Chapter Text
Darkness. This was all the girl could sense. Darkness and cold. Without the perception of time, her body or space, she felt like a jellyfish drifting in an ocean abyss. She stopped elaborating thoughts from a long time, reduced to nothing more than a lost consciousness in the abyss of the afterlife.
Until, all of a sudden, she sensed something. Gravity. She felt herself falling, not even knowing if she was really falling down or up, unsure even of the existence of an up or down. However, the sensation of falling was followed by something else: a faint light that intensified every second, gradually becoming blinding; the light brought with it warmt that intensified more and more and more and more...
And then the girl opened her eyes.
The first thing she felt was the light that burned her eyes, causing her to half close and cover them with one hand; the second thing she felt were the pains in her body that followed the act of raising the arm. It was like having a cramp but all over the body simultaneously, including nerves and bones. Even breathing was a challenge and she clearly heard some unnatural sounds coming from her ribcage. Unable to move, she took a few moments to accustom her eyes to the light and, as soon as she managed to keep them open and to focus on the surrounding environment, she looked around: she saw the grass on which she was lying, some trees, slabs of stone and the blue sky decorated with a few clouds. The sun wasn't at its maximum, so it was still morning; moreover, the songs of the cicadas was the clear sign of the summer season. After several efforts she managed to raise her head just enough to look at her body, and saw that she was wearing a simple white dress stained with grass and dirt. Her arms and legs were covered in scratches, but none of them looked serious. Slowly the pain in her body became tolerable, allowing the girl to sit up and understand where she was. But as soon as she did, the landscape she saw made her want to lie down again, close her eyes and hope to be in a dream: huge colorful buildings stood out beyond the iron fence that bordered the lawn, separated by wide streets on which iron machinery passed by, too loud for the girl's liking. Near these roads, tall metal pipes rose skyward, bending at the top towards the road. Several people walked between the street and the buildings, in special roads that seemed made especially for them. The clothes they wore were colorful and of a shape and style completely unknown to the observer sitting on the lawn. Looking around she could see the stone slabs around her, the carvings of which revealed their true nature.
They were tombs.
The girl had woken up in a graveyard, aching and dirty.
But this discovery did not upset her that much. That is, it did not upset her any more than everything else she was looking at: the city stretched for several kilometers, interrupted on one side by high mountains and on the other by the ocean. One area seemed to have no natural barrier, but not seeing too many buildings in that direction, the girl assumed there were walls to protect that zone. She looked up at the sky again, her head full of questions: where was she? Why had she woken up in a graveyard? How did she get there? Where was her before that?
But most importantly…
What's her name?
After a few moments spent staring the sky, the girl decided that the only way to make progress was to get up and explore the city: so, despite the numerous pains at the muscles, she stood up and walked towards the entrance of the cemetery. As she went out, a man walking nearby saw her and ran in the opposite direction as fast as he could, screaming at the top of his lungs something about the "rise of the dead" and the "end of times". The girl was neither offended nor surprised by this reaction (i mean, she came out of a cemetery wearing only a dirty white dress) and continued walking as if no one was looking at her. She stopped at the side of the road: the strange machines were going very fast and there seemed to be no continuation of the safe areas that allowed her to pass. Looking around, she saw a large number of people standing near the edge, in front of a white striped painting that cut the road; an iron pole, lower than the others and without the final curve, sent out a green light from the side facing the road. The girl walked towards the group of people staggering and limping, ignoring the cool wind that penetrated under her dress: after experiencing the cold of the dark place, a sea breeze could not possibly worry her. She stopped in front of the white stripes and, looking up, saw that a red light was shining from the side facing her. Red light coming out of a metal pole...her mind was starting to recover from the shock of the first impression and now she was starting to analyze and trying to understand everything she didn't understand (which was pretty much everything). Everything she saw seemed magic, from the metal cars whizzing on the streets to the translucent plates that people held close to their ears and seemed to be talking to. Suddenly the light at the end of the tube turned green and the girl stared at it puzzled; a woman, who kept her distance until now, approached trembling and pointed out that, now that the light had turned green, the cars would've stopped to let her pass. The girl widened her eyes and looked at the road: in fact several of those machines had now stopped and seemed to be waiting for her, so she started walking along the painting, still limping but with a steadier pace. Wandering around the city, the girl was able to see all sorts of wonders: glass panels in which people talked and moved, shops where fake bodies in full dress were exhibited, stalls that sent a good smell of food that made her stomach grumble.
While observing these things she passed a shop with mirrors displayed next to the fake men, and she was able to see her own face: the head had an almost sharp shape, with flat cheekbones and a pointed chin. The slightly almond-shaped eyes were a color between green and brown, while the short wavy hair were reddish brown; the pale skin was dotted here and there by stains of dirt. Widening her eyes she caressed her cheecks, then stroked her hair with both hands and went down to her cheeks again. As soon as she saw her hands near the dirt something clicked in her mind and she started rubbing her cheeks hard; looking again in the mirror, once cleaned, she saw the reflection of a warrior from another world full of wounds, she saw her life cut short in blood by her companions.
She drew back violently from the window, panting and with her hands shaking, her mind crowded with memories she could not give an order to. Clutching her chest with one hand, the girl ran into an uncrowded alley and sat on the ground against the wall holding her head: smells, sounds, sensations, everything mixed in a vortex that made her temples pulse. Still panting, the girl leaned her head against the wall and began to look at the sky that could be seen between the roofs of the buildings: she spent several minutes observing the shape of the clouds and having fun recognizing familiar shapes in them, like a dog, an apple. or a tree. The minutes went by and became an hour, at the end of which the breathing was back being light and regular, and the head had pleasantly emptied; now much calmer, the girl took a deep breath and returned to focus on her memories, looking at them as old photos that needed to be put into a new album. She remembered man-eating monsters, silver-eyed warriors and a shady organization; she remembered the sound of swords cutting through the air, the smell of blood that impregnates the earth, and the warmth of a companion who thanked her; she remembered fear, admiration, happiness, rage. Shifting through all those memories, a smile formed on the girl's lips as she looked up at the sky, sitting in an alley with only a white dress to cover her. And in that moment, when she remembered the events following her waking in the cemetery, a realization struck her:
She had pigmented hair and eyes.
Which meant, she couldn't have demon flesh and blood in her body.
In conclusion...she was human.
Wide-eyed, she tore off a tuft of hair and stared intently at it, her breath starting to crack again; the girl stood up with trembling hands and tears in her eyes, laughing and crying at the same time, feeling the euphoria pervading every fiber of her body. Full of adrenaline, the girl began to run through the alleys, feeling the air that went under her dress, the puddles that wet her feet, the buzz of the people in the main streets and every time she laughed louder and louder, happier and happier; in this wild ride she climbed a metal staircase without even realizing it, and found herself on a roof admiring the great city that stood out in front of her. She spread her arms to feel the warmth of the sun on her skin and, for the first time in two lifetimes, she felt truly alive: she started dancing and jumping on the roof to give vent to her euphoria, finally collapsing exhausted but happier than she ever thought it possible. She got up when the sun had passed its peak, taking another look at the city and deeply inhaling the air of that world unknown to her: getting a new life would not have been easy, but she had a unique opportunity and she would've not wasted it.
Before getting off the roof and looking for something to eat, she paused for a moment on his old memories, looking at a lonely cloud in the sky; then, with a smile, she said to herself, hearing her own voice for the first time: "Cassandra...yes, that's my name"
Cassandra the-
"No" She shook her head
"Just Cassandra"