She opens her eyes and sees nothing but white. Above her, around her, the white is smothering on all sides. The air smells wet and dead, like the beginnings of rot, and there's a chill in her bones that feels like it's seeping in as deep as it can get, down to her soul.
On impulse, she raises a hand and sees grey. Something inside of her says that it's wrong, that her skin should be somehow warmer.
It occurs to her, then, that she doesn't know where she is. A second later, that she doesn't know who she is. The thought isn't distressing, though, and she takes a breath of the white around her, thinking. Her head throbs, abruptly, and she winces at the sudden spike of pain.
It's cold where she is, and she doesn't feel much like moving. She hasn't looked at her body yet, and can't figure out what she'd expect to see. She feels like it would be easier to stay where she is and wait for something to come to her. She takes another breath, closes her eyes, and inhales the scent of smoke and rot and dirt, thick around her head.
Another breath, and she shifts, pulling herself to her knees. More white moves with her, this time soft fabric against her knees. Looking down, she sees more grey skin, a warm shade that seems out of place against the chill of the white, and a skirt around her legs that blends in better, spattered with something like blood around the edges. She looks down at herself, and sees more of the same; a soft frame wrapped up in white cloth, small hands curled against the ground, and wisps of something dark in her lap.
She looks around, then, sees grass surrounding her to all sides. Something in her mind says green, but what she sees is dark and sickly, the color of ash after a fire. The sky is filled with white, hanging thickly around her in a deep mist. Her head pounds again, and her face squinches.
The ground beneath her is cold and wet, and the air feels almost liquid with mist. The chill sticks to her skin, sinks inside, and the wet slips into her lungs like it belongs there. Somehow, it all feels wrong.
Her head hurts, the throbbing slowly becoming more frequent. There's a thick feeling in her chest, like she needs to be somewhere, doing something that her mind just won't let her know, and she shivers. Whoever she is, there's a reason why she's here.
The more she looks around, the more disturbing the area begins to feel. Something about it is too dead, unpleasant in a way that she can't place. A gust of wind blows, sliding a few locks of white into her vision, and she closes her eyes again. There's too much white here, and she doesn't want to be a part of it. It doesn't feel right to be a part of it.
The idea that she needs to be somewhere only grows stronger with every passing moment, a sense of urgency settling in her bones like lead. Whatever needs to be done, it needs to be done quickly, soon.
On that impulse, she stands, almost overbalancing at a sudden weight around her head. A raised hand confirms that there are horns coming out of her head, long and thick and not what she expected to be there. How strange, she thinks, that the body she's in barely feels like her own. She's certainly alive, certainly awake, and yet, every moment feels like a dream.
When she begins to walk, her bare feet crush the sickly grass with little crunches, sink into the wet earth with every step. She shivers, feeling unnerved all over again, and walks a bit faster. The sooner she's away from here, the better.
With only the idea that she needs to get somewhere, accomplish something in mind, she chooses a direction at random and follows it.
Anywhere would be better than this field, where everything feels so dead and dry. The unpleasant feeling is only rising the longer she's surrounded by the fog and ashy grass, so it only makes sense to leave.
She adjusts to the horns faster than she'd expect, soon correcting her gait to match the weight of them tugging at her skull. Within minutes, it feels as natural as can be to have the twin weights on her head, and that thought is almost more strange than that she feels they shouldn't have been there in the first place. Still breathing in fog, she shivers once more.
Before too long, the ground underneath the girl changes, going from grassy to hard and pebbled with sharp rocks. The beginnings of small trees peek out from the dark earth, their wood blackened and damp. She finds a path soon enough, solid ground packed down in a simple trail.
It's around that point that a figure emerges from the fog.
It's a person, small and hunched over like they're afraid. She takes a step closer, and the figure comes into a view; a girl, shaking like she's going to fall apart, with two sets of eyes and wearing tattered clothes. Her face is thin and wide-eyed, every one of them blinking in unison when she catches sight of the other girl within the fog. Abruptly, she turns and runs, slippered feet pounding on the path below her. The horned girl freezes, confused by the sudden reaction, but just as quickly forces herself to follow.
The girl with many eyes is fast, though, and she soon vanishes into the fog, body fading from view within seconds. The grey girl soon slows her own gait, quickly giving up on keeping up with someone so nimble.
However, a loud voice soon follows, and the grey girl freezes in place, hoping that whoever it is will come closer.
