Where the hell am I?

Those words continued to echo in Oriana’s head. It was perhaps less of a direct question towards the man in the red coat in front of her, but rather a vague question directed towards her current, and uncertain, situation. But as those demanding words left her lips, she was met with…even more silence. 

It was unnerving, Oriana had to admit.

The man in the red coat finally seemed to grasp his mind. He let the leather bound book slip from his shivering hands and crash to the floor. His heel snapped into the cover of the book and created a defined dent, as he rushed down to Oriana. 

His voice was shivering, much like his hands as he carefully hovered his blackened fingernails above Oriana’s shoulder. 

“L-Lets get you-“

Oriana instantly slapped his hand away, recoiling upon his rapid approach “D-don’t touch me!”

She rapidly began to drag her body away from his touch, smearing the thick, black paint from the floor, to her ashy fingers. Oriana sank her heel into the floor continually, until she was a good few feet away from the man. 

“Who are you?” She demanded, malice dripping across her tone “Where am I?!”

The first mistake she made was picking a fight with a strange man who appeared to have kidnapped her. The second, and perhaps even larger mistake she made, was trying to stand up.

As soon as she dug her heel into the floor to bring herself up to her feet, she was instantly frozen. The pain that exploded throughout every nerve of her body was indescribable. It was unmatched to anything she had ever felt before in her entire life. One mere twitch of her hand made her feel like her skin was being shaved away from her bone. A blink of her eye made her feel like her eyelids were being cut away with a rusted knife. Even a small cry made her feel like she had swallowed a handful of glass and a lemon juice. 

She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to ask the strange man for help. But she couldn’t. 

Instead, the only thing she really could do was send the man a blank stare. Even as a thick, dark liquid began to seep threateningly through her fingers. 

She assumed it was blood. It couldn’t have been anything else that was bursting through her fingertips, seeing how her palm was firmly thrusted into the side of her abdomen. But…

Why was it so cold?

She of course didn’t dare to look down at her abdomen, nor did she even try to to press her hand further into her torso to stop the bleeding. A mere snap of her head, or twitch of her fingers would surely send her wreathing in agony. 

A-

A-ah-

A-hh…

No other words could leave her mouth.

“No no no, please take it easy-“ The man dressed in the red coat snapped down to paralyzed woman. As much as Oriana desperately tried to get her head straight, to get back her bearings, she soon drifted further and further out. The man before her became a fuzzy, misshapen orange blob. Her hands slowly slipped from her torso to the small puddle of blood on the floor. And her head began to hang to the size, as she swayed back and forth like a grandfather’s clock pendulum. Then with a finally thump:

Everything finally went dark yet again.

Clatter!

Oriana gasped. 

She instantly snapped her body upright. But, she soon regretted the sudden jerk of her body, as her temple throbbed back angrily in response. She briefly gritted her teeth and pressed a few fingers into her temple to ease the sudden pain. 

It took a few moments for the throbbing to subside. As soon as it did however…she realized she was somewhere else. 

Instead of waking up to the cold, dark room that was overrun with papers and books, she was instead greeted by a warm, and oddly inviting lounge area. The walls were adorned with classical yellow wallpaper, and the majority of the furniture was carefully carved into elegant, but functional pieces. Although there was a bookshelf tucked to the side of the room that was similar to the one in the previous room, the books seemed completely different. In fact, the warm colored books were rather inviting, as though they were ready to be taken off the shelf to be read. 

“Oh dear, what a mess…”

Oriana then snapped her head to the sound of the soft murmur. The man in the read coat seemed rather concerned; but not over Oriana at the moment. Instead, he was occupied by the tea tray in his hands, which appeared to have everything in it except a teacup. He quickly sat down the tray at a coffee table and let out a thick sigh, at the sight before him. A few loose shards of ceramic sat into the table,but even larger shards crashed into the wooden floor below him.  

In other words, he broke the teacup. 

As the man brushed up the remaining shards back into the tea tray, the man in the red coat finally snapped his head up. His concern soon shifted into surprise, prompting him to snap his his back upright 

“A-Ah, my apologies I didn’t mean to wake you up…” the man quickly sputtered out, clearly not expecting Oriana to be awake so soon (or perhaps at all, for that matter). But a few moments later, he pursed his lips tightly 

He sighed, drifting his eyes towards the floor “Or, I suppose it’s best that you did wake up, just in case…”

Just in case? Oriana didn’t like the sound of that. It was enough for her to send a rather sour, unamused expression to the man. Unfortunately for Oriana however, the man in the red coat didn’t seem to catch onto her foul mood. 

