Estranged [Completed]

Lost

Kalei woke up facing an abandoned city street. She glimpsed the cracked grey pavement and heard the eerie silence before a deep, piercing dagger drove into her heart, forcing her to close her eyes against the pain. The sting was so acutely emotional that it felt alarmingly physical, catching her unaware and making it painful to breathe, making it impossible to even think. She bent forward and clutched at her chest, clenching her jaw as she tried to shut it out.

Gritting her teeth, Kalei forced herself to take a few deep breaths. One, two, three breaths and she started to regain her senses. Then it all came back. The attack, the car, Fenn, the girls— Her eyes flew open and she heard herself call out, "Fenn!"

Her voice echoed off the pavement and bounced off the abandoned structures around her, but she heard no response. It didn't make any sense. She didn't recognize any of these buildings. The cracked pavement, the abandoned, trashed cars on the sidewalk...

She looked up, and up, and up as her eyes followed the lines of the towering, crumbling skyscrapers. A soft breeze brought her the scent of salt and dead fish. Between the buildings, she could see part of the Alundai mountain range watching from the west. 

Downtown. I must be Downtown. 

The tip of Celan's peninsula used to be the center of the city. Now it was cordoned off and— like the frostbitten tip of a toe— left to die. This was Estranged territory.

Kalei's head began to spin, and a growing headache threatened to rip her skull apart. None of this was right. How did she get here? What had happened to Fenn and the girls? What was she doing Downtown? Kalei pressed the heel of her left palm into her forehead, and then placed her right hand on the pavement as she prepared to push herself off the ground. Through the crack in her half-opened eyes, she saw black fingernails. Her own fingernails were all black. Kalei's mind locked. Everything within her froze as a fresh wave of daggers ripped through her lungs and down through her gut. Again, she doubled over, unable to breathe. Her thoughts slowly began to turn as she hunched there, choking for air. 

I'm... I can't be...

Kalei's vision blurred. She fell forward and caught herself with both hands. Both black-nailed hands. The coughs became more violent as her lungs began to function again. She didn't know how long she sat like that, her entire body shaking as cough after cough ripped through her throat, but eventually, the coughs subsided and she began to breathe normally again. She listened, suddenly exhausted, to the sound of her own breathing. Everything seemed so surreal. It felt like there was some... thing inside of her, moving through her body like a watery serpent bent on destruction. And even as it moved, she felt more of its body pouring out of a chasm in her chest, spreading and expanding as it lay claim to her body. 

Perhaps this is just a really vivid nightmare, she assured herself. 

In the renewed silence, she heard the sound of a shoe scuffing against pavement.

Kalei sat up and pulled away from the source, pressing her back into the brick wall of the nearby building. A few feet away stood a young man with dark hair. 

Her eyes didn't linger on the figure for too long; she looked past him to see if there was anyone else. She suddenly felt very exposed; she felt that any minute, a group of Estranged could attack her, and here she was on the sidewalk, totally unaware and unprepared. She checked the street, she checked the sidewalk on her right, she peered warily into the shadows of the abandoned cars, but she didn't see anyone else. Kalei heard a shout in the distance, but it was too far away to be related to her and the new visitor. They were alone. 

She wasn't sure if she should be relieved, or more anxious.

A renewed wave of pain brought Kalei's attention back to her condition. It rolled through her like a flood of angry lava, pouring through her veins and melting through every inch of her body. Her head bowed and her eyes locked on the pavement as she tried to regain control. The stranger was still there, probably some curious bystander who had found something new to look at. She managed to rasp, "Get the hell away from me."