This time, the person to emerge from the fog is tall, towering over the grey girl herself. She too has horns, but hers stretch upwards proudly above her head. Her skin is pale and sickly, and off-white hair hangs straight around her head. The look on her face is proud and almost angry, and the black clothes knotted around her body hide very little. What stands out most to the grey girl, though, are the vicious-looking claws at her sides, nails long and sharp, held like she's ready to tear something apart.
"Found her!" the clawed girl yells, voice powerful and echoing into the fog. She looks at the grey girl like she's some kind of pest, and takes another step forward, claws twitching a bit in an intimidating gesture.
"Selfishness, knock it off," another voice follows, and another figure emerges from the fog a step behind. "You're only going to ruin it like you always do." This time it's another smaller girl. This one has skin like ash, dark hair falling into her face like ink. Her eyes are a brilliant red that shines in the fog, and there's a trail of thorns hanging from her mouth, winding around her throat like a noose. She's thin, unhealthily so, and wearing a tattered, black dress that falls to her ankles in rips and rags.
Behind her is the small one, the one with many eyes, clinging to her back and digging in with sharp claws. Every eye she has is wide, and she appears to be chewing through her own lip from nervousness.
"Shut up!" The clawed one, Selfishness snaps. The grey girl takes a step back. Something about these girls, even beyond their monstrous appearance is giving her a bad feeling, something dark and cold in her gut. Selfishness lunges forward, though, digging her claws into the grey girl's shoulder and yanking her towards the other two.
It hurts, pain shooting through her arm like fire as the girl's claws sink in deep. The grey girl barely stifles a yelp, stumbling where she's shoved. The red-eyed girl snorts a mean little laugh, and the one with many eyes flinches, ducking behind the other one in a terrified gesture.
"Selfishness, stop!" she whines. "We don't know if she's dangerous. What if she's planning to... to rip our guts out?" The many-eyed one shivers, watching with visible anxiousness. The grey girl forces a smile.
With a squeak, the many-eyed one is back to hiding, and the red-eyed one heaves a sigh. "You're pathetic, Cowardly," she says. "No wonder we can never get anything done. All you do is whine. We're going to fail for sure because you won't shut up." The tone of her voice is low and cruel, and it draws a whine from the girl behind her. For people that appear to be allies, the grey girl thinks, they certainly don't seem to get along with each other.
"We only fail because you're the one who won't shut up," Selfishness snaps, baring her teeth and putting another rough grip on the grey girl's shoulder. "So quit griping and deal with this. I'm in charge, remember?"
"Ugh, gross. I don't want to follow your stupid orders," the red-eyed one says. "You're not the leader, and you're bad at taking charge anyway."
"Um, Negativity?" Cowardly asks, with a note of panic in her voice. "W-We do, um, need to figure this out, though... Or, or sh-she's gonna be real mad." She raises one clawed hand to her mouth and bites down.
At once, something cold washes across the three of them. At that last sentence, they all go silent, looking at each other like there's something even these monsters dread. The grey girl bites her lip. Her head still hurts, and all of this is becoming painfully confusing. Three people appearing out of the fog, dragging her around, and arguing with each other about things that she doesn't understand, all talking over her head like she's not even there.
"Shit, fine," Selfishness mumbles, at last, breaking the silence. "You, with the horns, who are you? Why are you here?" Her features scrunch up into a nasty look, glaring unhappily in an ugly look that seems to suit her.
"You're asking the wrong person," the grey girl says, and her voice doesn't seem her own. "I don't know. I opened my eyes, and I was here, and I know nothing else. I'm probably more confused than you are." Sounding braver than she feels, the grey girl meets Selfishness's eyes, then Negativity's, trying to predict if any of them are going to lash out.
"That's normal," Negativity mumbles. "You aren't special. No one knows much when they first get here." She stares with piercing red eyes, and the grey girl notices that more thorns slide out of her mouth with every word, winding around her throat and staining her mouth with red.
"Do you, uh, know your name?" Cowardly asks softly, all of her eyes flickering over to look at the grey girl. It's unnerving, unnatural.
But the grey girl thinks. No word immediately comes to her, but nothing has so far. She thinks that she probably has a name, that she just can't think of it, and shakes her head. Her headache is worsening, and it's hard to think of anything, much less something as abstract as what she could be named. The other girls look at her with annoyance, like it's some big hassle that she can't remember what she should be called.
