Winwolfa (A Roan x Female OC Fanfic)

Chapter 51

Golden seas stretched as far as the eye could see. Sparkles of the grains danced as the sun beamed on them. It was completely barren. No sign of life. No birds in the sky, no voices in the wind, no towering trees. As if life had never existed in the first place. Ripples danced on the dunes like water, changing with each gust of wind. An always moving mosaic.

Never stopping; always shifting.

Astrid jolted awake with a twisted feeling in her gut. All her senses rolled like the waves, trying to detail what was happening. Her bones felt like they were on fire. Her blood, her muscles, every fiber of her ached. How long she felt like this, Astrid didn't know. She could barely remember the days leading up to this.

All she knew, stuck in that tiny pod, she had been sent back down to Earth.

Alone.

Her arms quaked as they pushed the door. Waves of heat nearly inebriated her. She gulped the fresh air and sand that bombarded her. Once, twice, three times until her lungs felt stable again. Fine grains of sand scratched at her throat with each inhale and exhale.

Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. That simple movement felt like torture as Astrid pulled her feeble body from the pod. Fingers strained as she gripped the metal edge, pulling her body over and collapsing in the sand with a thud. A plume of sand surrounded her, and she slapped her hand over her mouth just not to taste it.

Blue, cloudless skies pulsed in front of her. Sand glistened as the winds carried it across the dunes. She had to blink away the harsh streaks of light that threatened to blind her. Her visual focus was unsteady at best, weaving in and out of blurriness.

Every muscle in her body fought against the simple action of sitting. Astrid grimaced and panted in response. Moving felt like agony, but to stay out in that desert would be a death sentence.

Maybe that's why she was sent here. Punishment for something she had no recollection of doing. Vengeance, anger, or spite. A coup of sorts.

There was one thing that stuck in her mind- Roan lowering her into that pod. She couldn't remember his face, but his whispering voice, those hands that cradled. That was all him.

Yet, she couldn't wrap her brain around why. Why would he send her to Earth, to her death? What did she do to deserve such fate? Nothing, perhaps. It was characteristic of Roan to act first and explain later. All those memories of them on the Ring were pure. Nothing to instigate something as cruel as this. So what the fuck happened?

Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Astrid's feet dragged along the desert plains, up and over the rolling hills of powder, as she scavenged whatever memories she could. Nothing, not a damn thing told her why she was on Earth again.

The pain was so real, coursing through her entire body, yet there was no physical evidence on her body. No new scars or wounds that could explain what happened to the days prior. No messages to tell her why.

Just that cursed journal they found with about a dozen illegible entries that she could never decipher.

The last thing she remembered was waking in the middle of the night after one of her cryptic dreams. Her parents' crystal-clear faces, the land that felt all too familiar, yet so ethereal and unreal. It wasn't until they watched Astrid's last moments before arriving on Earth that the dreams started appearing. Rare, at first, then almost every night. It was the same thing. Over and over and over again. Pure torture.

She wished a million times she could decipher the ink just so she could stop the night terrors.

Astrid marched for what seemed like hours with that leather clad journal clutched to her chest. It was the only thing they had sent down with her besides the clothes on her back. Even those did nothing against the burning rays. Fire burrowed into her skin, deep into her bones, sinking into her muscles. Sucking whatever moisture lied underneath the long sleeve shirt and jeans.