Deora
Eyes opened to darkness.
Her body ached, and her face felt fractured and wet. Wanting to wipe
her face, she tried to move her hand, scraping it on the slab of
darkness restricting movement. Trying the other hand, she heard what
sounded like a small landslide, assaulting her ears. She wanted to
cover them, shield them from the creaking, clashing and tumbling.
Wanting to scream, she tried to open her mouth, call for help, but
she couldn't; it was like it wasn't there, replaced by a numb ache.
Her jaw wouldn't move.
She wanted to reach up and touch her jaw, feel her face and wipe the
wetness from her cheeks. She moved the free hand again, and she could
hear grit moving, falling down on her. She could smell the dry earth
and, as it poured down onto her, she could taste copper; blood or
metal? She let out a faint
sound, burning her throat on its way out. She pushed with her hand,
darkness creaking, and she could feel it moving.
Cracks appeared.
Forcing her eyes closed, she felt the lids burn as the darkness was
breached. The cracks where light peeked through were like small
lightning bolts flashing up in front of her face, yet never going
away. Only fading slightly. She squinted with one eye, trying to
minimise the blinding from above. She moved her free hand again,
letting more light in as it shoved the darkness aside. Looking at her
hand, she saw skin scratched away and dry blood lacing her palm like
cracked paint. But no pain. Her legs could move again now, and she
freed her trapped hand. Slowly, she moved her hand towards her face.
It touched something hard before it reached her face. She felt it
move and tug on part of her face. Grabbing it, she felt smooth ridges
carved into it. Lifting it, her brain exploded, sending a shockwave
of pain down her body. Her feet twitched and her free hand tensed.
She let go of the thing attached to her face, and ran her hand along
its edge. Smooth, with grooves at regular points along it. The
rectangles between the grooves were curved, and felt just like –
Teeth.
She realised why she couldn't move her mouth, why she couldn't feel
her mouth, and why it only gave her pain when she moved it. Along the
bottom of it, she could the leaking tubes that were her veins and
arteries. When her fingers brushed them, a feeling went through her.
Not quite pain, but more of a dull pressure running under her skin.
She moved her hand away, and looked at it again. Spots of still-damp
blood had found their way onto her palm, but only a couple; the rogue
veins must have mostly dried up.
She dragged herself up into a sitting position, vertebrae cracking.
Her head was still fuzzy, and she looked down at herself. Blood. Lots
of it. Her clothes were torn, only red rags clung to her cold skin
now. Her once-white legs were covered in brown and black dust,
presumably from whatever was on top of her when she awoke.
Awoke from what?
She shook her head, trying to get rid of the fuzziness. Her brains
seemed to slid around, crashing off the sides of her skull, trying to
break free. As she shook her head, she felt a strange tugging
sensation on her left ear. She reached her hand up to touch it, but
her ear felt normal. Still there.
What happened to me?
She remembered running, pain and a dark figure standing in front of
her. She remembered the pounding of her heart, the shallow air
leaving her lungs, the rage and the desperation. She remembered the
pain before the darkness, solid pain erupting from the dark figure.
She stopped still, staring at her hands again; they had held
something which was taken. It was snatched from her. Her stomach
ached as she remembered; phantom pain from before.
“You died.”
Her eyes widened as her heart sped
up; she'd died? More confused than scared, her eyes darting side to
side, dragging all of what she knew together; the dark figure had
killed her. She knew that much. Her last thought came back to her:
But I killed him?
“You did. He died.”
There was another voice in her head.
One she didn't recognise. It wasn't her's, she knew that. She tried
to speak to it, but her lower jaw was hanging off, so no words came
out. What are you? She
thought back; the voice was in her head, perhaps it could hear her
thoughts.
She felt something move in her ear, and it was deafening. She could
almost feel her skull tearing itself apart from within. The sound
stopped, and she heard a faint clicking and felt something cold
moving on her cheek. She raised a shaking hand towards it. Her
fingers brushed the metal wire as it moved down her face, covering
both cheeks in the cold metal. Beneath the cold, she could feel
warmth. Then pain. The tugging on the bottom of her face intensified,
she tried to cry, but couldn't.
She couldn't move.
Her hands froze in position, and her legs stopped straining. Her eyes
stopped moving, and all she could do was stare. The jumbled mass of
confusion lodged in her mind like a tumour stopped her from being
able to piece together a coherent thought and, even when she did
manage to link one together, it was stolen back by the flash of pain.
With one final blast of pain, she let out a scream. She felt her jaw
reconnect with the rest of her skull, muscles and bone repaired as it
opened, letting out a sound that could only personify fear.
Her mouth slammed closed.
She could still feel the wire across her face, although it seemed to
have amassed into one smooth coating from her eyes down to her neck.
It was cold, but that quickly faded. As did the pain in her jaw. The
thoughts plaguing her vanished one-by-one, as if deleted. Questions
vanished from her mind, faces deleted, and relationships wiped from
her memories. Motor-skills were taken from her, unable to move,
barely able to make the deep breaths that could slow her heart down.
Her fear was deleted, confusion eradicated, and breathing back to
normality.
The wires from her ear reached out
again, plunging deep into her skin like a thousand needles, splitting
their ends again and again to expand and wrap themselves around her
muscles and organs, taking control of them. Each muscle was flexed
and tensed, and heart-rate adjusted. She stood, faster than the
standard human.
Her heard turned to the left, and looked past the fire and rubble,
feeling nothing.
“Left.”
She turned left, and began to walk. Joints that seemed new and stiff
to her before were working perfectly now, carrying her across the
scorched earth of Raan.
Deora was gone for good.
She belonged to the Voice now.
