2. AWAKENED
Footsteps, lots of rushing footsteps echoed. She could hear them from a far before her eyes fluttered open. It was dark and she wondered if just passed out. Here I was thinking that I could finally rest! She opened my eyes slowly and the sight of the moon greeted her again. The moon looked oddly small and almost orange in colour with shades of red. Someone walked over her, not walking, ran and jumped over her as if she did not see her. It was a woman. She was wearing an odd type of shoes and a long dress edged with some type of ornaments at the hems. It looked like it used to be breathtaking when it was new but now it was. Their hair fell to their mid back as if it had never been cut and it was decorated with flowers.
Mira had never seen anyone dressed that bizarre in Riot city and she shifted to sit up. She felt so weak but her body was not aching anymore. She was dressed in a white dress or perhaps it used to be white. It barely reached beneath her knees and it was torn in different areas. The swelling on her body seemed to have melted away and she even seemed thinner as if she hadn't eaten for weeks. She looked around and she was just lying on some type of a sidewalk in a street with odd houses. Their design was one she had never seen before. Her hair was voluminous but dirty and it ran to her waist.
Mira pulled her hands in front of her and inspected them on instinct. She was whole with no broken fingers. As if red hair and his team had not done a number on her that could take at least a month to heal.
Another person shoved past her, this one a man. He also was dressed in loose pants but he was not wearing any shoes. His hair was long too but it stopped right above his shoulders. His upper body was covered by a small net-like material. He didn't even spare her a glance as he disappeared in the distance. Another group of men and women passed her, dressed in the same way and when they looked at her their expression grew to that of confusion but they did not stop.
I might have died afterall.
She looked around and could not recognize anything. She pulled the skin of my exposed leg to wake up from the dream that was starting to get real by the moment. She flinched in pain.
I am not dead? I'm in the afterlife?
She stood to her feet and looked at her bare feet. She was dirty as if she had been sitting in mud. She took a step and her legs were oddly weak. She walked in the direction the people were moving too. Even the sidewalk seemed weird and there were no tall buildings. It looked like a small city yet without skyscrapers. She walked slowly confused. A couple of people passed her and soon the streets were clean. She could tell what time of the night it was but it was as if everyone had disappeared from the streets.
People of this afterlife city must sleep really pretty early! Back in north bridge city it was business as usual till morning. Well for the gangs.
She walked for a bit and the silence kept getting deeper and deeper. She was not one to be easily scared by night and silence but pindrop silence had never not been scary. Mira hurried in her footsteps and all she met street after street were locked doors with no sign of life outside. She might have been dead or stuck between life and death but she could suddenly feel her hands rising with goosebumps. Everything was odd and she felt as if she was being watched. If this was a nightmare it was thoroughly accurate and real and she was beginning not to like it.
She walked to a door in one street that was not yet locked. It looked like the owner was throwing something out. The moment she saw her however she locked her door with a bang and mira wondered if she was a ghost hunting the place. She walked down another street feeling more frantic now. Being left alone outside a silent town at night, no matter what world one was in was still scary. She hurried into another street willing to find anyone who could talk to her and maybe offer her a place to stay but only more empty streets and locked doors welcomed her. So much for finally resting!
She was about to go into another street when a terrible sound reached her ear. A sound she had never heard before. It was as if a wolf had swallowed a sick dog and they had made a baby who was strangled. Her rushed steps broke into a run. She knocked on doors frantically as she ran but no one opened. Something must have been out there. She did not need to understand the world she has been thrown into to understand that the behaviour of the people here was odd. She tried to open her mouth to speak but her tongue was heavy as if she hadn't spoken for ages.
She stopped pounding on random doors when the odd sound came again and ran inti a rundown street panicking.
"Nyra!" a sharp whisper stopped her in her tracks. She turned around but she could not see anyone. Only shabby houses that were about to topple over. She must have been the outcasts of a city. They looked like slums for the poor back in Riot city.
"Nyra, is that you?!" the voice whispered again and she wheeled around again. That is when she saw her. A face was looking at her from between the cracks of one of the rundown houses. Mira ran quickly and when she came closer the face between the cracks lit up.
"Oh Mira, I thought I'd never see you again," the person said with relief. Before Mira could bang on the door to show the urgency of her situation, the door latched open and the person pulled her inside with so much force. It was a woman, a small woman. Mira couldn't tell her age from the dim light in the house but she was grateful she was not out there anymore.
"Where did you go yesterday?" the voice said pulling her deeper into the shabby apartment until she was sat on a soft surface which she assumed was a bed. She did not know what to answer and she could not speak for some reason so she just stared at the silhouette of the woman. "Did you aunt catch you again? I told you not to let her take you." the woman chastised and Mira could not for herself understand what she was talking about.
The woman did not look repulsed by her dirty clothes and she was not looking at her weirdly so mira allowed herself to relax a little. She had never learned to trust anyone beside natalia but she had never been one to judge a person by a rumour or looks. She always gave everyone a chance to prove themselves.
"You must be hungry, you poor thing, when I catch her again I will give her to the hounds myself." the woman ranted. She walked over to a platform and fetched water and some bread. She did not look like she had much but she seemed to care a lot about the person called Nyra. Mira almost felt guilty about taking advantage of her kindness but she would explain everything in the morning. She was pretty hungry and thirsty even so and she gulped down the water before she munched down the bread.
"Let's go to bed." the woman said after nyra was done eating. She was still hungry but it did not look like there was any more food to begin with. Mira hesitated before laying down gently on the covers. The rugs, more of. They offered barely any protection from the cold but with the two of them sleeping close together, she felt warm. Mira could not sleep however. She did not hear the strangled growl again but she was sure she had not mistaken it. She stared at the roof of the small cubicle of a house and did not sleep for a long time.
No matter how hard she taught she could not come up with an explanation of what had happened to her or why she could not speak. She opened her mouth and the task felt hard. She had not had any problem eating but her tongue felt heavy as it did not know how to form words. She had read books of people finding themselves in parallel universes and just that thought almost made her laugh. This is not a book and there is no way I was Mira in one universe and now I'm Nyra in another. Absolutely ridiculous!
Perhaps I should go to sleep and when I wake up this nightmare will be over!
"I can hear you thinking nyra, you always do this when that witch puts you in her cages again." the woman's voice came again and Nyra just then realised they were both awake. She tried to form a word to ask a question but she couldn't. Only deep grunts could come out of her throat as if she was strangled. She was a music teacher and her voice might have not been the best but she still considered herself a good singer yet now she was struggling to make a word.
"I understand, you don't have to struggle, your voice will come back to you. The further you stay from that witch the better you will be." The woman encouraged and Mira felt hopeless. Was she in this universe or nightmare mute?
That could not be the case however because the woman just said that it would come back to her if she stayed away from a certain witch. So, had the voice of herself in this universe been taken away? That would be tragic and even more tragic that she could not even ask why she could not speak. She had always loved singing ever since she was a child and justt imagining that she might never be able to sing or talk was torture. Perhaps she was dead and she was paying for dying so easily without giving a proper goodbye to natalia. If that was the case then she derived it.
I'm so sorry, Natalia. Forgive me!