There he stood, moments before being strangled, his hair still colored in a stunning shade of pomegranate. An enthusiastic man thrillingly explaining with pure expectation brimming in his eyes. 

Why, why was there such a strong sense of nostalgia in her heart swimming around this man? He's just as cruel as that father she saw, so she should, by all rights, be just as afraid, as disgusted as she is with him.

But for some reason she’s not, but why? Why was it that she could not hate him?

「I don’t know…When I think about it…my head…」

…her head feels so fuzzy.

Fumbled memories speed past her sight like racing cars on a highway at night. The light you can see but you’ll never make out what it truly belonged to, just like now, just like these scenes she could make no sense of.

Heavily, her eyes close, tired beyond exhaustion. The stars in the night sky sweetly blurred.

『Ahhh!!!』

Then her eyes shot open! 

At that very moment the scream pierced her eardrums, the siren who’d been biding her time attacked. A wave crashed and ripped open the dam and a flood of memories overwhelmed her mind. 

A fire raged inside “Dasha’s” cruel father’s office, a virus short circuited the computers throughout the building. 

A message dinged on her phone as she walked away and out of sight of the smoldering structure miles away, but when she looked up as she shoved her phone in her pocket, that smile on her face fell apart into a look of pure horror. 

For right in front of her was nothing, a darkness peppered with small lights. 

Like an exaggerated cartoon her body hovered for a mere moment, giving her enough leeway to turn her head back, to look once more at the path she’d just been walking…

…then in the next moment, she slipped down a dark hole and fell.

Her hands jumped to cover her eyes, a choked sob escaped her, expressing extreme unwillingness to the lunacy of it all, a feeling she could not stop no matter how hard she tried to.

Like a glass spilling over with water in the sink, her emotions simply foamed over and could not be stopped.

The siren had won, pushing open the door of memories it so badly wanted for her to remember. Not all of them had returned but the ones, the bitter last moments of victory being torn asunder, pouring down as acid rain sucker punched her in the gut. 

All she heard was laughter. From herself. From outside herself. Sobbing chuckles that rang out all around her while she suffocated on the mist..

‘How ridiculously funny!’ Cried the siren. 

‘Stupidly ironic I’d say!’ The siren bellowed out a laugh.

Finally “Dasha” had grabbed hold of the evidence her father had on her mother, and destroyed it all! Finally both mother and daughter could leave him and be done with his cruelty. 

Finally…

…But the rewards “Dasha” so desperately fought for had slipped through her fingers. Never would she be able to taste the happiness she went to war over. 

Never would she be able to witness the glorious reaction of that cruel father of hers failing at the hands of his weak and pathetic daughter.

This was the last memory of “Dasha’s” life, that she reached out desperately to the disappearing world above her, screaming out incoherently for anyone to hear.

But no one but herself ever did.

『Gods its burns! Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!』

『What did I tell you, huh? An ice mage trying out fire magic without a wit to go off of, it's no surprise your rump has a new tattoo. On the other hand, at least you have a scar to impress the Ulri women now.』

『Shut up! Ow, ow ow! Where in Lumen’s name is my water?!』

『Look no further. If you don’t mind the salt then cry yourself a river, I’m sure it’ll help put the fire out.』

『Darn it Laszlo, you are not helping!』

『Hehe, sure feels like I am.』

『You smug ass snake!』

The ruckus down below derailed her train of thought. When she opened her eyes all she saw was midday sky. 

When she twisted and turned, a nauseating height of several stories high had her experiencing vertigo, a lopsided burn foreshadowing the vomit wishing to free itself.

Her eyes struggled to look at the people yelling below like ants, the tower she was near, intimidatingly tall with its cold gray walls all fell into place, moving in and out of her doubled vision.

How did she get so…why is she in the sky?!

Being so high up pushed out an unsavory memory of the bungy jumping torture her father’s goons enacted on her. Hog tie the victim, glue the eyelids open, and drop.

She leapt and cowered to the tower wall, rapidly breathing, sharply sucking in one painful breath after the other.

