The Will Of A Life: Astras

Feel Something?

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CHAPTER 7
Just to feel something
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   Comera found herself in a small room sitting on a bed. She stood and looked around at a place she used to call home. She walked to the door of the room and opened it. Just outside was a dreadful scene. There were four policemen and a little boy dead by the door. When she saw the boy she collapsed. All she wanted to do at that moment was to sit and cry and apologize, But she couldn’t shed even a tear. She was frozen again. She just wanted to wake up in that world so far from here, with someone, anyone alive. Comera just wanted to feel something anything. She crawled to the boy and just held him close to her. She wished he would just hug her back. She wished that she had paid more attention to him. She wished she hadn’t pushed him away like she did everyone else.
   “Let me out of this place!” she cried, but there was nobody to hear her. “Take me home, anywhere but here.”
   She yelled and yelled but there wasn’t any hint of emotion in her voice. She held no scene to her composure, which had gone by now. She laid the boy to the floor and staggered to the kitchen.
   She needed to feel anything, anything at all. She needed to feel her own feet and hands. She leaned her head against the door to the kitchen and it corroded away. The door was made of wood, something she killed with the rest of the world. She staggered to the stove and turned on the flame. She placed her hand above it and watched as it burned and contorted into a foul shape. Only when the hand was malformed, charred, and you could not tell skin from bone and blood, only when the hand was no longer burning did she remove it. She looked at it dismally and watched as black inklike hands poured out of the nearby surfaces as they turned off the oven and wrapped around her hand then dissipated as her hand returned to its original form.
   She did not do anything more, the ink-like hands stopped her from obtaining anything to cause herself more harm. She turned back to the living room and heard a scratching sound from the adjacent basement door. It stunned her for a moment that something was there. Everything on Estatia was dead, every person, plant, or animal, but not her, never her. She opened the basement door and out stepped a small kitten with an array of stars and galaxies visible in her fur. Comera wanted to help it but if she got too close it would die. She continued to back away as the kitten trotted to her.
   Tripping over the corner of a table she fell to the floor. At this moment the cat jumped atop her and climbed into her hood. The kitten nuzzled close to Comera and laid down in the gap between her hood and head. Comera didn’t know what to do so she stood up and walked to the bathroom. Looking in the mirror she wasn’t able to find the cat in her hood as it blended in perfectly with the stars on her hood.
   She heard a strange sound once more, before suddenly collapsing.
   Comera slowly woke up finding herself in the same room she had awoke in before. There were lovely red roses sitting in a vase beside her.
   She believed the other world must have been a dream. She held her hand out and the hands offered her gloves and a blind fold. Putting them on she heard a short mew in her hood as the small cat poked its head out. Reaching into her hood Comera pulled out the kitten and examined it.
   She was indeed quite small even for a kitten and her fur mirrored Comera’s hood as shooting stars flew from her hood through to the kitten’s fur. The small kitten had pearl white pupils and black sclera. A small tear dripped down Comera’s cheek.
   “What’s your name?” she asked. The cat didn’t seem to hear her nor did it make any response. She gave it a light tap on the forehead and it made a short meow in response.
   “I’ll call you Ashen then.”
   Ashen tilted her head at the motions from Comera’s mouth, she couldn’t seem to understand her for she hadn’t spoken in any human language. It seemed as though she hadn’t even spoken at all.
   Comera lightly pet her on the head as she wondered if it all really was a dream. Comera felt a drop of something fall on her fingers as she held the kitten’s head. She lifted the blindfold and Looking to her hand she saw blood. She looked back to the kitten and saw blood had started to drip from her ears. Instantly she created a ball of ink encasing the kitten.
   The flowers to the side of her bed seemed to die and became dust in a moment. As the ink dissipated the kitten seemed to be fully healed. She had found the cause of the problem: both of the kitten’s eardrums had been heavily hurt. Whilst she didn’t quite know the reason, she took off her glove and gave a calm smile and placed her index finger on the cat’s forehead. The black ink that comera often used began to ooze out from her hand, collecting in her fingertips before then pooling into the kitten. Many little hands began to work, bandaging and petting the kitten.
   The door began to creak open, and Comera instantly pulled the gloves over her hands. She felt the fluffiness of the kitten as she hopped back into her hood fitting perfectly in with the background again. Through the door came light steps, and a calm voice followed.
   “Seems as though you are doing much better, Vera explained your capabilities to us.”  She recognised this as Yan’s voice. Comera pushed herself against the wall to create distance. Pulling the blindfold back over her eyes, and jamming her hands into her gloves.
   “Then you should know to stay away.” she said, hiding her face from him.
   “You really don’t need to worry about that right now, you're back to normal assuming that your head doesn't hurt at least.” She indeed understood that it hadn’t hurt. “I only brought the healer to ensure your wellbeing, or I would have simply come myself, but I didn't want to let Nora in if you might be hurt.”
   These words confused Comera but she soon understood as she lifted the blindfold, looking to Yan he found a sigil on his head and Leon next to him. “Is… is everybody still… okay?” she stuttered.
   “Indeed, all are well… but what about you?” Yan questioned.
She didn’t really know what to say but she did her best to explain it in her head.
   “Well…maybe?” she muttered. A little pur came from the kitten as it fell asleep in her hood. “I'm sorry… I was stupid and my emotions got the better of me over stupid reasons.”
   The sigil dissipated from Yan as he shot a glare to Leon. he looked back to Comera with a soft gaze, “everyone here has their own troubles, Comera. Leon doesn’t speak due to an injury to his throat, I am both easily scared and quite bad at any attack magic compared to the others.”
   “Knowing the others I doubt you would have any trouble against anything” Comera chuckled.
   “Well I guess that’s fair but I really can’t use many attack spells,” he protested.
   “Do you guys not know the caliber of the spells you use on the regular?”
   Leon’s eyebrows perked up at this, and Yan looked confused. “What do you mean?”
   “Well all of your spells that you use are overdoing it, you use an insane amount of mana in complicated spells when you could use smaller spells to receive the results you want. In fact the only time you happen to use the right amount of mana for a spell is when Leon is around.” Comera remarked, starting to feel a little bit better.
   Leon gazed at Comera, looking somewhat tired. He seemed to notice something and his eyes narrowed then his gaze turned almost sad. “Well he hates strong spells because he is mana sensitive.” Yan explained

Mana Sensitive;
A person who is considered mana sensitive is someone who is only capable of a small variety of spells that they are born with knowledge of. They tend to feel sick when strong magic is used on them and any mana that emanates off of that magic can disrupt their minds. Their born magic can be used without sufficient cost to their mana and don’t require any chant or staff. These people just use sigils.
   “I see,” Comera responded, “if I'm correct you use sigils to perform magic, right?”
   Leon nodded and pointed his index finger upward and a line of sigils appeared at the tip of his finger. Comera found the sigils familiar, if she wasn’t wrong they were in Estish, one of the many languages of her home world. reading the line she she found it to say ‘endless portal’. That was the spell Leon had used to bring some of the members to the base. Comera supposed she hadn’t thought of it before but sigils were almost always characters in Estish or Aserk, that was truly how they looked.
Estish & Aserk:
Estish; the Estatia equivalent of English
Aserk; the equivalent to Japanese
   Happily she also raised her finger and another row of sigils appeared reading ‘hello.’