Lethe's Lament

Prologue

The first thing she noticed was the smell. Lily hadn't even been conscious for a second before a dank, sour smell of petrichor pierced its way into her skull. Just as the shock of that first sensation started to fade a little, she became aware of the sharp, rocky ground cutting into her bare back and legs... Bare back? As her brain slowly awakened, a vague memory of her going to bed in her old pajama shirt and shorts shimmered to life in the back of her consciousness. Something was definitely off about this, but panic had not yet appeared to take a hold of her. She tried to raise an arm to get a strand of hair out of her mouth, but came to the startling discovery that her limbs felt like very heavy jell-o. Adrenaline shot into her bloodstream, forcing her eyes wide open. She found herself not being greeted by the morning light shining through her bright orange curtains, but instead by a heavy, oppressive darkness above her. In her periphery she saw steep slopes of dark, rocky ground on either side, sparsely lit by tiny whisps of a silver, gaseous substance slowly extending from the ground, before shooting up into the darkness above, like dripping in reverse. She managed to lift her head a little bit, granting her a look at the darkness in front of her as well. She seemed to be in some kind of very large ditch, or maybe a trench... A faint light in the distance caught her eye. It was silvery, like the whisps on the floor around her, and it was getting brighter and brighter. Lily blinked a few times to try get rid of the haziness of her vision, and focused again on the light. Its source was definitely coming closer, and in the time it took her to get her eyes fixed, it had come close enough for her to see what it was. It appeared to be a large wave... No, more of a cloud of the whispy gas. The movement with which it traveled silently through the trench was hard to describe. It felt ominous, and instilled a sharp sense of dread. The word "creeping" would come to mind, had it not been moving forward at such an incredible pace. Lily, now more or less fully awake, suddenly realised that she wasn't lying in a trench, but in a dry riverbed, and the river had returned. As the cloud grew bigger and bigger in her vision, she knew that it had to be made up of some kind of water, and that she would most likely drown if she didn't get up fast. However, with her arms and legs still immobile and pressed against the ground, all she could do was shut her eyes and mouth, and await the inevitable crash...

But there was none. Instead, at the time when she should've felt the massive impact of all that liquid, if it even was a liquid, she felt a pleasant rush against her skin, like a summer breeze, and she could feel the river gently lifting her up to its surface. Confused, she opened her eyes, to see that the water had started rising in a small circle around her, and circling faster and faster, like a whirlpool. She watched breathlessly as the water rose further, and started closing in on itself, as if creating a hollow sphere enclosing her, capturing her in a little prison of silver gas. As soon as the sphere closed, and the fluorescent substance completely enclosed her, she couldn't stop herself from from letting out a little shriek. And at that exact moment, as if noticing its chance, the sphere collapsed inwards, violently crashing into her from all sides. The river roughly pushed her around, trying to worm its way into all her pores. It gushed into her mouth, eyes and nose in incredible amounts, completely suffocating her. Her body felt like it was on fire, her lungs felt like they were about to explode, and all she could see was silver, so bright it was making her brain go haywire. She tried helplessly to fight back, to scream, or even to breathe, but it was no use fighting a river. The silver was fading from her eyes as she felt her consciousness slowly fade away. Her ears were ringing from the rush of the river, and... there was something else. With the last of her remaining brain power she focused on it. It was like a sharp beep, growing louder and louder, until it finally roughly ripped her away from the river.

Lily shot upright in her bed, her chest wildly pumping up and down. On her nightstand, her alarm clock was beeping like crazy, and displayed in bright red, flashing letters: 08:26 am