Guardian Mine

The Fall

Artifical Intelligence, she thought. Whatever this light was, it was A.I. and it was not domesticated. Something deep within her flickered with mistrust; but she moved.  After moments that seemed interminable, she was free and she could stand. She got to her feet carefully, her body oddly felt strong, and perceived that she was naked. 

"Guardian, you have to jump!" The light urged, and she looked over the edge and saw she was indeed,  very high up. A ruined city landscape stretched out before her, she felt... nothing. No sense of familiarity, no subcutaneous remembrance. It was as if she had never been here before, despite the skeletal buildings, abandoned vehicles, fallen bridges; this ruin was her mausoleum and she could not recall its name.  The sky suddenly darkened and a sound rippled across the sky like the harbinger of some hideous god. It was such an alien and foreign sound that all the hairs on her body stood on end and her heart immediately began to serve its function with fever and unholy determination. 

"Guardian, it's here! You must jump, I will revive you after the fall."  The light begged, but she turned away, turned all of her being and attention skyward. Amidst the  racing thunderheads flashes of lightning slashed the sky like the ursine claws of some celestial beast.  

Then she saw it. 

No, she beheld it. Emerging without sound a heavy, graceful, impossible monstrosity that slithered and undulated its serpentine bulk. It was as if the thunderhead birthed it. Larger than the building the stood in, maybe as large as the city block itself, it commanded the sky to break apart by its mere presence and the rain fell like bullets. Its skin was yellow with accents of sun-gold. Its ageless, serpentine face had set in it two red eyes like garnets on a crown. It promised things she could not even imagine. Not in one life, or a hundred. 

Lighting cracked the air like a whip and sent out a fatal quake. The building started to collapse.

"Jump!" The featureless voice of the ghost commanded.

"Fuck you!" She offered in return. It was not only a thumb in the eye for this little ball of light, this wild A.I., or even for the impossible creature lumbering across the sky above her, or the fact that she was dead a few moments ago and can not remember her name despite knowing somehow that thing in the sky resembled a serpent. It was the one and only response a human could utter to a universe that decided to completely and utterly, fuck you.

She jumped.

She could feel the building collapsing behind her and let out a scream as the dust of the collapse enveloped her. She had just woken up, if this mad reality was to be believed, and she was now falling to her death.  Her hands flailed without direction for something to grab onto even though her mind knew there was nothing but a fast approaching and painful terminus below her. Obscured through the rain and dust and flashes of light.  Nothing she could do but die, was this the only thing she was good for in this new life of hers? Listen to a glowing ball of light housed in an angular shell that was probably insane itself?

But then, as she screamed the last of her anger and indignation out of her, as her heart pounded louder that the demolition behind her through her ears, she felt something. Something different, something she knew in a deep animal way, was not natural. Her descent slowed. She ceased to fall straight to her death and began to glide forth, beyond the dirt and debris, beyond the pain, beyond her own anger. A small quite light within blossomed and expanded and she felt control.  A purple light wrapped itself around her body and she shifted it in minute and instinctual ways to direct her path. It was shocking, as if discovering another arm that you never knew you had and could manipulate. Her feet alighted on the broken road like a leaf on grass.

With twitching feet she shuffled around, almost shaking the purple light from her body. It left her feeling cold and vulnerable. 

"I can't do this." 

"Guardian." The ghost said, sailing down soundlessly from above. "That was an impressive display, you were able to call on the Light so quickly after being resurrected. This is good."

She stared dumbly at the ghost hovering before her, its shell twisting in segments, and for a reason she could not explain she thought it was pleased with itself. 

She wanted to crush it.

"What the fuck is going on! Where am i, what are you, what were those cables connected to my skull, why am I naked, how did I survive that fall, and what was that purple fucking smokey light coming off of me!?" She began pacing back and forth, not expecting an answer. The suddenly peace her mind had found when she slowed her fall was gone, and she felt like she was flailing again. She was going to snap, she knew it, her mind was just going to burst with incompatibility to its new reality. 

"Guardian." The light said, and it was more than she could handle.

"Do not call me that! You stupid fucking little piece--" 

Something heavy and hard hit her in the back of the head and sweet silent darkness took her.