The moment the light dimmed and I opened my eyes, I looked into darkness. It was silent. There were no people chanting or talking. The sun wasn't blazing down my neck. There was only an encompassing darkness. That wasn't wholly true. There was dim light. I saw how it was swallowed by the shadows around me. Looking down I found that I was the source of the light. Small sparks played on my skin, shining their light valiantly and faintly illuminating a rocky ground beneath me. I raised an eyebrow. I'd never sparked before and I doubted I could do it now that I knew of my cores.

I looked around again. If anything, all of this had never happened before. Was this a normal occurrence when doing the ritual? Perhaps I'd done something wrong after all. I'd been infuriated when I casted the spell. I could be in Umbra's arms for all I knew.

It occurred to me that I felt oddly calm. My anger was gone. The fear I always harboured for Umbra and her attempts to claim our souls also stayed out. I was simply here. I shrugged and tried to place my hands in my pockets, forgetting that I was wearing a skirt. Instead I locked them behind my back and strained my eyes against the darkness. There wasn't much to see, however there was a gentle breeze caressing me.

The ground started to shake, forcing me to take a step back to keep my balance. A deep rumbling sound echoed from the deep. "Curious."

I raised my eyebrow again. If anything, that would have been my line. The shaking stopped and I was once again left alone with only the breeze wafting past me. While I did not feel obligated to find out what that voice was, I also knew that staying here would most certainly not do me any good. I carefully placed a foot in front of me, finding that the rock supported me. Another tentative step followed. I became certain that I could at least walk safely. Thus I continued my way towards the breeze. Surely that would lead to some kind of exit out of this darkness, would it not?

It felt strange, walking in total darkness. My own faint glow did nothing to give me an idea whether I was walking towards something or not. My steps made no sound, no matter how hard I stamped my feet. The only thing that accompanied me was my own nasal breathing. I walked on for quite a while. Sometimes I wondered why I even bothered, but remaining in place felt worse so I just pushed on. My reluctance to move vanished when I heard a sound. It was a voice. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but it was clear someone was up ahead. I picked up the pace. Whoever they were, they could perhaps tell me where I was.

Light broke through, forcing me to a stop. I rubbed my eyes, as the light was blinding after having seen nothing but the dark. A groan flitted my lips, which made whoever spoke stop. By now I'd figured it was a voice of a girl, so I doubted I was in any real danger. The wind picked up around me as I was still trying to ease my eyes to the new environment, when I heard a gasp. I opened my eyes hesistantly, forming a frown the moment I got sight of the person in front of me. The short black hair was more wind-swept then I was used to and the bangs seemed to move on a breeze. Green eyes looked at me perplexed. To finish it all, she was wearing the same clothes I'd donned when I prepared for the Ritual of Summoning. In short, I was looking at myself. The only difference between us was that she was not sparking. Instead she was a bit taller. That and perhaps our reaction to this.

My copy took another gulp of air, causing my own hair to move towards her for a moment. A second later she was trying to touch my cheek. I slapped it away before she could, but still a spark tazed her. She pulled back, shaking her hand. The look of pain was quickly replaced by a large grin.

"This is so interesting! Where did you come from? Are you really me? No, maybe not. Then again, I'm maybe not me either. Can you speak? What were you doing? Have you seen all of this?"

A lot of questions were fired from her and all I could do was stare. I'd never faced myself before. Not like this. It was a little overwhelming. Breathing became a bit difficult as she kept talking. Was I even supposed to answer? Realizing I wasn't going to get a word in, I lifted my arms like my mother would do if I got excited.

"Okay, first remember that you need to breath," I said loud enough to interrupt her. "Second, can you explain a few things?"

She grinned broadly but did at the very least stop talking. She muttered the word "interesting", nodded and rocked on her feet, which I now noticed weren't even touching the ground. I raised an eyebrow and looked at her.

"What do you wanna know?" she said, this time calmer.

"Who are you? Why do you look like me?" I said.

