The Chronicles of Sorataki: Lucid Wish

Chapter 2: The Chosen

Natalie

She woke up to the distant sound of bells chiming off in the distance, her head felt light and groggy as she opened her eyes. She found herself sitting on an old rust-covered wheelchair tucked away in what she could only describe as a filthy alley. It was unsightly, with brown discolored walls bins and crates bent, broken, and toppled over with its contents spread all over them. She flinched at the sight or what could only have been a mouse scurrying past through a long stream of trash.

Getting her bearings she pushes herself off the chair before staggering back to get a better look at what she was sitting on. Its surface was a strong fabric seating however its once white color had gone a moldy black and green, the wheels were worst. One spokes were so busted that it curved out making it totally useless to move.

Having no memory of taking a seat in it she looked around as she tried to recall how'd she even got here. Her mind battled to put a reason together as if just coming out of the recesses of sleep. Then it hit her.

I 'was' asleep... and then.

She recalled herself drifting to a dark corner of her subconscious with a pure white door she'd only seen one time before that this one. Haven still having only the recollection of being pulled in by some dark presence her heartbeat began to thrash once again. Natalie recalled the sensation sinking for what felt like an eternity but beyond that... nothing.

She'd assumed that she'd woken up given that was her last memory, the only problem with that theory was...

She looked up at what was meant to be the sky only to see a pure white void above her. A white so pure that the looming patched of clouds looked stained cotton in comparison. It was then that she knew for sure that she was not yet awake. She kind of felt it in the air when she awoke here. She could tell that the town was not Ten-Xin just by looking at the structure of things. Hemway was out of the question since that place was a ghost town and judging by the rat and the noise of people just beyond the junk-infested ally this town was certainly not empty.

She began to surmise that she was in fact still sleeping. After the shock of being pulled into the door's frame she must have woke up in some town she's now dreamt up from her memory. The only problem was that she did not recognize this place in her travels. Seeing as she would not get any answers by standing there she dared to venture out to maybe try and get her bearings elsewhere.

A soft warm breeze strokes her cheek as she exited the ally, adjusting to the sunlight that was beaming down to her from her right she put her hand up to block out the rays. As her eyes adjusted from that dark void world and into this mildly loud but calm town she discovered that the white sky that she was looking up at only a moment ago had all but vanished. She could have sworn that she was going crazy had it not been for her witnessing the blue sky filling up the void of white like water in a basin.

Looking on down to the sky she sees a distance clock tower that bells chimed the same chime that she heard earlier, its round analog face indicating that it was four o'clock on the dot. Below that were rectangle roofs of houses and buildings all thin and angled with roof tiles the color of naive and a very dark purple.

Below all those were the people going about their day. They walked on cobblestone roads. All rough and rugged rocks that made for less than even footing but all the same added a charm to the street itself. Along with it were a few market stools but nothing to the amount that she would expect to see in regular towns such as Aqua Falls. Instead, most of the wide street space was reserved for a number of flower gardens as well as a public park down the end of the road.

If anything else Natalie could not deny that the place was beautiful, but seeing admiring the scenery would not help her understand where she was so pushing that aside Natalie set off to find out just that. As that thought took over her she found herself approaching the nearest person walking towards her. It was a middle-aged woman in a light blue sundress.