“This was quite unexpected, really-“ the man began, “I didn’t even have any paper runes near me back in the basement. Quite a horrible mistake in retrospect. Thankfully, I managed to find something to aid in pain reduction, and folded it in your, er…injuries”

Oriana knew she was injured, that was certain. She could at least recall some sort of thick, (and oddly cold) fluid seeping through her fingers when she first woke up. But the primary question for her at the moment was…well how badly hurt was she? Curious, she carefully rose upwards, her tires bones cracking and cracking like fireworks. Luckily, she only felt a bit sore, but the movement was enough to throw the man in the red coat into concern.

The man rushed over to her, knees,in close to the couch she was placed upon “Now now be careful, you still have a-“

“You never answered my questions-“ Oriana curtly interrupted, unamused by his sudden politeness. Which…only confused the man.

“…I beg your pardon?”

“I think it’s obvious. Who are you, where am I?” She waved a hand in the air, vaguely gesturing at both the room and the man himself.

The man in the red coat blinked back in a stupor. Instead of biting back at her sudden, unexpected aggression, he found himself sending her a weak smile. It seemed infused with some sort of…forced kindness. That’s what’s Oriana thought anyways. 

“Well, I think those questions were quite difficult to answer, seeing how I was trying to keep you from bleeding out after you passed out…” The man curtly responded, his voice sounding far more uncertain than aggressive. Perhaps passive aggressive.

“Am not passed out right now, am I?" Oriana responded with an equal tone “Or are your glasses not working right?”

Upon that comment, the man pressed his index finger into the bridge of his golden glasses, pausing at her comment.

“Heh…quite the iron tongue you have…” he laughed dryly, before giving a sharp sigh “Well, I suppose I should address where we are. This is my-“

“M-MR. ALTAN!!”

The door suddenly slammed open, which caused the various ceramic trinkets and delicate furniture to shake against the wall. The shrieking slam made both Oriana and the man in the red coat to jump, with Oriana evenly throwing herself off the couch in shock. Although the man seemed a bit less surprised than Oriana, she swore that she could see the man’s shaggy hair stand up on ende

“I-I found the spare change of clothes you requested!” A mousy voice frantically erupted from the girl who burst through the door

 She didn’t look a day over fourteen, even with her rather frail and small stature. It certainly didn’t help that her neatly brushed bob only further framed her round face, which could have made her appear like a mere child from a portrait painting. Curled tightly within her hands and pressed up against her chest was a small stack of clothing, colored like the fields and rolling hills outside. She looked expectantly to the man in the red coat whom she called “Mr. Altan”, waiting for his response.

‘“A-ah-“ Altan cleared his throat “T-thank you Mazel, but no need to barge in like that…”

“But you told me to come here right away!”

“I…suppose I did ask you to do that, didn’t I?” He then sighed “Regardless, did you find those healing runes I mentioned?”

The girl called Mazel gently shook her head “No, I didn’t see any…but why couldn’t we ask Lucian to heal her?”

“Well, I don’t believe we need him at the moment…

Their voices soon drifted into background noise as Oriana let her thoughts race wildly across mind. She could at the very least organize her mind now: She was taken from her home by some strange man who looked like some witch or wizard from a fairytale, she was badly injured, and...

And…

And…

And..?

She blinked. It was right then and there her thoughts stopped completely. It was like her mind was unable to process anything else. She felt like she was forgetting something important, integral to her life but….she couldn’t recall what it was. It was a strange feeling to her, as though she was forgetting how to brush her teeth, or not remembering how to say her own name. She did remember her own name, right?

Oriana. 

It was Oriana…wasn’t it?

Surely it was. 

She then gave a sharp sigh. She knew at that point her thoughts were dissolving into nonsense. She was certain that whatever she was forgetting, she would remember eventually. And if she didn’t….well it probably wasn't that important (Well, not as important as she assumed it would be). Without her thoughts to keep her busy anymore, her narrowed eyes drifted down to her abdomen. Her torso was tightly bound like one would tightly bind a pork roast before roasting it. What Oriana noticed however, was that her bandages didn’t show a hint of her injury, but instead appeared as clean and sterile as ever. With what she assumed to be a dangerous, but obviously not fated injury, she would see that her clothes would be soaked in blood. Instead, her dress shirt was mildly soaked in some sort of black liquid, something that appeared ink-like with how dark it was.

Curiosity got the better of her. She carefully uncurled the bandages from her abdomen, slowly peeling back layer by layer. The more bandages she peeled back, the more intense the black color of the liquid became. Then, she finally peeled back the last protective layer of bandages, which was dripping in that strange, cold liquid. All she could do was recoil at the sight of the strange bandage, and toss it aside. 

And so, she finally looked down at her abdomen. 

And she screamed.