「Alright, calm down and breathe. In. One, two, three, four, five. Out. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Again……..」

A good memory for once. A simple calming technique she instinctively knew would work. 

And it did, albeit only after several repeated attempts, but it worked nonetheless.

When she reopened her eyes she was already on the ground and the shadows had grown longer. The people below were gone, and she was all alone. 

The fuzzy memories of the years… the-years, Dasha had been stuck here wondering as a ghost caused her legs to buckle, her knees to painlessly hit the ground.

The clarity of the situation had utterly ruined her!

Dasha felt she was better off staying ignorant! 

Why! Why! Why did her head have to clear! Not all the memories had come back, but even so, there were enough for her to accept herself as herself again.

And it was all terrible! To hell with that nosy siren clinging onto her back! To hell with it all!

「………….」

What…is she supposed to do now? There’s nothing she can do. Nothing.

Dasha was not some ignorant young child. Although she remained somewhat amnesic, she’d seen enough fantasy movies, read enough novels, gosh with Escaflowne being in her top favorites she’d have to have lost her damn mind to not know that she was no longer on earth. 

In a world who’s language she can’t understand, who’s people can’t see her, in a state she can’t comprehend with not a single lead to go by, her situation as a whole was looking quite grim.

Not only that, her emotional state fit to claw its way outside of her head was not helping her one bit.

Reality was cruelly tearing apart her sanity, stuffing it in a bag, and kicking it off a cliff into a pool of acid. Her rationality had long since picked up its suitcase and gone on vacation.

「Ugh…my head, my head it hurts………….!」

What use was all the work she’d done for? The blood and sweet, the brutality, the life "she" was just seconds away from walking into, the plans "she’d" meticulously worked on for both "her" and "her" mother! 

All of it was gone!!!

Gone… with no hope in sight.

It was all over. 

Foggy helplessness submerged her in a swamp of depression. Desolate seaweed wrapped her ankles and pulled her under. All she felt was the algae suffocating her airways, tightly encasing her at the bottom to rot.

“Your weak Dasha, always have and always will be.” The cruel tone of “her” father taunted her, blowing that cancerous smoke in her face as he did.

「No……!」

She escaped her binds, her head broke free of the water to gasp. Without even looking she knew that siren was down below, holding onto "Dasha" and staring up at her resentfully.

She couldn’t let herself drown in the past. She refused to let either of them win, to become dyed in resentment and self-sabotage. To walk down a path she instinctively knew would ruin her.

So she reached up to smack both her cheeks, but then became dazed at the loss of pain. So she shook her head back and forth to snap herself out of it.

Since her body couldn’t feel pain she stared into the sun, to burn away the darkness clinging to her heels, to find some semblance of order.

It was only after the sun dipped behind the trees did she lower her gaze. She turned around to step back inside the tower.

It was right then an idea struck and she stood there in thought, absentmindedly looking up at the far reaching structure. 

A world full of magic, a tower filled with those practicing its complexities, and right atop this structure reigned a man, an individual that many looked up to as if he were their leader. An imposing figure that inspired the will of others to admire with loyalty and pride.

Perhaps, it’s not so bad to be stuck in a place like this?

Not only did it appear to be a place of learning, it was also presided over by a power protector that didn’t seem to show any ill will towards herself.

Yes he frowned a lot when he appeared to be looking at her, but there was never any actual proof he knew she was there.

And yes whenever he left she felt as if death was coming to claim her life. A coincidence it most certainly wasn’t, but it did not mean it was his fault. It may be her fault. Perhaps like a kite needs the wind to fly, he was the breeze to her sails?

It was only right that when the wind died down, she too would fall and panic.

Regardless, while he was around, couldn’t she take advantage of the situation to try learning the language, to gauge her situation, to find some positive point she can work with?

Surely with enough work, she can manage something, right?

And like that, the aimless ghost had accepted her reality and wandered no longer. She looked to the tower with a smile on her face and hope brimming in her heart.

Yes, it was time for her to move forward.