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ELEVEN 「dissonance」 ⁎̩͙⁑̩͙̩͙⁂̩̩
THE UNMISTAKABLE SCREECH of lost souls shattered the air around her. She was drowning in their sorrow, in their pleas for forgiveness, in the terrible wailing from their wretched mouths. She couldn't think straight. All she knew was that she would rot here.
Sylvia stretched out her arms desperately, grasping for something remarkably human. These souls have been here so long that they could barely recognize themselves anymore. All they knew was the scratch of their voices.
She wouldn't give in. She knew that as soon as she let out a sound, as soon as she let a scream rip from her throat, she would become one of them.
She felt herself stretched to the ends of the universe, floating through a vast nothingness. She couldn't describe what she saw in a way that would make sense. She saw colors she didn't know existed, a light so bright she surely thought it would make her blind. The purest form of a soul right before her eyes.
A cold hand gripped her arm and raised her from perdition. She felt the shock of it run up her spine like electricity, the hand so cold it seared against her skin like fire.
She couldn't see anything at all and then, a flash of blinding light. The hand left her arm and her whole body became unbearably cold. Her vision cleared slowly, and she could just begin to see the green blades of grass between her fingers. She could feel the wet smudge of mud on her knees. The noise around her was warbled, unclear.
The smell of smoke burned her lungs, made her throat unbearably dry. The feeling of her consciousness being thrown into some other place, some other time, was disconcerting. She could feel the tickle of the grass against her finger tips, her vision fading in and out. The grass didn't feel soft—it felt more brittle and rough, almost like it was scorched.
Sylvia had mistaken it to be green, because when she opened her eyes and her sight was clear for the first time, the grass was noticeably a dead, pale yellow. Her hands were smaller than they should have been, her hair shorter than she remembered.
Two small, warm hands latched onto her arms and she shrieked, kicking herself away. It became clear that this wasn't happening in real time, she was simply an observer to whatever she was being shown. She had no control over what she did. She could only see through the small girl's eyes.
"Mari, we have to go!"
Mari?
The voice came from a redheaded girl a few inches away from her. She grabbed onto Sylvia's arm again and hoisted her up. The girl's hand slid into hers and they began to run.
As the little girl dragged her along, Sylvia could see destruction unfold around her. They seemed to be in some sort of small, ramshackle village. All the greenery–trees, grass, bushes—were dead and lifeless, as if some blight had struck it. The houses around them seemed hastily structured, jutting pieces of wood and cracks in the walls.