"...we all knew our names," Negativity mutters again. "Who doesn't? Are you stupid or something? Maybe your head's broken?" The grey girl frowns. By this point, she's not expecting anything good from these girls, but that line still felt downright uncalled for. Pessimistic, just like her name.
"Shut up," Selfishness chimes in, abruptly giving the grey girl another shove. She stumbles forward, back towards the path, and looks around in confusion. "We have a job to do, and just 'cause this one's weird doesn't mean we get to stop. You two, quit whining and let's get going. You all can talk to her while I get some peace!" The last part is a laugh, and the other two scowl. Apparently, having to speak to the grey girl is some kind of terrible burden. She doesn't think she likes being thought of in that way.
Instead of complaining, though, the grey girl bites her lip and starts walking. She already has a decent guess that these girls won't just let her walk away. She has little choice but to follow them, and at this point, it's probably the best thing she can do. Maybe she'll remember something soon.
After a few minutes, Cowardly speaks up again. "We're taking you back to our town," she says, back to chewing at her fingers. "There are people who will know what to do there. You'll remember soon."
"Thank you," the grey girl says, and Cowardly looks at her like she's lost her mind, scurrying quickly back to Negativity's side.
A town doesn't sound so bad. An idea of there being more of those like her springs into the grey girl's head; those who will know who she is, why she's there. It sounds almost comforting, and while the grey girl is hesitant to hope for much from people like this, she allows the idea to settle, to grow. Perhaps there will be some solution to this after all.
The path that they follow is long, and the fog is so thick that it's hard to see more than a few feet away. It sinks into the grey girl's lungs, heavy and cold. It forms a vice grip around her lungs. Something like dread sits heavy in her throat, the sense that her problems will have no solution that is so easy, the worry that all she'll find are more of these monstrous girls, and less of anything that might tell her what she's doing here. Less of anything that could say why she still feels the need to do something while she's here.
Breathing, feeling the chill around her and in her lungs, the grey girl forces herself to keep moving. She won't find anything if she doesn't continue to press on, that much she knows for certain.
The girls around her are still bickering, quiet insults being exchanged through the silence of the heavy fog. Negativity makes a nasty quip about how useless Selfishness is for leaving all the work to them. Selfishness bites back a remark about how, as weak as Negativity is, it's obvious that Selfishness should get the easy role. A moment later, a line mocking Negativity for not being able to do anything about it. A laugh. Then, Cowardly chiming in with a whimpered plea to stop fighting.
As expected, no one listens, and the back-and-forth continues. Cowardly winces again, and the grey girl notices that she's begun to scratch a nasty looking hole into her arm, red, and oozing blood over her rough skin. Her eyes flicker around as if searching for danger, and the grey girl can almost swear that she sees Cowardly's ears twitch for a moment.
Like a little animal, she thinks, and then regrets it. Her mind supplies an image of a nervous little dog all covered in eyes.
In order to bite back a laugh, the grey girl goes back to looking around. They've moved on to what appears to be a full forest of the same dead, unpleasant looking trees. Every one of them has black bark and no leaves, spindly branches reaching up into the sky without a hint of green.
There's brambles, thorns, and dead matter around their twisting, exposed roots, sharp, hard ground embedded with little rocks. The path is the only clear part, and even it is dark and solid, harsh under bare feet.
Everything looks sick and dead, like there's not a bit of life left in this world. The fog hangs heavily over all of it, a curtain smothering whatever might have dared to grow. She shivers, feels her head pound all over again. The hurt hasn't faded yet. If anything, it's getting worse; a steady aching at her temples that threatens to stop her in her tracks, grab ahold and choke--
She breathes. The sound of the girls arguing beside her begins to drown out the pain. She keeps walking, refusing to let herself slow down.
A moment later, something catches her eye. The grey girl freezes, pauses, and takes a step off of the path. There's a rock just a couple feet away, and for an instant, all she sees within its marbled surface is a face.
But just as quickly as the sight drew her attention, a clawed hand closes around her shoulder, forcing her away.
"What are you doing?" Selfishness snaps, yanking hard enough to make her stumble again. "We're walking this way, stupid. See, Negativity, this is why I said you have to watch this one." She laughs cruelly, turns away, and when the grey girl has an instant to look back, all she sees in the rock are empty swirls. No sign of the face that was there before.
"Hold on," she says, voice soft. "There... that rock, does anyone else see a face in it? It looked like a girl, like us." The other three pause, turn around, matching looks of annoyance and bafflement on their faces.