A squeal was my reply. I honestly did not know how to react to it. She moved to take me by the shoulders, hesitated and then motioned me to follow her. She skipped ahead - something of which I was certain I hadn't done since I was six - and some form of near maniacal laughter came from her as she lead me through what I assumed was a part of this weird dream. I mean, I did not spark and you never met yourself like this. This had to be a dream. The light came from above and as I took my time to look around, I found myself walking on clouds. Stamping harder made them disperse, revealing the same rocky ground as before. Above me were more clouds. The dim blue light that had made me come to a halt seemed to emanate from the ceiling. We passed several clouds on which things were stationed. I saw attempts at art, several discarded papers next to a writing desk, an attempt at knitting, tailoring, cooking, gardening and several discarded games on each cloud. However, there were a few that stuck out. Those had makeshift dolls of human size on them. Some were still standing while others were ripped apart. I stared a little longer at those clouds, causing me to nearly bump into her when she finally halted before the final cloud. Rather than having something on top of it, it seemed to be used as a blackboard. My handwriting was all over the place along with the same sad drawings I knew I made.

"You have to be me, because you immediately asked the only viable question!" the copy squealed excited.

I pressed my lips together. Honestly, I had more questions on my mind, but that was the first I wanted an answer to.

"Or you are me?" I countered, which caused her to take a deep breath and tap my nose. A small spark tried to reprimand her, but she was quicker this time.

"Exactly! But rather than argue who's the true us, I think neither of us are!"

I blinked owlishly. It made extremely little sense. I frowned but it was clear I didn't have to ask as she turned to her large cloud.

"You see, when I woke up, I was here. Lots of clouds, lots of stuff to do. Safe from the darkness and definitely safe from that terrifying voice. So I started thinking. Things weren't adding up. I was so incredibly angry when I did that ritual. Why wasn't I angry now? And why was I surrounded by clouds?"

She gestured to the clouds surrounding us and an indulgent grin formed. "I'll be honest, I might have put those thoughts on hold because I wanted to paint the clouds. And then I thought it would be a really great story you know? The girl in the clouds or something like that. But then I got stuck on what she would wear and tried to make it myself, I got hungry along the way and wondered how plants actually grow to make the food we need. And somewhere along the line I got bored and tried to play a few games, though I have to say that they make horrible opponents."

She finished with pointing at the animals made of clouds. I recognized a version of Mousey next to the chess board. I nodded at the clouds she hadn't explained. She followed my gaze and grinned again.

"Oh those. I was thinking of how I'd be able to use these powers on those two, you know?"

I didn't need to guess who she meant with that. However it did give me a pause. I raised an eyebrow at her.

"I thought you said you weren't angry?"

She shook her head.

"Don't misunderstand me. I don't feel anger. I can understand it. Thus I can gather we'd definitely will try something. To do that, we need to know what to do and probably grow a lot stronger to do so." At this point she was pointing at a whole other part of her cloud, where questions about growing stronger, along with options were listed. It was actually more organized than her main attempt of answering her questions. "I've simply been reviewing methods."

I rubbed the back of my neck and looked back. My walk here didn't feel that long. Had she been doing all that in such a short time? If she were right, and she was me or a part of me, how did I not go insane?

"I woke up in darkness not too long ago, with nothing but sparks," I said, hoping she'd explain a bit more. Perhaps she'd awakened before me.

She had taken her eyes of her noted and was staring at Mousey, with a happy smile played on her lips. However when I spoke, her gaze found me again with renewed joy. Almost as if she'd forgotten I was here. She nodded enthusiastically and started to scrawl that into her cloud.

"Interesting. And did you hear the voice or was that just me? You know the one who said 'Curious'." She needlessly tried to copy the deep voice of before. I nodded. She jotted it down. "And how did you react?"

I shrugged. "Well. Not really. I mean, it was just a voice."

"An eerie voice coming out of nowhere. And I've seen that darkness of yours. You can't tell me that didn't make it extra terrifying?"

I shrugged again. "I can't say it did. I just felt the need to move. Standing still in the darkness wasn't going to help me. Though I'm wondering if you are."

She looked at me with big eyes. "But what if that darkness is part of Umbra's? What if that voice is hers?"

I raised an eyebrow. "If that's the case, then she sounds oddly manly."

