Everything is dim, outlines subdued in a layer of darkness. My cheeks feel damp. Am I...crying? They fall on numb skin. A blanket of darkness lies across the world, cushioning it in silence. I blink stiffly, my lashes encrusted with sticky gunk. A damp sweet smell tickles my other senses awake. Grey outlines appear faintly or are they shadows? My world is covered in a dead grey mist. I blink a few more times but it lingers, refusing to shift to lighter shades.
I feel empty. My bones hollow with a thin brittle layer of undoubtedly sickly skin barely covering the sharp edges and corners of my body. This isn't me. The revelation rushes into my chest in a stream of cold air and the next thought drags a sigh like rustling leaves from my chapped lips. I don't recognise this body - the shape, the weight, even the way it moves. Wooden notes of cedar tinged with rot pinch my nose. I ache to move my head - left, right, anything to find my bearings and my location but no matter how much I will it, these foreign limbs don't react. Why was I crying? The question races through my head, painfully sharp in its clarity. If I was crying, that must mean I am sad...tears this bitter aren't caused by happiness.
’Chione, we’re leaving.’
‘Forget it, I'm helping Dad.'
’Now is really not the time to be stubborn. This is serious, really serious.’
My mother stood before me, tall and slender, shaking her head. The weary hands she ran across her features betrayed her strong stance, her dark eyes were a sore and tired red, lined with fear.
‘Please come with me. I need to know you're safe.’
I looked at her. My teeth ground against each other so hard my cheeks cramped.
The feverish thoughts free my frozen body and it begins to move. It cracks and splits as I tear my legs free from the ground, the wall solidly supporting the rest of me. Dust fills my nostril, has it really been that long since I last moved? I can't cast a look around, but it's barely light enough to see more than a few feet anyway. Tentatively, my right foot shifts forward. A gasp escapes my mouth as the world around me blurs and changes and I crash to the ground. This new form I find myself in is too odd, too different.
Dark smoke blew in from an open flap by the entrance, bringing with it a pale wave of dust. I heard a deep cry nearby and recognized the rough timbre of my father, slicing into the slick skin of his enemies.
‘Dad needs me,’ I said simply.
My eyes flickered over her black kaftan pulled tight across her face to fight off the sand. I smirked at her simple long dress, pale like an innocent canvas. Then I rested my hard gaze upon her face.
I grunt and roll onto my back, turning a colourless gaze down upon my new self. This body is anything but sturdy, in fact, I'm sure I have already broken most of its papery skin. I lower my chin wincing at every creak and sigh slicing through my head. It's as if this body despises all movement, everything I do is greeted by an echo of heartache, heavy with endless fatigue. I study my decaying form, or at least what I can see of it.
‘Oh, for the sake of the Gods, Chione! He doesn't want this. He wants you to live. Why waste your life saving someone who is already as good as dead?'
Her words cracked across my back like a whip, her regret a thick blanket settling between us the moment they left her mouth. I circled around to her until I could see her weak shape.
My chest is bandaged in layers of once-white strips but already most of them are torn and hang loosely from my form. My fingers slide into holes gaping in wake of torn cloth, bloated skin pushing through gaps in the fabric from underneath. A deep crevice is in place of what should have been my sternum. I force my face lower, searching furtively in the darkness for the sight my hands feel but it is too dark to see, my head too unwieldy.
Yet, in my mind, I can see the caved-in chest all the same and hear the silent rhythm of a missing beat.