"I think you are stupid," Negativity says. "Or you're just trying to distract us. Those two might look it, but we're not dumb enough to think there's a face in a rock." She tilts her head, annoyed, and her hair spills over her face like ink. More thorns have fallen, winding themselves around her neck, and she reaches up for just a moment to tug the length of them away.
The grey girl watches blood drip down her hands, staining her skin with red. She swallows hard. She doesn't say anything else. She doesn't think it would be wise to. Cowardly is flickering between eyeing the rock-like she thinks it's about to move, and giving the grey girl herself the same distrustful glare. The grey girl takes one last look at the rock, trying to see what she could have mistaken for a face. She thinks, for just a moment, that she might be able to tell if the fog were to clear just a little.
But she sees nothing, and the other girls have already started to walk off without her, and she follows, leaving the rock behind her as she jogs to keep up. She'd rather go with them than be left in this place alone.
The walk continues, and before long, the pressed-dirt path turns to stone, cold and smooth beneath her feet. The trees grow thicker, taller, stretching up into the fog like towering beasts. At first, small piles of stone begin to appear, then small structures. By the time the first real house appears, the grey girl is almost expecting it.
It doesn't look right, is the first thing she thinks. The house stands out painfully amongst the forest, wooden exterior painted a sickly shade of grey, open, busted out windows like yawning mouths in the side of it. Its roof is half caved in, and a few of the walls have begun to collapse. There's more grass around it, the same dark, dead kind as in the first field, and ever more brambles and rotten looking weeds coil up along the walls. The whole thing looks sick like no one's lived in it in far too long, and the grey girl shivers. The air smells of wood and rot, and the fog grows ever colder.
And then, finally, out of the fog in an instant, is a town. By the time they can see far enough ahead to tell that it's there, it's on top of them. Rotting buildings, collapsed, with no sign of ever having been lived in tower around them. Their path is now smooth cobblestone, and the chill of it sinks up though the grey girl's skin, ever deeper into her.
None of the other girls seem affected by the sight, though, and the grey girl forgets whatever hopes she'd had. This isn't the kind of town where anyone will be able to help her; it's just as dead as the rest of this world.
"This is our settlement," Selfishness says when they're deep within the dark rows of buildings, pausing long enough to turn around. "There are thirteen of us here, and if you're lucky, you'll be the next one. That is, if you're not too worthless for the job!" She laughs again, an ugly snort.
"If Cowardly made it, I think this one will be fine," Negativity interjects. "She can't be any more pathetic than that."
Cowardly winces again, all of her eyes narrowing miserably. She makes a bit of a face, something bitter and almost angry, but it's gone as quickly as the grey girl saw it. "I did fine!" Cowardly says, voice shaking. "I'm not worthless. Sh-She accepted me just like she did all of you."
The grey girl can't place quite why, but the mocking expressions on the faces of the other two shift to something almost fearful. It passes just as quickly, though, and Selfishness gives Cowardly a smack on the back of the head, chiding her for speaking so lightly. Negativity nods, one hand up and messing with the thorns around her neck again, tugging on them hard enough to leave little scratches in her skin.
"Do you have to be so mean to her?" the grey girl says, almost hesitantly. "You don't have to hit her. She didn't say anything wrong."
Again, all three girls look at her like she's crazy.
"Whatever," Negativity mumbles. "We have things to do. You," she glances at the grey girl, "have to meet everyone. Maybe that'll get some memories back. It's annoying that you're so empty, y'know?"
Ignored. Again. The grey girl bites her lip and resists saying anything else. She's starting to get the feeling that these three are so deep in their own heads that they're not going to give anyone else a bit of mind. Shivering again in the chill of the fog, the grey girl follows when the other three begin to move, this time deeper into the town.
Somewhere in the distance, a bell rings, the low tone echoing over the collapsing buildings. Other than that and the sound of four sets of footsteps, the air is deathly silent.
The unpleasant feeling from the field has only grown. Everything she sees makes the grey girl feel more unsettled, and everything the other girls say only causes the dread in her chest to rise. When the buildings begin to open up into something like a square, that feeling surges. She knows, knows that whatever she's going to find isn't going to be good.
And then the other girls stop. They pause just inside the edge of the open area. Selfishness yawns, bored. Negativity eyes everything around her with open disdain. Cowardly picks the wound on her arm even deeper.
One by one, nine figures emerge from the clinging fog.