Fading Echo

Prolog: Obscurity

She was floating in impenetrable darkness.

It wasn't cold, nor was it warm. She felt neither pain nor her body. There was nothing around her and up until a few minutes ago she had still been part of this nothingness.

But something had disrupted this state, had ripped her out of the emptiness of her nonbeing and left her disoriented in blackness.

She searched her memories for her name.

Mildred.

She thought that name was hers, like the memory of pain and heat coursing through her body. The feeling of being unable to breath.

Something else was nagging at her consciousness, something that lay beneath the pain and helplessness. Troubled, she tried to grasp this piece of her past but failed.

Only her name remained and she clung to it before it could slip away from her again.

"Look at that", an unfamiliar voice called, and she heard the scraping of stone on stone, crunching footsteps, and the clinking of metal. It sounded unnaturally loud after the time in the void.

Did they woke her up?

Strangers were in the darkness surrounding her, disturbing the calm and she felt irritated. Now determined to know what was going on she tried to see more than the blackness around her. Obviously there had to be more than this.

Slowly her vision returned.

She could see the stone ceiling above her, with colourful patterns painted on it. Everything was still blurry, unrecognizable, but with each passing moment the world around her gained clarity.

"She's still beautiful", stated one of the strange voices and a hand moved into her field of vision, holding up a strand of her hair. Reddish brown hair, slightly wavy.

"Stop it!", the other said. "What's wrong with you?"

The first man laughed. "I'm not doing anything!", he defended himself.

"You're sick!", said the other one with disgust in his voice.

Mildred's mood shifted from annoyance to anger. How dared they to wake her up and touch her without permission? Who did they think gave them the right to do this? And where were the guards to put them in their place? Surely this place had guards keeping order!?

It took a few minutes more until she finally could clearly discern her surroundings. She saw the strange men who had entered unbidden her place and wreak chaos and destruction. The stone walls around her. Statues and symbols.

She rose abruptly, but was ignored. Not even a glance from these two men. Instead they continued to put jewelry in their pouches and break vessels, some accidentally, some on purpose, in hopes of finding something valuable.

Mildred flinched. Everything was too loud and way too bright.

She held her head in her hands and stared at the men. The longer she observed them and was ignored, the more anger boiled up in her.

Without any warning the world around her seemed to tip over.

A red haze settled before her eyes and a glow, similar in colour, emanated from the walls and floors. The stone itself sang ominously of dark magic which soon filled the entire room. She lowered her arms.

Finally she had their attention.

She rose higher, feeling lightweight and free of everything that had held her down in emptiness before.

They looked in shock hat her and screamed awfully loud. She resisted to cover her ears again but grimaced.

This was a special place and the strangers were acting disrespectful.

She reached out to the magic around her, as if she'd never done anything else in her live and attacked the men. Mildred wanted to teach them to be quiet and respectful.

Shortly after, their lifeless bodies slumped to the floor right in front of her. She looked down at them for some time and felt her rage slowly ebbing. It might not have been what she intended, but thinking about it, she concluded that it was a perfectly fitting ending.

She was alone again.

Silence and peace were restored.

Mildred left the room, staggering and weak. Her vision was still a little bit blurry, red was running down the walls like blood and her surroundings continually shifted whenever she tried to focus.

When she entered a larger room she became aware of her loneliness with all her might. Her ignorance.

She neither knew where she was, nor who she was. Her past didn't seem to exist anymore and angry again, she screamed.

Her essence had been one with the void. Without pain, without fear and questions, without consciousness. Mildred was convinced it had been a good state of mind, so much better than the chaos she was in now.

The strangers were to blame for everything.

Full of anger she slammed the door to the small room she just left shut. The corpses could rot there, as far as she was concerned. She would never enter this room again.