.:: ...... ::.

I stared at my hand, it was ghostly white as was my hair and almost all of my features... Maybe all my features would be a good educated guess since it was almost like my body was completely bleached of all colour. I wasn’t sure since I couldn’t see my own face, but oh well, nothing a few dyes can’t fix, but I wonder what to do with my skin, it’s so… white, I-

My thoughts were cut short as a sudden feeling of wrongness started to wash over my mind. My head started to pound like never before, like someone started banging it with a sledgehammer. My heart was pounding. My heart…

... 

Strange, was that my imagination? I stared at my breasts and noticed something missing… I can't really put my head around it. After a few seconds were spent strained to find what was wrong, I figured out eventually that it was the steady rise and fall of my own breathing which I was accustomed to all my life. It just wasn't there anymore. Something felt wrong, and with a shaking hand,

I felt my face.

Cold.

My skin…

Cold.

My breath…

Non- existent.

My pulse…

Dead.

Panic started welling inside me as I wondered what in the world had happened to me. Clearly, something’s wrong with me, am I dead? HOW? Why is my pulse dead? Am I some sort of zombie, or an undead? If so, Why am I still aware of myself?

Am I an 'abomination'? Oh, by the Gods, NO! Entire forests and territories had been burnt down for less! What the hell happened to me? And where am I?... wait... WHO am I?

...

I can’t remember my own name. I remember all this random knowledge about baking cakes and detail of empires, but…

“WHY IN THE WORLD DO I NOT REMEMBER MY OWN NAME?” I screamed out in frustration and despair.

Tears dribbled down my face as I wondered why I still had them despite everything. After what felt like an eternity, I lay on the grass as I felt the wind blew my hair onto my face and felt it through the holes in my torn dress.

Then I started to wonder why my red gown looked like it was chewed out by a bear and then regurgitated after a severe case of indigestion and finally, left out to dry. Wow, nice imagination I’ve got there, pretty much useless I guess. On closer inspection, I found out that my gown was NOT actually red, but that it was actually dyed with blood, as was the case with most of my lower body. Did I really get chewed out by something? I can feel my feet though.

Although it did, feel a bit... Odd, like I was controlling something a bit… detached.

I tried moving my body. The reaction speed was so instantaneous that I was taken a bit back since I barely felt any tensing of muscles or anything... -- just action. Then I noticed that my sense of hearing was magnified exponentially, though my smell and touch felt a bit dull.

Weird.

Not dulled, but different it seems. I was experiencing sensations differently.

As I scanned the clearing In the forest I found myself in, I felt a significant sense of familiarity.

This place was important to me in some way though I did not know why. 

I stood there, taking in the scenery for hours, till I noticed the sun dipping behind the mountains, getting some sleep so it can return tommorow for its daily visit.

I didn’t feel any exhaustion, even after standing there for so long, but I tried to sleep anyway. After several hours, I caught the faint orange tinge in the sky, signs of the morning sun rising in the distance.

Then I realized, that I failed to sleep…

No, I realized that rather than 'couldn't', it was just not possible for me to do it. 

Finally, within the depths of my cold heart, I felt something.

*You finally accepted that you are no longer human.*

A voice in my head informed me.

MY voice, but it spoke to me, not as a thought, but in crisp, ringing, vocal sounds that resounded across my head and spoke to me directly.

I tried to speak to it.

Am I sane for trying? Maybe not, but I did it anyway.

{What do you mean?}  It was a bit quick, but I managed to echo back.

*  I can hear your every thought, for I am a part of you.

You think you will no longer be able to enjoy the pleasures of life, or grow old with a family like everyone else, just waiting till your flesh rots away and fall off, eventually turning into those shambling monstrosities that plague the fields of death.

I could hear all that, and that's a pretty depressing flow of events I see there. But that will most probably not come to pass. *

{Hey! I'm not a monstrosity.}

* That's what you, said. Cheer up, You're not a monster. *   

I sighed in exasperation. Now I was talking to myself.

Shutting out the world around me, I walked. Sauntering for days on end, with no purpose or goal, through the sun, and through the rain, as days turned to nights and nights turned to day, I continued to wander.

Till I came upon a cliff.

A cliff, which cut into the midnight sky, and as I gazed at the stars, I felt like I could just jump off and fly into the distant unknown, like how the dragons of old left the mortal lands and flew off to the ancient continent, the Dragonlands.

The cliff hung over a beach and I stared down the narrow rocky ledge, there was jagged rock, about two hundred feet below. The waves washed over it, an unstoppable tide.