Rather than insulted, of which I was certain she had to be, she nodded and started writing things down. I held my head askew as I watched her. Twice now I had made a remark that would definitely irritate me if I heard it used against me. Normally I'd feel rather smug about it to if I made them. yet both my smugness as her sense of insult stayed out. She turned back to me, copied me by holding her own head askew before the smug grin I should have been having formed on her face.

"I know you're insulting me. Or try to anyway. Isn't it sad that you're insulting yourself?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but found no words to reply with. I closed my mouth, thought better of it and just ignored her obvious jab to me.

"You keep saying that we're the same, yet there are some glaring differences between us," I said.

She nodded slowly, her grin not disappearing. I started to feel like I was being lectured. Or patronized. She gestured for me to continue. I pressed my lips together for a moment and peered at her notes on the cloud. There was a really crude drawing of a person with sparks - which I assumed was me - with the words 'Absent: joy, fear' written beneath it. I looked back at her.

"I am sparking and you are floating. You are afraid of the voice and the dark. And apparently perfectly happy to stay here with all your pet projects. In fact, you were even given a place to do all those pet projects. I know for a fact that I don't have that many hobbies at home. I don't even think we know how to sew and we certainly never had the coin for paint. Yet you are doing those things here. And I'm not afraid of the dark. I enjoy it."

She clacked her tongue. "Only when we go to bed. Because then everything is silent and calm and pleasant. Our covers protect us from the cold, we know what's behind us and Mousey was there to protect us from the nightmares of Umbra. Walking through the dark is horrible. Sounds are louder and everything seems to move. Umbra's doing or just our own imagination, we don't know yet."

I stared at her. I nodded slowly. While I always boldly stated that I did not fear the dark, I only did so under the terms she described. Well, aside from my walk to this place. Her grin reappeared and I wondered if it was a condition or something of which she suffered. It did seem awfully painful to grin that much. She enthusiastically pointed again at my face, avoiding my nose this time, before slamming her hand on the cloud behind her. She ignored the imprint she left.

"All excellent points though. As expected from myself." I noted that she was extremely proud of me for saying so. I raised an eyebrow as she continued on, unperturbed about my reaction. "And for your information, I do not enjoy being locked up here. I want to go out, but you are right about me being scared of the dark. I'm not going anywhere alone and the Mousey you see over there dissolves the moment I take a step into the darkness, so you could say I'm locked in here. HOWEVER, everything else was on point. But be honest, we've always wanted to draw. I mean, our art will improve and there is so much you just can capture in a drawing or in the written word it's just amazing."

I coughed, to which she stopped for a moment. She looked at me for a few seconds, before turning to her board again and nodded to herself.

"Well, yes. The point I'm trying to get across is that we are parts of the real Zephyra. I don't know how this happened, but the Ritual of Summoning split her into us I think. I already had a vague suspicion when I landed here. I mean, we're definitely not advanced enough for me to be able to float without making a circle. In fact, everything air related I can do without a circle!" She emphasized her point by waving her hand, causing the nearest clouds to whirl together in a small tornado, before dispersing it again with a snap of her fingers. I nodded impressed. She was right, we certainly couldn't do that. These forms of magic only existed in stories.

"Having said that, I can't seem to do any other magic. Not even the flash! And I mean, I know we can do it, we did so last night. But now you're here, all sparky and stuff!" She finished, pointing at me in the same excited manner as before.

"You're saying that I'm the lightning core and you're the air core?" I said, putting one and one together.

"EXACTLY!" Air yelled, her grin back on her face. "Good to know we're smart, no matter what part of us is doing the thinking."

Saying that, she turned to the board and scribbled the words 'just as smart as air' next to the crude drawing of me. I raised an eyebrow, noting the obvious pride she seemed to have in us. I knew that I never boasted like this, unless I knew I could make others roll their eyes to it. Yet she seemed to be genuine about her praise. She continued to stare at the cloud, tapping her fingers to her lower lip, just like I'd do whenever I was deep in thought. She was muttering something and I saw her scrawl some more on the board. I frowned as I looked at our handwriting. It was barely readable.