CHROMA [CW: Novel/Draft]

[Will]

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~Prologue, Pt. 1~

…This must be a bad dream…

I opened my heavy eyes to blackness; everything that lay before me appeared cloaked by this infinite overcast of nothingness. Curious, I slowly ascended from my lying position to a weak, unbalanced stand. My back felt damp, as if I was sleeping on dew-coated leaves on a cold autumn’s morning. Below me I could see ripples along the ground, like a shallow puddle that stretched as far as the darkness would let me see. Behind them I could see a reflection, entirely white and featureless, undimmed by the dark surrounding it, mirroring my crude movements, distorting with each passing ripple under my feet. From this bleak darkness emerged sounds far in the distance, too faint to make out from my current position. Blindly I followed the sounds, hoping to find some clue as to where I was.

I walked for so long it felt, that I had begun to lose track of time. The further I went, however, the more the sounds grew, eventually growing loud enough to make out. They were cries of pain from men and women, mashed in with the snarling of a million beasts all lapsed over the ironically chilling baseline of an intense flame. Against my better judgment, I continued into the wicked sounds before me. Even though the presence of death cackled so close to my ear, the darkness made me feel safe, like a child fending off the night with a thick blanket. Unfortunately my security was soon cast aside from a distant, but rapidly growing fire piercing the darkness I had come to grow so fond of. Before I could fully perceive it, the flames had then surrounded my vision, filling the area with a wickedly twisting and growing red haze. The water underneath me had thickened to the consistency of blood, though I couldn't tell by looking at it. Amongst it lay countless kinds of debris, ranging from wooden structures, weapons, rotten fruit and array of corpses and cadavers, some of which from creatures I had never even seen or imagined. The carnage had a familiar sense of a battlefield or pillaging, though not by men, but by beasts, whose roars continued to ring around my head.

After a few more weakly hastened steps into the scene, there stood before me something unlike what I had seen before. It was different in that it was standing upright, alive, and fixed upon the fire in front of it. Closer examination showed it to be a woman, clad in plate armor, almost untouched by the chaos around her. I mustered my strength and called out to her, but my voice made no sound. I tried again and again to no avail. I was suddenly as fixated on the woman, the only apparent sign of life in this burning hellhole, as she was on the fire that burned before her. I tried walking closer to her, but I was quickly struck down by weakness that grew stronger exponentially with each step. All I could do was passively gaze as the flame inched more and more towards her. I was so strangely distraught by my inability to grab her attention. My body trembled in attempts to keep my balance. The sweat dripping from my brow felt like rain. As the fire had almost entirely encompassed her, I desperately let out all I could in one single wretched cry.

“PLEASE, LOOK AT ME!!!”

The woman immediately turned to me. Her face was cloaked by her hair, tattered and torn from its otherwise upheld style. What little of it was visible was stained by tears. Yet still she held a gentle smile, even in the presence of death and pain.

Suddenly, before I could react, the fire had erupted, as if my getting the woman’s attention sparked its fury. It quickly engulfed us both, blinding me with its fury. I flinched back, slamming my eyes shut and futilely blocking my face with my arms.

When I opened my eyes again, I was awake.