“Did...did you feel that?”
In a room filled with vibrant light, a voice broke the silence. Not a sound had been heard prior, each in deep thought as their minds connected with things unseen. That voice resonated around the room as each came back, allowed their focus to fill the space around them and concentrate on the words that brought them back around. Each felt solemn though they couldn’t be outwardly seen. At this time of day, no one could be seen in that room, so all was conveyed through words, through other means.
High above the world below, the ceiling opened up to the beautiful sky above where a flock of gulls flew overhead, momentarily filling the chamber with what was normally soothing calls, the echo filling the chamber like a musical well. But, there was no comfort taken this day, no soothing that could be afforded from their cheery tones as the realization of what had been done settled over the group. It was as this light died that the first visage was visible, this the source of the voice that’d broken through the uncomfortably thick blanket of silence.
“They’re arriving…”
Her face was straight, serious, eyes piercing and pensive as her mind wandered away to try and see the first’s arrival. Nothing as of yet was visible to her, their forms not yet breaching Tryne’s outermost limits. Brow furrowing, she stood from her chair, a hand lazily tracing over the arm before it fell to her side, her steps taking her toward the middle of the room. Quiet as the grave, not a sound was heard as her form continued its movement; Not while she walked, not as she stepped up to the looking into the mirror and poured fresh water atop its already shimmering pool, and not as her fingers swirled it around, eyes intent on what they sought.
“Trahxme has completed the Summoning, then…” Another voice joined the fray, far deeper than the first. “He will unleash his darkness upon Tryne and march his dark army to the front steps of Esthira..."
“You always see the negative side of things…” the first commented, before the entirety of her body set perfectly still.
“What we need to focus on is finding those Adepts.” The wise, elder voice another man spoke with a resonating deep, but gentle, voice. “We need to send Nemma and her Knights to find and collect the Adepts before Trahxme figures out he crossed them over as well.”
But he
did know. He’d felt it just as they had, felt the shift as others he did not call came through into this world, into what would be his land. His carefully laid plans hijacked by some happening out of his control. And those scouts were already out, looking, searching.
The question now...was who would find them first.
Oblivious to all this was a woman in another world, another time, enjoying the sunlight from a bench in front of the Arc du Triomphe while the world passed her by. A light breeze wafted through her hair, some stray strands tickling her nose as she listened to the chatter, listened to the harried steps and car horns that filled the world around her. Here in Paris, she didn’t feel like a freak, like someone with mental issues that all of her teachers had claimed her to be growing up.
Some things...you just don’t forget.
First, the doctors had been called to see if what she had could be reversed, if she could have had her sight, even to a small degree. All they'd told her was, short of an expensive transplant, she'd never have sight, and that she needed to move on from that.
...Then they were called for something else.
People called her crazy, hearing her claim she'd seen that fateful eclipse. Teachers continually sent her to the guidance counselor. The counselor recommended, again and again, to see a therapist, to try and “work through the suppressed issues she harbored”. She couldn't have been crazy. How would she suddenly know that which she'd never known? Never seen?
She'd never have known the vibrant oranges, dark browns, muted yellows, nr the way the stars glimmered and the glow was cast over an otherwise sleeping world. No color had ever had a name, nor a shade to recollect. Some people had tried to explain the colors to her, tried to help ease her growing annoyance prior to her vision, but it always amounted to the same: someone trying to equate a color to an object that she’d never seen.
That's how it generally went, someone getting flustered because they could never figure out how to explain a color to one who never saw them. In her mind, everything had a feel, had a texture. The only way she knew what she was putting on, color wise, was because she had someone write it out in braille on her tags. That didn't mean she knew what they actually looked like, but she would keep within color rules her family had set.
As the time continued to crawl by, the sun lost its warmth. The sound of people slowly died away, their steps no longer assaulting her ears. Everything felt different, new...too unfamiliar to remain comfortable.
Something's changed…No longer did she smell the fresh bread and cigarettes wafting on the breeze, wrapping her in a cocoon of delicious imaginings. The air was suddenly...pure. No trace of exhaust or trash marred its perfection. The air was decidedly cooler, the sun's rays not affording the same glow it'd previously held. The wind had picked up, her hair falling loose of its loose up-do, brushing across her face.
The surface she was perched upon was also different. The smooth lines of the finished wood were lost, and in its place remained the jagged edge of rocks. Slipping free of the boulder, her feet touched nervously down on the ground, one hand remaining on the rock to steady herself while the other tried to find something else, anything else in her immediate vicinity. Dress, white and bright (as she'd been told it was the easiest color to spot), whipping around her knees, dancing in the breeze as the hair that slipped free skimmed over her skin evoking goosebumps.
This...this isn’t…Panic set in, heart pounding a mile a minute as her body began to shake.
My bag! she remembered, clamoring back onto the rock and feeling around.
My phone’s in my bag! If I can just find that…! That bag, though, had been left back where she’d been sitting, on a park bench in the middle of France and now she was...somewhere else.
“Hello?” a worried, shaken voice cried out, waving her hands in hopes of flagging down anyone; anyone at all would be better than no one. “Can anybody help me? S'il vous plaît?”
Just keep it together! she told herself, breaths having since turned shallow and head light with the realization that keeping it together might be pointless, for naught. “Où suis-je?!”