Innocents

Chapter One

Aveline
My eyelids drift open, but almost nothing changes. Darkness all around me. Obsidian floor. Obsidian ceiling. Obsidian wall. A room so dark that I can't see anything beyond a couple inches past my face and there is no depth to the room when all the corners blend in with every other black surface. The darkness is almost suffocating, smothering me in the absence of almost all light. The only light filtering into my vision is the dim halo glowing around the outskirts of each of my limbs. Against the stifling blackness, the hardly glowing aura makes my body look like foggy glass, infiltrated like steam on mirrors after a hot shower. Like a ghost, my figure seems translucent. My eyebrows pull together, bringing a tightness to the bridge of my nose. My hand grazes the aura around my wrist sliding through a syrupy substance that should have been skin and bone. I gasp, jerking my hand away from my disfeatured limb. The film of the substance leaves a residue that is sticky between my fingers.

A draft filters in through some corner of the room. The cold air breathes through my makeshift pajamas consisting of an oversized t-shirt and leggings. Goosebumps rattle down my translucent skin, as I lay in a pool of liquid that I didn't notice before, almost magically appearing. Dragging my fingertips through the puddle, I pull my hands out only to find them completely dry, leaving no evidence of ever soaking in something wet. The water is cold, but in combination with the cool air, my body temperature drops rapidly. I sit up, only to be greeted with the same blackness as before.. Wrapping my arms around myself, I try to gather enough heat to bring my body back up to normal temperature, but there is only so little I can do in this unknown place.

Whisperings begin to rebound off my eardrums. I wouldn't have noticed them if it wasn't for the complete silence before. As my senses race to comprehend the sound, I realize that in the silence I didn't even hear my own breathing. I still don't. Only the whisperings. Random incoherent noises. My right ear picks up the rippling sounds, clearly coming from one singular direction. The sound grows louder still. And louder. Still making no sense, but it's all too confusing when the one whisper turns into two and then three. And more. I lose track of each individual buzz of noise. The hum of so many voices penetrate my skull, and sting my eardrums, not making a single bit of sense now that each string of whispers murmurs their own nonsense. My brain is overloaded, processing too much at once, making the rest of my senses tip over the edge. I put my head between my knees to cover my ears tightly, even though it does little to prevent the noises from infiltrating. I close my eyes so tightly that my eyelashes tuck underneath my eyelids. Stop. Please stop. They don't. Despite my efforts, the voices scratch at my earlobes, pleading with me to listen to their wretched cries.

"AHHHHHHHHHHH," I try to scream to block out the voices. I don't know how long I'm screaming or when I stop, but the whisperings are gone when I do. I'm rocking myself back and forth, curled up in a ball still as my silent screaming stops. Every muscle in my body tightens, vibrating against the restricted muscle. Like a child, I am small against the seeming endless black expanse, curled up into the tight ball and begging for relief.

"Aveline?" a familiar voice says in the midst of my struggle, my head jolting in the direction of the sound. A voice I immediately recognize, one that feels like a warm, comforting hand on your shoulder during the middle of a nightmare, but a voice that also brings a tightened noose around my throat. Something is off about the gentleness, as my name rolls off her tongue.

"Aneira?" I look for her, frantically, "Where are you? Where am I? What's going on?" I push myself back onto my knees, begging. For an answer. For a solution. For a way out. I force my legs to straighten, bringing me to standing, but I am too weak to stand, my legs giving out from below me. I suck in sharp, uneven breaths, my hand planting on the all too smooth floor to catch myself.

"Aveline," the voice sounds again. The sound surrounds me, blowing past me, as if the wind carries it around me in circles. The wind wisps past my fingertips and the original black canvas of my surrounding, begins to form something entirely new, like magic. Vier magic. Spades of green push their way through the flooring, grass, rooting into the obsidian floor that is collapsing into a damp, worn soil. Dirt. The familiar turf tickles my sore hands. I grip the grass, letting my head fall into the dew-covered blades as if at any moment this small piece of home will disappear. Home. Where am I now? How do I get back?