If I were to believe everything I had been told and seen at face value so far, I've only been alive a few hours at most, I was an automaton that was supposed to be mindless but somehow messed that part up, was slated to be sold this afternoon, and oh yeah.... I was starting to have auditory hallucinations because I'm pretty sure I just heard this mask try to speak to me.

For a moment the silence of the chamber allowed me to believe I had just been hearing things. That the stress and confinement was just my mind playing tricks on me.

This solace of thought didn’t last long though as I heard the distinct sound of someone clearing their throat, coming from the same direction the mask had landed on the floor.

I’m not entirely sure why, but my first instinct was to prod at the thing with my toes. Gingerly I extended my leg, leaning back and gripping the bench tight for balance. One. Two. Three taps on the cool surface of the mask with my large toe before finally getting a reaction.

“What in the hells are you even doing?” The thing asked. I immediately withdrew back onto the bench, folding my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them tight.

“Listen to me very carefully.” The mask practically hisses the words, an accent I can’t quite recognize bleeding through, sounding somewhat nasally but not in a way that detracted from the musical nature of her voice. I might have found it attractive if she weren’t trying to sound high and mighty. “I need you to pick me up, and put me on before I black out. It took a lot of effort to get here, after you so foolishly cast me aside.”

For some reason her words prickled at me, and before I knew it I was speaking back to the mask, “Cast you aside?!” My throat was dry and raising my voice caused it to break “Were you even paying attention! That guard handcuffed me! I don’t ha-”

“Shut. Up.” The mask cuts me off and speaks in a very slow and deliberate tone, “Shut up and put me on you gods damned idiot, or we both end up with a fate worse than death.” I gulp audibly as I swallow my words and process what she’s saying.

The prospect of being sold into slavery obviously didn’t sit well with me, but even still I found myself hesitating to follow the masks command. As much as I wanted to be free of this place there was that creeping fear in the back of my mind. What if this is a trap?

“Do hurry. I’m very literally dying down here.” The mask's tone was a bit more urgent.

I rationalized in my head. If this was a trap, it was a pretty poor one. I mean I was already captured, there wasn’t any need to double capture me. Right? Stuck between staying here and being sold and trusting a creepy talking mask?

What could go wrong?

I descend from my perch and snatch the mask off of the floor. A sound somewhat between a gasp and a grunt escapes from the mask as I bring it up, holding it out before me to look it in the ‘eyes’.

“I’ll put you on. I don’t trust you, but if you have a way out I want it.”

“Of course. If you listen to me we’ll both be free of this place. But do it fast, I am already fading..”

I flip the mask in my grip and bring it to my face, pressing it flush against my skin. For a moment nothing happens, and my heart sinks as I couldn’t help but think I had just hallucinated the entire conversation as a way of escapism.

But that thought didn’t have much time to linger in my mind as a jolt of electricity ran down the length of my spine painfully. Immediately I dropped to my knees and found myself out of breath, but unable to do anything about it. I couldn’t move. Even my eyes didn’t obey me, as a film of tears started to form on them and I found myself unable to blink them away to clear my vision.

Fear clutched my heart, which was beating in a pattern that was anything but orderly. Two beats, pause, three beats, longer pause, half a beat then two more…

I wanted to scream. Lash out. Do anything, but still any conscious movement was impossible. I was a prisoner not only in this cell, but in my own body.

As the panic started to reach its peak something in the back of my mind buzzed, getting louder as the seconds ticked on. Oddly enough trying to focus on the buzz gave me some sense of control. At least my mind was still my own. For how long I didn’t know, but this was all I could think to do at the moment and the buzzing was incessant enough that it was demanding my attention away from everything else.

My body was starting to ache by how stiff I was forced to hold myself, still unable to do anything about it. But that buzzing… there was something to it, and trying to figure out what helped push away the discomfort to the background. Subtle changes in pitch and tone, too regularly irregular to be coincidence. Almost as if it were trying to say something. Drawing inwardly into my mind, I gave it my full attention.

“-cks sake. Relax.” A voice. The buzzing wasn’t just noise. No, it was the voice of the mask. Whatever had happened scrambled my brain momentarily, causing me to be unable to recognize it. But slowly that was lifting, and the first signs that my body was to be my own again came when I was finally able to blink.

“You’re making this so much harder than it needs to be.” The voice echoed in my head, much clearer than it had been before. “If you’d just relax for a single moment we’d be done and on our way out of here. Gods, for a golem you’re far too wilful.”

“T-thats…” I tried speaking, my chest on fire from holding my breath for so long, and my throat muscles still not fully back under my control, “..because I’m human.” I wheezed.

“Mm.. and I’m the Goddess Nhynwei.” A name I didn’t recognize, but at this point not knowing what anyone was talking about was my norm.

