Chapter None: Remember...-

[ (c) 2006 Kyrinn S. Eis, All Rights Reserved ]

THE Air was moist, pregnant with humidity; the sky swollen in anticipation of the cooling rain.
Her first reaction to the sound of the soft gurgle of water from the shallow creek was one of near-blissful relaxation. However, this did not last. In the few moments -- fractions of a second -- that it took her mind to realise she was either dreaming, or somewhere entirely different from where she had just been moments earlier; in that brief span, she grew alarmed. The sort of fear that comes when you wake suddenly and cannot remember in which bed; in which lover's place; in which life you actually reside.

Though her heart raced and the cold electric acid prickles of fear spread from her spine (base to nape), she carefully opened her eyes.

Soft white light filtered down from the pastel blue sky filled with huge off-white clouds; so large that they, themselves, were almost terrifying. That is what greeted her and filled her vision at first glance. Then the tree leaves, branches, the smell of the soil and underbrush; the sounds of still, heavy air and creatures going about their lives around her supine form. This is what came next to her senses. Then...Then came the dampness of the ground, the awkwardness of her position as she lay upon it; the traces of pain from various places throughout her body. At last, she was beginning to fully awaken.

Then, the nagging questions: Where? Who? Why?
These were not unfamilliar to her, though she couldn't quite remember how she knew even that.

Image of an aluminium sieve; her hands holding the handles; 'pasta' in it; clear tap water flowing over the pieces, draining out; the bubbles formed in the holes.

She breathed in deeply and winced at the pain in her lower left rib-section, and forward right belly, near the hip. Bad pain lurked just around the corner, if she inhaled more deeply. She exhaled and heard something glush and gurgle in her belly -- hopefully just in her stomach or intestines. She couldn't be sure.

Her hands, arms were sore, but moved without real pain. She curled them around herself; clothed as they were, though nearly soaked through in warmth -- sweat?

Her throat was tight, but her mouth was not dry. She cleared her throat. PAIN in her torso, her abdomen, again.

"Alright..." She said aloud, and thought she almost certainly had internal injuries.
I can lay here all day, or I can see about trying to get up... She thought to herself.
She swallowed hard, then tensed-up her shoulder and neck muscles, and began to dig her palms and fingers into the nearly-muddy earth as she slowly lifted herself up.

No.
Something was terribly wrong in her belly. Near her right hip.
From her slightly elevated position, she could see...

The cold wash of fear -- dread... Irreconcilable scenery violating her self-image.

A piece of metal something pierced her body. It was torn, charred, and ... utterly alien looking. Large... Notebook-sized, and roughly triangular. A piece of machinery or fuselage.
She swallowed hard and lay back softly upon the soft, dark earth dusted as it were by grey silty-sand.

"Alright..." She said again. This time, less sure.

Minutes passed.
Tears came and went.
Pep-talks began and crumbled in fear, hopelessness, desperation.

She was forgetting something very obvious; something important.
Something that made all of this really not so bad...

All this time, birds had been chirping, singing, fussing in their myriad ways, but, understandably, she hadn't paid much attention to them.
Now...Now a raven came to rest on a low branch near her. It cocked its head several times, inquistitively, and sqwaked at her.

"Yeah. You may be getting some of me soon, hon. Just... Just wait until I'm --" She began, then started crying again. She didn't want to die. Not after everything she couldn't remember having happened, happening to her...

The raven continued to look on.
Something about its eyes...

Now she saw herself through its eyes, saw the piece of shrapnel from its vantage point, as well as her more superficial wounds; but most importantly, she saw her face -- and remembered.

Her mind now back in her own body; the raven startled by the temporary possession; she remembered, and laughed.

"I've been through far fucking worse." She smiled and sat up, and ate-up the pain like it was moldy bread granted by a merciful prison guard.
The bleeding began anew, but she grasped the piece of metal, and; surprised by its lightness; pulled it out with a great, wet suckking sound from her wound.
She heard the squeak of her clenched teeth, but grunted a snotty laugh.

Then she dared to believe that it all was true; the memories without context; and half-growled, half-cackled as the glassy flames appeared first from her soiled right hand, then washed over her entire body. They shimmered like heat shadows; pure crystaline; colourless.

The agony was cathartic, and each heartbeat -- quickened as they were -- brought masochistic relief to her sundered form. Bone reknit; blood loss stopped; flesh wove itself back together. Wholeness returned to fill the hole.
The ground steamed 'neath her.

Then it began to rain as her field inadvertantly triggered a lightning stroke.

As the rain fell upon her, she laughed and caught it at a distance within her boiling telekinesis.
Her aura; her fiery diamond soul; took on infinite prismatic fractal forms; paisley spirals; chaos mirrors, all hissing as the raindrops boiled away into their constituent bits.
Ozone filled the air, and everything was alright.