Chapter Text
It was a beautiful day. In the beginning, when I tried to recall what had happened to me before, what I'd done to end up here, all I could see was the sky: the cloudless, untainted blue of it, not even an aeroplane trail breaking the perfection. It was one of those days when the grass seemed to glow greener and the trees were bushier with leaves, where everything just seemed more alive. It was the kind of day that I may never see again.
It was this day that I was admiring out of the window when it happened. Sitting in my dining chair with my head turned towards the window, I was blissfully unaware of the usual lunchtime chatter surrounding me.
'Elodie, I said pass the water!' Aries' voice broke my daydream and I turned back to face the table. Aries was pointing insistently at the jug next to me, her great green eyes squinted at me indignantly. Grinning, I picked it up and tilted it very slightly over my own glass, so that it trickled down the sides as slowly as possible. 'You'll have to wait till I'm finished,' I said.
'Elodie!' she whined. Aries was only seven, and though I loved her more than anything, I also took every opportunity to tease her. She didn't mind, really. Although we were only half-sisters, we were closer than any other sisters I knew. Some people told us that half-sisters could never have the bond that 'proper' sisters do. After all, Aries and I weren't even the same colour, they'd say, as if this mattered immensely; Aries was mixed race. I disagreed with them - after all, don't you need two halves to make a whole?
As I was holding the jug up above my glass, with Aries complaining at me on my left, I began to hear a sort of ticking noise. I frowned; I'd been hearing this noise for as long as I could remember, but usually it was so faint it was barely noticeable, at the back of my head. Sometimes it would get a little louder, but it was still very quiet. I'd asked my mum about it at first, but she didn't seem concerned. It was probably tinnitus, she said - it was very common, lots of people had it.
This, however, was different. It was loud enough that I noticed it, even with my family talking, and the clinking of cutlery against plates, and the chewing. And - although I wasn't certain - I thought it was getting louder.
I only had a moment to contemplate this strange event, before Aries began complaining to my parents: 'Mummy, tell Elodie that she has to pass me the water now!'
'Elodie, give your sister the jug and stop teasing her,' my mum said, barely casting a glance in our direction before picking up her conversation with my dad where she had left off. Sighing theatrically, I leaned across the table to hand Aries the jug.
Then everything went white.
Pain tore across my head, burning and intense, worse than anything I'd ever felt, or could imagine feeling. Then it reached my neck, my chest, my arms, and soon my whole body was filled with pure, white-hot, searing pain. By this time, I had fallen off my chair, and I was writhing in agony on the floor. I had dropped the jug, but never heard it land. I opened my burning mouth and screamed, but made no sound. Somewhere, outside of my thick cocoon of pain that had enveloped me, I was vaguely aware of my parents by my side, of Aries tugging my arm and crying my name, over and over. I couldn't see them - somehow I had been blinded and could see nothing but white.
The pain didn't subside: it seemed to intensify, if that was possible. I wanted it to end, I'd rather die than feel this pain for a minute longer, I had to die. I screamed again, and this time I made a sound - a high pitched wail left my mouth, and around me I could hear thumps and crashes, but I couldn't see the causes of the noise.
The ticking noise that I had heard earlier became louder and louder, until it was all I could hear. It didn't sound like ticking anymore: and now that I could hear it properly, I realised that it had never been ticking.
It was voices.