A continuation of the Prologue I entered in the Halloween contest.

Feedback, thoughts? Let me know! :-]

(And yes, this is an unusually short intro…)

–

 

Recovery came slowly.

She didn’t know where she was, or her name. She couldn’t even open her eyes for an unidentifiable span of time, and seemed to slip in and out of sleep and a state in-between it and awake. Attempting to think or wonder about her current circumstance—whatever it was—did not occur to her.

Her sense of smell returned first, her brain finally beginning to reboot her body’s systems. The familiar scents of consano healing salve and lingering sterilization chemicals registered.

Hearing came next. A quiet but steady beeping noise, miscellaneous sounds of machinery, the sound of her own restful breathing. But no voices. She didn’t know why that seemed odd to her, but it did.

Her eyelids raised slightly, and then dropped again. They tried a second time and remained half-open. She was staring up at a pristine white ceiling. Feeling was seeping back into her limbs, and that combined with her currently limited range of sight told her that she was lying on a bed of some sort, laden from just below her neck onwards by blanket, sheet and seemingly some clothing buried beneath them. Around her were some medical devices and a tall white curtain connected to the ceiling, which surrounded the space where the bed sat.

A hospital? She wondered, the ability of intelligible thought processes gradually returning.

She tried to move, but immediately found the task beyond her present strength. A sigh, unbidden, escaped her. She waited a minute more, then attempted movement again. This time, she was able to flex her fingers, which were hidden beneath the sheet and blanket. It was a meager action, but somehow felt… wrong. As though the small body parts were foreign to her. Her eyebrows scrunched, reacting to her brief confusion.

After pushing the odd notion aside, she subsequently endeavored to use her arms. To her surprise, she was able to pull them from out under the hospital-type coverings on the first try. Though, something felt out-of-place with them, as with her fingers. She made the effort to shift herself into more of a sitting position and leant up against the substantial arrangement of white and blue pillows and the bed’s headboard. She inspected her arms, which were now uncovered and lie atop the blanket. The right one had an IV stuck it in, but aside from that, her upper limbs carried not a single—visible—blemish. They still felt wrong, in some way. But she couldn’t put her finger on it, so to speak.

Pushing the covers from her, she bent her knees and then swung her legs over the side of the bed, then paused there, exhaling deeply as the tiredness in her bones continued to recede. She reached over with her left arm and pulled out the IV by executing a quick tug.

The subsequent reaction caused by the momentary stimuli of pain was shocking. Everything came back to her, all in an instant of furious, deafening recall inside her skull.

Jocose released an involuntary shriek as her memories resurfaced as if bursting from a locked box which key had been found and inserted. The influx of knowledge, images, emotions and other was an overwhelming plethora. Learning how to fly once her wings matured enough when she was a child, the grasslands of Kalpana stretching out into the sunset-dominated skyline, an autumn’s clear morning riding birdback, the enticing smells of various foods prepared for the annual winter Sanctuary Feast, the trips aboard hydro trains to reach island locations off the mainland, studying at the New Primoris Private School, her first day at FIRE Academe when Instructor/Captain Dreg made his introduction to her class; the painful day a flight training exercise… cost Jocose her ability to naturally fly, the time her grandfather who had served faithfully as a shipmaster went to his final resting place, the evening years ago when the Insurgent Corps brutally bombed the United Legation and killed thousands to make a statement, the afternoon her best friend Frese died and the absolute despair she experienced…

But one scene in her mind’s eye stood out among them: The rift incident. The malicious dark cloud beating at her, helplessness as her consciousness failed her, desperate to save a civilization that was foreign to her, the antagonizing torment of being unknowingly to whether or not she had succeeded.

The cloud… She could feel its abuse, re-experience the maelstrom of muddled emotion, drown in the mounting fear. It was so real and so terrible. Everything else dissolved, fading away to give prominence to the frightful scene she was unwillingly reliving…

…

Jocose woke to the feeing of linoleum-type floor against her cheek.

She jolted upright on the floor and gasped, looking about frantically under a canopy of reddish hair that had draped itself over her face when she jerked up. She ignored it for the moment, hysteria still gripping her attention. But after a quick glance about, she realized where she was.

She had fallen from the bed when the recall struck her, and now stood where she had just before been lying, still within the concealment of the ceiling-to-floor curtain. How long she had been out was uncertain, but the remnants of tearstains and mucus left on the floor were a sure indicator some of her time spent there was crying. She touched a cheek with her hand and felt streaks caused by saltwater droplets that had run down and dried. She sniffled and sat down on the bedside again, confused and indignant. The IV had fell to the floor as well, and remained there. She stared at it, a small, somewhat bloodstained needle connected to the nearby machine, which had gone silent. The tiny incision it had made in her arm was already scabbing.

The recall she had experienced was irregular. It was unnatural. She had never felt something quite so like it; memories could be intense, but that was bringing it to a level Jocose wasn’t privy to. She had never attempted to shut a rift by her lonesome either, but that was by choice. The recall was an action she had had no authority over. She glanced at the IV again. A minute second of meager pain caused all that?