As I stood there, thinking, I remembered my journey. Nothing interrupted me during my trip. There was nothing truly dangerous in this region but still, Creatures scurried away from me, probably realizing for what I truly am. I didn’t want to be this…. THING, whatever the hell I was right now.

As I contemplated my future, and about how I would pass the days by, I felt pain in my heart. Regret and deep anguish washed over my entire being and it hurt so much that I wished to just cease to be.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

But the thing is, It wasn't mine. These emotions weren't mine.

An impulse started to grab hold of me.

As scared of death as I was, the bottom of this cliff seemed terribly appealing, And like a moth drawn to fire, I just walked off of it without even a thought of what I was doing and hurtled towards my end.

I felt a shock and blacked out for who knows how long. Eventually, with a jolt, I came to my senses.

“Wait” I croaked.

*what the hell just happened?*

The voice in my head sounded a bit confused, but I sensed a feeling of guilt bubbling deep inside me. There it was again… emotions that were mine, but not.

However, now was not the time to think of that. I shifted my gaze to assess my situation and I wish I didn’t.

Everything that was supposed to be inside, now just… wasn’t anymore. Gore was everywhere, guts and blood lay scattered across the jagged rock.

So… even that isn’t enough to kill me. There was no possible way for me to even walk in this state.

I felt like crying, tears welled up in my eyes, but before I could even think of what I was to do, the waves washed over me and dragged me into the sea, where I blacked out again, drowning for all eternity.

I was suspended in the blackness,

Unfeeling.

Blind.

And every bit dead as I was supposed to be, but eventually I started to see flashes. Heard distant echoes, and slowly but surely, It grew, and grew, and grew,

Till…

Within the blackness, I had a dream, or was it a piece of broken memory?

[ I saw a young girl, full of life and vigor. The daughter of a local baker, who frolicked around without a care in the world. ]

I left the memory and stared at another.

[ I saw the girl standing in the clearing I woke up in, and running around, being an idiot ].

It felt wierd, watching myself like this. It felt like I was peeking into someone else's life. It made me... uncomfortable, yet I continued to do so, for I was curious, Was this who I used to be?

But my mind was too distracted by what had happened. Why did I suddenly feel all that… emotion? Is there-

Before my chain of thoughts could grow any further, another memory flashed.

[  I had noticed an oddity, I apparently had spent a lot of time in that clearing, almost as if I was visiting something… it was clear from her actions, MY actions. And from seeing conversing with thin air, repeatedly, I tried focusing on it further. every time I went there, talking to something it seems. ]

Just as I was wondering if I was crazy or not, I realized that the air was not as empty as I thought it to be.

[ There really was, something there.]

The girl I used to be, knew that there was something sinister there. At first, I thought it may have been some ghost or a spirit maybe, though I wasn’t so sure right now.

As I focused on intently, my vision shifted, and I saw colours that did not exist. At least, not normally. They were unnatural shades of what I usually saw, but their placement was skewed. I noticed how they were concentrated. It seemed to be a sense of death? No… A sense of life, apparently.

But then I saw it. Whatever it was, it was clearly alive, and it was a being so impossibly incomprehensible that It could not be perceived by human eyes. Well…My eyes apparently.

I was utterly blinded.

I’ve never seen a ghost or a spirit, but from what I’ve heard from legends if any of those things were anywhere close to whatever was residing there, The world wouldn’t be safe anymore…

Well, the world was never safe, but still.

Maybe I’m being dramatic, but there is no possible way that, that… THING should even exist. Huh, and look at me, running around the field like a little girl without any regard for my life whatsoever.

{Clearly an idiot} I spoke in my mind, checking to see if the voice would respond...

*Still am.* The voice replied without fail.

{Good job, me.}

Silence.

Then I saw my memory flash again.

Huh, so I wasn’t killed by whatever the hell that was? Strange. I saw myself performing feats of idiocy one after the other, goofing off with my sister.

Well, idiotic, but sweet.

Then yet another memory flashed. But for this one, I felt a sense of conclusion. Was my dream coming to an end?

[ I was surrounded by smoke, and burning houses, and fire. A raging fire that rose up high into the sky. I saw soldiers massacring my friends and family. I myself was scrambling through the forest, bleeding, crawling, missing feet. ]

Wait... Didn’t I have both feet when I woke?

{I am clearly insane, aren’t I?}

*Fact*.