“Listen. The connection is almost done. The pain will stop in a moment and we can actually start working on getting you out of here, do you understand me girl?” Her voice was stern, and demanded a response.

“Yes. Ok.. I understand… Just…” I take my first deep breath since the ordeal, feeling muscles in my chest relax I didn’t even know existed. “Give me a moment.”

A single moment was all I was given. In the limited interaction I had with the mask I knew it took that in a literal sense just to annoy me, “Get up. You barely have enough mana for it, but I think we can get you out of this cell.”

After a few false starts my legs eventually grew steady enough to hold my weight. Even though I was slow to stand up straight I started to feel faint, much like one did when standing up too fast. I reached out to one of the stone walls to steady myself and whispered, “Ok. I’m up. Now what?”

“Go to the back of your cell. That wall connects to the outside. It’s thick but I think we can manage a small hole in it.” The mask pauses a moment, “Your mana attunement… It's earth. That’s rather fortuitous for us. Means you won’t be as drained after.”

“Mana attunement? What?”

The mask sighed very audibly in my head, the sound reverberating in my skull. “You really are a daft one, aren’t you? And to think, you are the one stuck in what is supposed to be my body.”

Her body? I immediately stopped in my tracks and felt my heart skip a beat. It felt as if my lungs were paralyzed once again and my breath left me. I grip the front of my tunic tight and will myself to inhale, doing so shakily. Even more so than usual I felt like a stranger in my own skin.

If this was her body, then where was mine?

I found myself looking down at my hands. They were so small. Fingers so long and thin. Something not quite a memory was screaming at me, telling me that this was so very, very, wrong. My hands shook and I clenched them into fists. It didn’t help.

Stolen novel; please report.

The mask made a sound similar to someone clearing their throat.

“I need you to focus. The longer you stand around gawking the less likely we’ll be able to get out of here. Now move.”

“R-right..” I shake my head, trying to dislodge the lingering thoughts. She was right, we didn’t have time to stay here. I’d have time to have an existential crisis when I was well away from here.

I approach the wall where my bench had been, placing a hand upon it. Solid rock, almost freezing to the touch. “I’m not sure how you expect us to get through this…” I whisper to the mask.

“Like I said.” The mask sounded a bit annoyed, “Before you decided to start daydreaming. Your mana attunement is earth. This should actually be quite easy for you.”

I glared at the wall, hoping that the mask could at least feel it, if it couldn’t see it. “Thanks. That explains everything!” Sarcasm.

“I am going to have to do everything, aren't I? I really got stuck with a useless one…”

I grit my teeth so hard that my jaw started to ache. “Well…” I hissed through my teeth, “Maybe if you were so smart you’d be able to explain to an ‘idiot’ like me.” If I wasn’t sure she was my only way out of this place I may have ripped her from my face.

“How is it you don’t understand… a child would… fine. I’ll break it down to the basics then. You’re going to use magic to break a hole in that wall. I will be your focus.”

“You realize that has explained absolutely nothing, right?”

“Then perhaps you need to learn to be silent and listen. I’m not sure what specialties you have but that won’t matter here. Moving earth is something even a neophyte could do with a focus as fine as me.”

I rolled my eyes. Aggrandizing herself while putting me down, why did that feel oh so familiar?

The mask continued, “While in contact with the wall I need you to imagine the essence of earth.”

“The essence of earth. What is that even supposed to mean?”

“Do you really need me to explain even this to you? What is earth? It’s the dirt under your feet. The mountain piercing the sky. The stone weathering the elements. Use your gods damned imagination.”

I bit my tongue to the point where I tasted blood. I knew talking back was just wasting time, but boy was it sorely tempting to do so. Deep breath, and then I focused. Trying to draw upon my imagination to think about… dirt.

Trying to imagine the essence of something was a bit harder than I thought. Trying to focus on any one image lead to my mind wandering to another subject. I screwed my eyes shut tight, as if that would help my concentration. Focus…

I pulled to the forefront of my imagination the idea of dirt. Not just what it looked but the feel of it. The way wet dirt just oozed between your toes with each step after a heavy rain. The smell of it, earthy tones and hints of the things that grew on it. The crumbling of clay after it’s hardened in the sun, and the hefty weight of a stone freeing itself from a crevice and rolling down a hill.

I felt a sort of power suffuse me, originating from the mask before slowly inching it’s way down my face and neck. I could feel it swirl around my heart, making me for a moment feel as light as a feather but as heavy as stone at the same time.

“Good. Good.” The mask whispers, “Keep that mental image. Hold it tight, and direct that feeling into the stone before you. Will it to do what you want. Superimpose the two thoughts together.”

I swallow and gave a nod of my head. Earth was with me, and I was the earth. The wall was nothing if not more of myself. I pressed, urging that energy swelling in my chest forward and into the wall. I could see the tendrils of the green power leap from my fingers to the wall. It coated the wall in a circle, small perhaps only half a foot around.

