from the pain, she couldn’t help but think back to the feeling she experienced during the fall. She had an idea of what it was, nor could she be sure if it was a good or bad thing. For as much that was known about those with dragon blood, very little was actually true, or represented her experience.
It didn’t help that everyone experienced the premonitions in slightly different ways. It was also true that she had already experienced this phenomenon before. Before she could enter a slight meditative state to send bits of her mana out to sense the path forward, all she could do was enter a complete meditative state to feel various fluctuating dangers. It was extremely subtle, so much so, that it wasn’t even useful. Only once she came face to face with death did she experience an evolution of her premonitions.
Today, her premonitions were at a level that she couldn’t tell the difference between premonition and reality. She could feel herself being stabbed by the spikes, the smell of her blood as it filled the entire room, and even the feeling of having her consciousness forced into a corner as it started to get eaten by the darkness. She could feel it all, even just thinking back, it filled her with dread. The pain and her immediate demise didn’t bother her. She wasn’t a greenhouse flower. But the feeling of powerlessness as your conscience is moved against your will as it is pulled away from your body.
Becoming tired felt like a blessing as her thoughts started to fade as she finally found peace in slumber. For the next few days, she focused on meditation to bring her back into a stable situation. With no thoughts as she focused on her breathing she was able to find a connection with the world around her. Even with her eyes closed, she could feel around her. It wasn’t some out-of-body experience, but she could in fact feel small shades of colorful balls of light around her.
Some were bright, while others were barely visible. Their light was so dull they were almost invisible. As she started to focus harder on her breathing, she couldn’t help but watch as the bright lights flowed around her as if she wasn’t there. Unfortunately, her talent was simply not that good. Only when the dull lights came close was she able to gather some of the light as it continued on its way past. With a quick rotation through her body, the mana found itself in her heart where it stayed for a duration before flowing through her body once more with the new mana as it separated off and entered her body.
Only after a week was she able to stand. She didn’t remove the splint or put too much weight on the leg. It wasn’t that she couldn’t, but it was tough if she ended up causing a second fracture or if she messed up the healing she had already done. The damage would be partially permanent and at best would take a long time to fix, or worse she would forever have a limp unless she was healed by a professional that was able to realign her bones back to a normal condition.
When she was about to step into the hall and exit the room, she stopped. She was hesitating greatly as she was unsure of what to do. This struggle lasted for a good few minutes before she finally turned around. Biting her lip, she stared at the center of the room. Finally coming to a decision, she couldn’t help but let out a heavy sigh. But she had already come to a conclusion, so she wouldn’t change her mind.
With repetitive attempts, she finally slapped the stone hard enough to feel it reverberate back up her arm. But she didn’t pay too much attention to the numbness or slight pain. As the floor started to collapse, it broke into numerous pieces as it bounced off and slid down the spikes hidden underneath. She knew she didn’t have too much time, so she had to act quickly. Grabbing the slightly shriveled hand, moving away from the quickly closing hole, she put her hand into a small pocket or her rucksack. When she took it out, she had a lightly blue glowing crystals of a tiny size.
Using the mana enchanted preserving salt, she wrapped the hand in a spare set of gauze lined with the salt before putting it back into her backpack. Without any more reason to hesitate, she moved into the hall. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t feel any danger in her immediate surroundings. Only once she reached another crossroad did she find it filled with an endless amount of danger. No matter how she looked at the three paths, it was filled to the brim with death.
She was correct in her guess. When she entered her semi-meditative state and sent her mana out, she didn’t just get a vague feeling. To the left was some round object lined with sharp ends that would slam into her from the side. No matter how many times she attempted it, she couldn’t get past it. While her movements in the simulation-like scenario were a little stiff, it wasn’t enough to risk her life trying to do it in real life.
To the right was a series of flying objects. They moved too fast to make out what they were. Only from the evidence on the walls was she able to figure out the most likely culprit were small needles. While she had some success, she didn’t come out unscratched. And shortly after the few times she made it or came out the end alive, she would quickly fall to the ground before she was forced out of her new premonition.
Entering the meditative state allowed her to feel the same vague feelings she had before without having to use up much mana. The feeling wasn’t as strong, but it was enough to show that the left and right were safer passages. The path forward was like a tunnel blocking off all light as it felt like it would swallow any life that attempted to enter it. She felt her nose bleed when she attempted to pry into what dangers lurked on that path.
As she was occupied by this, she had disregarded her own safety. So long as she didn’t move out of the crossroads, there wouldn’t be any traps that would attack her. Unlike a dungeon, laboratories didn’t have any creatures inside them. Even if an animal was brought in, it would flee at any opportunity. If forced out of the entrance, it wouldn’t move and would shake until it was killed or died from the stress or starvation, as it wouldn’t move a muscle.
That was why she didn’t know what to do when she felt something looking at her from behind. It wasn’t like she didn’t want to react, but that her body was telling her not to move. It was a natural reaction, even a wild animal knows when a predator it can’t escape looks over, there is a small chance they can survive by withdrawing in and not moving. Making themselves as small as they possibly could.