{Why thank you, mind, that’s a wonderful confirmation! It describes us perfectly!}

*You seem jolly, and awfully detached from all that, even such dark memories…*

{Did I… lose something important?}

*Maybe*.

There again, the guilt. I could feel it seeping into me. But I had no time to inspect this.

The memories continued to play out.

[ I saw myself in the clearing, choking on my own blood, praying with hope, DESPERATION, that whatever thing in that accursed clearing would be able to save me from death. Then I saw a shadow form in front of me, a tear in reality, and I realized that whatever it was, It spoke to me. ]

Just as I started to make out the words, I was jolted awake, screaming.

And I screamed only one word

*Droyara*

The stuff of legends. Creator of both the greatest heroes and the most gruesome stomach twisting evils. A Demon, or an accursed godling from another realm, no-one knows for certain. A being of chaos, as heroic as it is vile, As irrational as is it wise. A paradox in itself.

Hmmm….

Why did the voice mention it? Why did I know all that information? Was that what the thing in the clearing? Was it really just a coincidence?

Oh shit, I may have screwed up big time.

Now I know why I am what I am, I Think.

Probably.

Everything's messed up, and I don't even remember half of it. And if my guess was right, I’m going to regret existing way more than what I felt so far, and for very different reasons entirely.

Well, whatever. Things happen when things are supposed to happen. No point in fretting over it right now. Opening my eyes, I saw that half my body was covered in dirt. I tried to move.

*Oh*

… I was rather… Complete, by the way, Do I have an ability to revive, or a regeneration factor? But I’m dead, so how does that work?

*Droyara Magic perhaps.*

Yea that’s it, the universal truth; When in doubt, think of magic. Explains most stuff that goes poof.

I cleared my mind and tried to assess my situation again.

I’m rather buried in dirt, only halfway through, so far.

Seeing that I was a few feet below the ground, realization dawned on me.

I was being BURIED. Hah, was this my funeral? Who’s attending? Better than being cremated I suppose, Wonder how long it would have taken for me to come back from that one.

{Will I actually come back from being burnt to dust?}

*Hmm…. Really not gotta try that-*

Wait…why am I thinking of burial methods rather than why it’s actually happening?

FOCUS! STAY ON FOCUS, GIRL!

Back on track,

Wait, why the hell do I reek of fish?

Wait…

{Stay caaaaaalm }

*Is that seaweed around our…*

{BE CAAAAAAAALMMMMM!}

Well, There's...

*You do know, that you’re the one being ‘not calm’ here, right?*

Okay, I give up. 

“ @&arz^%(“”!!_?:>@Kah ”

…

I tried to take a deep breath to calm my nerves but then realized that I forgot how. Well, …what do you know, I’m getting tired of this.

Then I saw him. I saw a guy bringing a shovel over and before he did, I jolted forward and yelled

“STOP!”

We stared at each other for a few seconds and I managed to take in all the details of my…

*What do I call this guy again? what do you call the person who buries you? Is there a name for that? Is-*

FOCUS, FOOL!

{Okay, calm now, analyze facts.}

*Facts; He’s an elf, as apparent from him pointy ears…. Probably. There ain’t a lotta pointy eared folk, and not all of em are tree huggers.*

huh.

Then I noticed his gleamy midnight hair, his smooth glossy skin, his…. Handsomeness?

*He’s definitely an elf or at least part, don’t have a Trueblood’s trademark glow. Damn them, I hate that race of damn magic saturated charmers. How is it fair that they get all the wonderful goods in a full package? It’s unfair to all other magic casters.*

{Okaay?} That was wierd. Do I have something against Elves?

Then I took in his attire.

A brown suit adorned with padded light armor and a yellow band on his left arm.

{Someone from the Explorer’s association? They have a similar uniform but why is it brown? Is it supposed to be brown?}

*I thought it was more… white-ey.*

I don't know where I got all that information from, just like last time, but I assume that I know some basic stuff. Probably. I don't know...

Then there’s the yellow band. Those bands designate ranks within their organization, right? What does a yellow band mean again? Ah, a rookie. Probably. Or was it a designation? I’m not sure of explorer details so I’m not going to go insult him in the face.

Just as I was about to speak, the handsome elven explorer in all his magical might and glory,

Screamed.

It was horrible, silly and was probably the most High pitched, anti-climactic, Idiotic and Girlish scream I’ve ever heard.

*Congrats bruh, you just had me beat.*

Damn… My life can’t possibly get any worse…

Right?

...

Right?