Becoming alive.
A moment, a day, maybe a year, unfortunately a decade. A period of time of coming into the awareness of oneself.
Usually accompanied by thought, action, inaction, a single word, a change in the wind, a tick as the cosmic chains snapped and everything began.
As perceptive as she was, Korin should have noticed, but few ever do. That's the thing about being aware; you simply aren't until you are. Only much later would she recall where her world began to change…
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The illusion fell away and she heaved and blood and bile, white froth mixed with oil and grit in a deep red, splattered the white tile beneath her.
This one had been of falling. Body rag-dolling through clouds alit by a setting sun. Great succulent cumulonimbus, whose bottoms churned dark, ready to unleash sheets of rain upon parched lands. They'd been cold. Korin didn't know clouds were cold.
She was sure she'd fallen like that before, tumbling through space in a dream. That's why the illusion had broken so fast; the experience not novel enough to be fooled by its falseness.
Her head pounded, eyes watering as bright stone assaulted her. She lay crumpled in the blank prison with towering walls and not a single entrance or exit to be seen. The only color that decorated its surfaces was that of her own blood. Pooled and thick in puddles. It was incredible how her own body could hold so much redness.
And just as usual, once the illusion faded her life's essence began to bubble and gurgle. Sticky, slick hands emerging from its surface. Some burst through spraying droplets about while others crept up ominously. Each hand seemed to possess a personality of its own. Some coalescing, some stroking one another, slapping, pinching, clawing– all dragging themselves towards her.
The horrific sight had quit scaring her some handful of illusions prior. Deep exhaustion had set in and her brain simply refused to expend the extra effort anymore. Her body was broken. Ripped up, covered in cuts and bruises. Shackles and chains sat heavy on her limbs and around her neck. Dried blood caked her head, matting her hair to her scalp.
There were new arrows twisted into her felsh, two in her side and another in her thigh. These were the weapons that induced the magical illusions. Laced with poison and magic.
The mimic said she would wish for death in the prison. And she had. A tiny sliver of cruel want that settled in the back of her mind, but she didn't die. Filled with arrows, spilling all she had across stone, she still remained alive. It was keeping her alive. And in such cruel fashion.
"You stayed there longer than I expected you to." An all too familiar disembodied man commented. It was the master of the arrows, the one who imbued the illusions. Korin had yet to see the illusionist who hid away at the top of the prison cell, but she knew his voice well.
"Huuuu." She pushed out a flat noise, somewhere between a sigh and wheeze. "I was enjoying the wind on my face."
The man chortled, a sound that filled the cell with crowish rings. "Has anyone ever told you you're quite funny?"
She watched, stone faced and uncaring, as the hands crept near and near. The closest, only a meter away now. She looked up then, towards the direction of the voice. "No." No one had ever found Korin humorous before. That she was quite sure of. "Perhaps it is only you that brings out my humor."
"Isn't that beautiful?" A smile could be heard in his voice.
When Korin didn't reply, the man continued, "You and I are discovering so much about ourselves. Humor, joy, pain, limits." His words curled in the air, a bitter sting in the undercurrent of his tone and his last sentence came out with a sinister ring, "We are bringing out the best in each other, in the worst kinds of ways."
She remained silent. Neither glaring nor pleading, simply gazed into the void above her. Dead eyes set in a face that could define monotony, the unyielding, the apathetic.
The man sighed deeply, disappointed in her lack of repertoire. "Well then," he said. "Shall we continue? There are still many important things to be learned from one another."
Korin swallowed, still looking up into the darkness. "I don't think I have much of a choice here." Her words were dull, a flat progression of syllables that only had meaning because the listener spoke the language.
"There you go again with that humor of yours." She felt his unseen smiles, licks of insidious intent on the surface of broken skin. The promise of mirages and pain laced on the heads of arrows eager to fly.
A brief rustle was heard, then the creak of a bow string being drawn. She let her head fall, being shot in the face, her second least favorite thing about the prison.
Korin missed her father.
She missed the village where no one liked her, where she could never return. She missed the breeze that flowed through the mountains. She missed the morning fog and being able to see the moon. She missed Etan, their predictable routine at the bakery, and even his childish little performances.
And… she even missed Mikhail. He'd spent the last couple moons suspiciously in her business- like no one had ever been before. Suspicious as it was, she still missed his bothersome antics and the cunning he hid behind his charms. She didn't like it, but she even missed how he was always too close. Always pressing himself into her personal space. She was not so detached that his subtle interest in her went unnoticed. Or perhaps that was just the illusions influencing her.
Mikhail had been one of the first illusions she was poisoned with and the after effects of the mirage had remained with her in the hellish room. A fake companion she clung to. There to help her carry the weight of her torment.
She wondered now what the foreigner was doing? She hadn't been home in weeks. Did he help look for her? Did anyone look for her? Probably her father, the elders, and Etan, maybe Mikhail; but she could not picture anyone else in the village caring enough to even wonder. It's not like she could ever return anyways. She'd left the mountain. The condition for her very existence. Don't leave the mountain. If she left the mountain she'd become wanted. Probably executed if arrested. Simple.
A new desire filled her chest, heavy and hot, climbing its way into her throat and burning her eyes. The wish for comfort. A yearning to be held and told everything would be okay.
The thwop of an arrow being released blew through the cell.
Korin closed her eyes and waited for impact as the gruesome sticky hands finally caressed her mangled body.