The only explanation she could offer was it being a “freak occurrence”. They had taught her in the Academe that abnormal mental activity had the possibilities to be the result of many variable “catalysts”. Anything from the uncomfortable notion something, or someone, was in her psyche, to the simplistic and disheartening fact she may very well be in the beginning stages of insanity. Damn psychologists. Many of the psychiatrists and psychologists in FIRE’s HR department weren’t known for their courteousness when explaining the metaphorical minefield of mental scenarios. It was often straightforward, no nonsense with them. For being faeries professed in the medical studies of the brain, they certainly didn’t seem interested in mind-games, even if those games were for the benefit of their patients. Jocose made a note to look into it when she returned to HQ and file a complaint.

Now, she realized. I have to figure out where I am… and how I survived. She suspected that she was aboard Regent VII, and where she had awoken was not a hospital, but the starvessel’s infirmary.

Thoughts of the recall still ebbed in her mind, but she pushed them back and composed herself. She couldn’t remain sitting here like a distressed child awaiting the return of a doctor who would reassure her that everything was going to turn out alright and she could go home soon. She would not allow it. Her pride and dignity forbade her from appearing helpless and weak. She found herself oddly glad no one had, apparently, been there when she had had her intense recall and collapsed. To anyone else, it would’ve appeared as though she had done so because of the slight pain from removing the IV needle. So where is everyone else? She quietly slid off the bed, grabbed a section of curtain, and peeked out to get a view of the area beyond her little space. A long, sterile white and blue room occupied by closed curtains every few feet which were uniform to Jocose’s own. Light fixtures in the ceiling illuminated the room, but some seemed unusually dim, as if running on emergency power.

Jocose hadn’t seen this room aboard Regent VII. But then, she hadn’t seen many of the I.D.O.S.’s rooms. She wasn’t in the afterlife; that she knew. No theorization or interpretation of heaven, hell, or any other religion’s and otherwise parties hypotheses and descriptions said they had the appearance of an infirmary section.

Still, where has everyone gone to? Minus the various medical machines droning, the silence was eerie nothingness throughout the room. Some of the curtains swished gently with the invisible breezes emanating from low vents in the walls, and one of the overhead lights flickered, then returned to normal just as quickly. It was subtly disconcerting.

Jocose stepped out from behind her curtain and began walking deliberately down the aisle of other curtains, as though checking the floor’s structural integrity, turning her attention to the slightest noise or movement. It’s just a smidgen of paranoia. She told herself. You endured maltreatment from a sentient black cloud while suspended in space before a hazardous dimensional rift, then experienced a racking memory recall that resulted in fainting. You have the right to be cautious, even if it proves superfluous. Instructor/Captain Dreg had once told she and her class that it was “okay” to have fear, but not in the way that that fear overcame you. He said this as they were about to begin a live underwater training session, standing in the main “compartment” of a mockup of a Helix Dropship suspended two hundred feet above the large training pool, which was a decent sized lake in its own right. “If you must fear—which most every sentient creature does at some point in their lifetime—use it as fuel, turn it around. Make fear into an asset, an item in your toolbox, and you can wield one of the greatest weapons this universe and all other universes have ever had. The trick is learning how to tame yours.” He promptly shoved one of the trainees nearest the edge off the mock Helix, into the water below, and then gestured to the others with a wave of his free hand. “Begin training exercise.”

Jocose smirked, despite herself. His prep talks consisted of some of the better entertainment and morale boosting aspects of her time at Academe.

Distracted by the reminiscing, she suddenly made a misstep with her footing, tripped, and fell face-first towards the floor near the end of the room she was making her way to. She was barely able to raise her hands in front of her before colliding with the linoleum.

She cursed herself for being so careless, though it was, in actuality, a petty thing. Worry was what set her off. Worry about if she may have just possibly disturbed whatever or whoever resided in here with her, unless she was alone. She hadn’t decided to check what was behind the other curtains; fear could be tamed and utilized as a tool, but she didn’t have to endorse it. So she had ignored the prospect of checking.

Now she wondered whether or not that was such a wise choice.

She lay as still as possible against the floor and waited, eyes and ears attentive for any indicators of hostile or otherwise presence. A minute passed without noticeable change throughout the room. She exhaled sharply and began to get off the floor… again. Why are you so jittery, Jocose? This needs to cease. You’re a capable cadet in FIRE, for Kalpana’s sake! And you’re lying around like a frightened animal in thi—

Her train of thought stopped and dead. She had caught sight of something—moving—in her right peripheral vision. She jumped back and spun around to face it.

There, only a few feet away, stood a shocked and frazzled looking little girl; she couldn’t have been anything more than a tween. She wore a white infirmary gown dotted with blue spots, which was obviously a few sizes too large for her, like an oversized bathrobe. Atop her head, falling from her shoulders and draping down her back like a river of red was a mess of voluminous, vibrant reddish hair that was very nearly long enough to touch the floor. Her skin was pale, but not to the degree in which it was opaquely so. Her face was speckled with the remains of freckles that had once been many, and her young cyan eyes shown like centerpieces. Her expression held scrutiny, stupefaction and mounting consternation.

Jocose tentatively opened her mouth to say something. The other girl mimicked her movement exactly. No words came out. No…

She raised her arm, slowly, wary to confirm a fact she would’ve rather left well alone. Again the girl followed her action without blunder. No…

Jocose hesitantly stepped forward, and the girl matched her pace as they approached one another. She and the other girl extended their hands simultaneously, and they met. Except what Jocose felt was not flesh, it was a smooth pane of glasslike material. A mirror.

A full-length mirror containing an image of herself.