"You're familiar." The voice was rather unpleasant. It sounded like two pieces of metal scraping against one another.
A second voice was dry as a desert wind, and just as warm. "No, she only feels familiar."
"Compatible... What are you? Are you a living organism? You cannot be. Are you a compatible machine?" Third voice sounded just as unnatural as the first two did. She doubted that a human mouth could make that sound. It sent chills down her spine.
Spine? Where is my spine? Who am I? Where am I?
"Who are you?" Three voices asked Auria at the same time. They repeated the question, again and again, speaking at the same time. "Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?"
Her heart was pounding madly, her head was spinning. She flew through pitch black darkness, with bright stars shining all around her, yet they were too dim and too far away to produce any significant illumination.
"Who are you?"
She ran through a bright corridor. The walls were made of polished metal, and she could see her reflection in them, as if she ran through a mirror maze.
"Who are you?"
She flew above the ocean and she saw the Citadel fleet in all its glory, standing still, clustered around a strange island. Few of the ships were burning...
"Who are you?"
A golden-clad army marched through the gates of the city unknown to her, carrying white and gold banners fluttering in the wind.
"Who are you?"
A four armed humanoid bashed madly with a large, blacksmith's hammer into a white hot bar of metal. A vivid intelligence of his three, blood-red eyes was hidden underneath the hood that hid his inhuman features.
"Who are you?"
Thin creatures she knew as Whispers were gliding above the ground like paper sheets carried by the wind, tens, hundreds of them hurrying somewhere, hidden by the snow, hidden by their color-changing bodies, hidden like their deadly, scythelike claws.
"Who are you?"
Giant wall, marvelous, grandiose, spanning from horizon to horizon. Atop of the wall, lethal things she knew were fire-throwers watched silently, waiting to unleash their burning death towards any uninvited guests. Behind the wall, a wasteland that was once a glorious home to a long dead civilization. Last of them, as twisted as their former home, hiding in the tunnels beneath the wall...
"Who are you?"
She stopped."I am Auria. Who are you?"
The voices in her head began to thrash around like mindless beasts.
"She spoke to us?"
"She can hear us?"
"Can she hear others?"
"Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you heAR ME? cAn yOU HEar ME?"
More and more voices joined in the cacophony of screams she heard inside her mind. "YES!" She screamed. "I can hear you all! Who are you?"
"We..."
"Are..."
"The..."
"Dead."
***
"Wake up, Auria." Naira shook her shoulder and Auria woke up, startled. She looked around, trying to remember where she was when she fell asleep.
YOU ARE READING
The Decay of Auria
FantasyBlood, pus, rot and broken bones. That has been her life for as long as she could remember. Her mission was to heal the world, but when the nightmares of her past started to creep upon her, Auria has realized that she had to heal herself first and f...
