Chapter Text
A vast, red ocean stretched as far as the eyes could see. Its bloodied waters lay motionless, for there’d been no one to welcome to its surface for eons. Evidently, the warning that the young guards had drilled into them since birth seemed to work. “Do not venture too close to the Heart, or you’ll surely fall through the red sea.” But the shackles reinforced by this old fable would not hold much longer. One day, someone would venture high enough to break through the ocean’s surface, and the impact would send colossal waves to every shore.
The blood-red sea parted as a pale figure rose towards the empty space in an arc, a trail of crimson fluid following through. Slowly, the waters tore away from its porcelain skin, and revealed a torso, a pair of hands, a face.
Sanakan’s eyes flashed open.
She hunched over in exasperation, sending another crimson splash into the air. Inhaling the surrounding elements for the first time swiftly sent a burning sensation to the back of her throat, as if the tightening in her chest wasn’t unbearable enough. Gasping for air as if her life depended on it wasn’t an experience she could have prepared herself for, yet it was strangely cathartic. It was as if she had been oblivious to the suffocation she had endured for as long as she walked up and down the towering Megastructure she called home.
Upon shaking her blood-soaked hair from her face, Sanakan noticed her arms were still tethered to the sea from which she emerged. She lifted one of her arms away from it, but was met with some resistance. A more forceful attempt only seemed to tighten the restraint. After winding up, Sanakan pulled with both her arms and with great force, the eventual slingshot of which caused her to turn around halfway. Taking another stinging breath, Sanakan paused to collect herself, only to be alerted to what had been behind her.
An unfamiliar image loomed over: a pale, fibrous mass of unspeakable size, with a red crosslike emblem branded upon its surface. Despite it never once moving or making a sound, Sanakan could sense its intent to draw her back in. She had to keep trying.
The red sea’s waters resisted her strides with ease. Each step away from the spot Sanakan emerged from felt more strenuous than the last. Even so, she sought to escape, trying to reach further with every step and gain as much leverage as possible to assist her arms in freeing themselves.
She seldom looked back to see how far she’d gotten, but when she did, the fleshy mass only appeared to have gotten closer. It couldn’t end like this.
Now raising her arms over her head, Sanakan pulled with everything she could muster. Tension quickly rose in her arms, then her thighs, and then her core, culminating in a newfound urge to let out a scream. She didn’t care if anything could hear her. All that mattered now was that she broke those damned viscous chords.
Snap.
The tethers ripped apart. The mass erupted, tearing itself open from the site where the emblem was emblazoned, and released an explosion of the same blood-red water. It sent a tall, sweeping wave across the surface of the sea and over the victim standing inside it. And momentarily, all was black.
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Sanakan’s eyes flashed open once more to a faint gray and white haze over her whole field of vision, accompanied by the pressure of firm ground on her side. Upon sitting up in a flash, she witnessed a sight she had heard recounts of, but never seen before: a neverending field of tall white grass. As she absorbed the sight, her exterior senses registered the feeling of the gentle wind, and how it nudged the blades of grass up against her.
Looking down, she was startled by a drastic change in her own appearance. In this odd landscape, her body was unlike anything she had ever known it to be. Now completely devoid of the dark metal plating it once bore, every visible inch of herself was the same solid cream-white tone.
Instead of sharp edges, the knuckles on her hands were softened until there were no seams left. Upon trying to interlace her fingers they felt oddly silky to the touch, a feeling she didn’t even know she could perceive. Anything else she tried to feel, from the contour of her face, to the slope of her shoulders, to the divots in her collar exerted the same sensation.
Every other part of her was draped in a full-length white gown with long, open sleeves. Curious to see what the rest of her garb looked like, Sanakan attempted to stand but was quickly thwarted by an off sense of balance. She felt inexplicably lighter, which nearly sent her tumbling backwards from rising too fast. Combined with the fact that most of her body had changed shape, it took a few moments of grappling with a different set of mechanics before she could comfortably put one foot in front of the other. The tangled texture of the grass on her bare feet didn’t help her focus, either.
Finally holding her balance well enough to divert her attention forward, Sanakan attempted to scan the horizon for any landmarks, but couldn’t immediately spot anything out of the ordinary. She tried to better focus her gaze, as if she expected her field of view to change, but her sight remained unaltered. Nothing in the distance became newly noticeable, not to mention there was no line of reticles or peripheral sensors flashing in her eyes to alert such a discovery. Then it registered: she didn’t have her retinal display.
She lacked the tools for seeing across great distances that she was practically born accustomed to. And of course, no one else was here to help her navigate what lay ahead.
Her chest began to slowly tighten again. While unpleasant, it wasn’t unbearable like the feeling of panic from earlier. In fact, it almost felt like something invisible pushing her forward, or someone telling her it’d be best to traverse the field herself. Sanakan started to tread the grasses, towards what may lie beyond that horizon. After all, it didn't appear nearly as hellish as the red waters long behind her.