When it happened, she was alone. The ceiling fan whirled gusts of warm air around the room. Akhile placed a plastic picnic chair and sat right underneath it. Her chest felt full, preventing her ability to take normal breaths. She slid down the chair, her denim blue jeans resting the motion. Just by doing this, it left her exhausted. Beads of sweat frantically flashed her forehead and nose, and the panting increased its intensity. She was having a heart attack.
"What's happening? I can't breathe." She said in a violent whisper. She lay her head down to feel cold floor, for it may cool her down, although she was shivering.
On a normal 7pm in the evening, Akhile would be preparing to go to sleep. Her routine involved 2am mornings, a 5-hour head start before driving to work at 7am. Very prompt, always on time. Just then, her mind shifted to an evaluation report she had to submit. If she can't go to work, the company will lose a lot of money in wasted resources, including her wages.
Akhile grabbed onto the coffee table to hoist herself up, but her muscles were too weak to care about her plans. She squeezed her chest as her body rolled back to lay flat on the ground. Her eyes stopped blinking, and she watched the fan oscillating, round and round. The report? Who would complete the report for her if she's too sick to work? She thought. When the pain came, it was like something heavy settling inside her chest. She noticed it purely because it interrupted her thoughts. The report was almost finished. It always was. There was constantly just one more thing to fix before she could rest.
Her gaze started to disconnect further from the fan, as if daydreaming or zoned out, and then...nothing.
That night she didn't wake up. Her 2am alarm set off, the ringing sharp, and slicing the eerie silence.
Akhile died on a Tuesday.
It was a little intense. There was no blood, or no last words to be shared with the one who stays behind and deals with her death. Just a chair pulled in the middle of the room, a fan hastily rotating, while she was peaceful and still, on her back.
Opposite the living room was the office. The screen on her desk was still burning long after midnight. The desk was adjacent to a window, which was wide open, intentionally letting the outside air in. Ironically, there was a full moon out. The image peeped through the window, shining right on her body. Although iridescent in nature, this was a blood moon. A crimson colour dressed the moon, perched in the sky and unusually big. The red embers reflected right onto her and Akhile came to, and she thrust herself up onto her feet.
The room felt cold. She glared at her hands and feet in shock, grabbing on her face too to figure out if she was back to normal. It's when Akhile noticed her dead body on the ground. Later, people would say, when she's found after a month, badly decomposed, they would say, she was hardworking, reliable, and an overachiever. The kind of woman you could always count on. No one would say she was lonely. No one would say she had been tired for years. No one would say she deserved better. Death felt like falling asleep without permission.
Akhile gasped and sat next to her body upright, breath tearing out of her lungs as though she had been underwater too long. Her hands flew to her chest. The pain was gone.
Suddenly her body was light, like a wafer biscuit melting in your mouth. Without realising, she levitated out of the window. Akhile was carried by the gentle night breeze. As her body approached the blood moon, she knew what will happen, knowledge imposed by the way of life. As she peeked to her side, there were others, floating in the distance towards the moon. Each spirit would enter the moon and vanish, pouf!
At her turn, a flash of light darted across the sky and landed perfectly on the other side. It was a shooting star. And then…pouf!
The air smelled light with a hint of natural fauna. It was as if someone had just mowed the grass or pruned a hedge. Sweet and green, like crushed leaves and rain soaked soil. Her body felt unfamiliar. Weightless. Smaller. Her heartbeat was frantic, but strong.
Akhile looked down. The foreign hands had started trembling on her lap as she realised they were not hers. Hers were brown, long lady fingers with a beauty mark on the top of her palm. Now, her hands were pale, and embellished with a couple of gold rings. One of the rings was on her left-hand marriage finger, and had a large diamond.
Silk clung to her skin, soft and heavy at the same time. The emerald green velvet skirt she had on felt soft like butter. Her hair was too long now and thick. It was a copper orange colour, and thick, spilling over her shoulders like dark drapes.
"No," she whispered.
The sound of her voice startled her. It was softer, youthful. This was not the voice she had lived with for all her life.
She slid off the bed, knees hitting something warm and plush beneath her feet. The room was large, unfamiliar, carved with dark wood and hung with curtains the colour of dried bay leaf. Everything felt expensive and rigid, like a life that had been arranged rather than lived.
She stumbled toward the mirror, but the woman staring back at her was beautiful in a distant, careful way. She had a shorter, petite frame, high cheekbones, and a mixed-race, light complexion. Some freckles were prominent around her nose and forehead. She had wide, uncertain green eyes. Akhile noticed a faint discomfort near her temple that pulsed gently, almost like it was breathing.
Akhile touched her face to feel the mark. The girl in the mirror copied her.
Her stomach knotted, and nausea was triggered. "This isn't real," she said, louder now, as if the room might answer.
Outside, bells began to ring slowly and persistently. Somewhere far below, the volume of voices rose in murmurs. And above it all, hanging low in the sky, was the blood moon. Red. Not orange red, or dark gold, but red. The colour of battle and death.
Memories slammed into her all at once.
Princess Cora of the Meadowlands.
Betrothed since birth.
Sacred Peak.
The Redcliffs.
The Redcliffs…
The knowledge did not give her grace. It was shoved into her mind, clear and coherent, carrying expectations and obligations she had never agreed to. This future was already determined. This was someone else's body, their memories, their youth.
Akhile sank onto the edge of the bed, her heart racing. It's when she recalled her passing. She had died working herself into nothing. She had her soul until no part of her left, felt like her own.
A knock sounded at the door. This knock was gentle and respectful.
"Your Highness," a woman's voice said softly. "The Redcliff envoys have arrived."