I push, again and again. Urging. Begging. This had to work.

Slowly I felt a change in not only the energy I was pouring forth but in the wall itself. Green arcs of power started to eat at the wall where it made contact, speeding up the erosion of it by orders of magnitude. A year, ten years, a hundred years. I could see the rock age before me. This had been my doing. My magic.

I couldn’t help but let out a happy giggle. For the first time in, quite literally, my life I had hope again and the feeling was hard to contain.

“Quiet. You’re not done yet.” The mask chided me.

But it seemed like we were at the end of our task as the last of the energy rendered a section of the wall to dust. My new exit opened up to an alley behind the building. There was no sound that anyone had noticed and I cautiously peek my head out. A glance in either direction told me the coast was clear and I forced myself through the hole.

It was a tight fit. I was a small girl, but the hole was not much larger than my head. I had to do a bit of shimmying and the exposed areas of my skin were rubbed raw from the less than smooth edges my magic had left. But after some effort I was finally free.

“That took a bit longer than I would have liked, but I suppose it’ll do.”

I was too overjoyed to be angry at the mask, and I practically skipped down the alleyway as I made my escape. Or at least that was my intention, but my legs seemed to lack the energy to carry me and I ended up falling face first into the grass..

“What…”

The mask tittered, the sound reminding me of a crystal chime dancing in the wind. “I had to drain quite a bit of your mana to pull off that trick. You’re running on fumes, and I have no reserve left to help you.”

“That being said,” It reminds me, “you still need to get out of this village. So dig deep into that tiny little heart of yours and get up.”

A petty little slice of my mind wanted to just remain on the ground and leave it up to fate, but my sense of self preservation wasn’t about to let me give up.

With a deep groan I struggled back up to my feet, just a bit wobbly still but I at least had managed to get my wind back.

Not quite the happy little hop and skip I wanted but I was at least managing to put one foot in front of the other. Slow and steady I walked, moving opposite to where my mental map placed the entrance of that prison. I wasn’t positive there’d be an exit here, but it was at least making distance from that place and each step made my heart feel just a bit lighter.

Stepping out of the alley I couldn’t help but notice the village was still empty. Not a soul in sight. It felt so… artificial. Had anyone else even lived here? Was it all just for show?

Or was there something else going on here?

I really wasn’t in any hurry to find out, and my pace quickened just ever so slightly.

The mask made a clicking sound as the village’s makeshift wall came into view, “Stop. There will probably be a guard posted. Let’s see if there’s an opening in the wall away from prying eyes, yes?”

Unfortunately I agreed with her, loath as I was to admit it. I make my way to the wall, and hug it tightly as I walk it’s length. The design was archaic, and the architect either didn’t care or didn’t have the means to make a perfect seal. The wooden spikes housed a few gaps, but out of concern of splinters I found one that wouldn’t be as tight a fit.

No time to be modest. Not that there was anyone to sneak a peek regardless.

Getting on to all fours I scrape at the ground near the base where two spikes met, widening the gap a few inches more. It still wasn’t as big as I would have liked, but it was manageable crawling on my belly.

My second trip through a hole in the wall in one day. If I had to do this a third time I’d start to think the universe was playing a joke on me. Well another joke, because this amnesia and body dysmorphia was already a pretty cruel one.

But finally, the village was behind me. The guard house was out of sight, around the bend of the wall to my left. Unlike the side of the wall I had entered the village initially from, this side was host to a lush forest. Trees with dark green trunks and lush blue leaves as far as the eye could see. The smell of the forest was such a welcome sensation, after the damp musk that had been the signature scent of the prison.

There was no one to stop me. No one to see me. I could easily slip behind the tree’s and be out of sight.

And that was exactly what I intended to do.

Being so close to true freedom energized me, and walking wasn’t quite the struggle it was before. I rush past the tree line, letting my legs carry me into the woods as deep as they would take me before collapsing in a heap at the base of a great tree. It’s gnarled purple roots curled in and out of the earth and made a surprisingly comfortable bed. There was something about laying on the ground, surrounded by nature, that just felt oh so right.

While I still had that lingering fear that someone would come marching out of those walls to find me, I found myself relaxing. Even if just a little bit.

My eyes were heavy, and the setting sun filtering through the leaves alongside the distant crowing of birds made for the perfect ambience for napping. I was more than prepared to let the sweet siren song of sleep take me when I heard the telltale sound of the mask trying to grab my attention.

“I suppose.” It says, “We should probably take a moment to talk.”

I didn’t have much in the way of memories but I did know that when someone told you they needed to talk, It was never to tell you something you wanted to hear.

“Ok.” I grumble, “Let’s talk.”