Oriana held her abdomen, and tightly wrapped her hesitant fingers around her various bandages. She pressed her hands into the hole in her torso, as though it would prevent her from spilling even more of her black, sloppy blood into the floor. The black liquid was smeared across the ashy wooden planks much like the paint from the rune. Instead of being painstakingly painted in thin lines and shapes however, her thickened blood was splattered and smothered across the floor. It was reminiscent of a murder scene, in Oriana’s eyes.

She swallowed thickly at the scene “I…lost so much blood…”

As Oriana hesitantly inspected the scene, Altan, in sharp contrast, simply strolled past the puddle of solidifying liquid splattered across the floor, and began to pluck pieces of paper from the ground. He simply tucked each sheet into the crook of his arm and gathered what mess he could in the moment.

“You did, but that wasn’t the crux of your predicament,” he replied somewhat listlessly “I could go on and on regarding my research and the various objects and runes I used to revive you but err…to simplify,”

Altan then focused his attention onto a particular sheet of paper. It seemed rather important, important enough for him to present the paper right in front of Oriana’s prying eyes. It appeared to be a rather crudely sketched diagram. What she assumed to be some sort of magical circle was nothing more than circular scribbles, and what she presumed to be a person inside the circle was a sketchy stick figure. 

“Aside from some internal organs, you were missing a portion of your soul. I performed something akin to a soul transplant,” Altan explained, stabbing his black fingernail into the darkly shaded circle on the sheet of paper “I would say it’s similar to an organ transplant, except the organ itself is entirely artificial”

“Soul or not, shouldn’t I be dead? I…” Oriana released a shaky sigh, as she vaguely gestured to the bandages on her empty torso “I don’t have a stomach, intestines, I…do I even have a heart anymore? Blood?”

Altan then peered down carefully to Oriana’s torso, narrowing his eyes ever so slightly as to inspect her. 

“You do have a semi-functional heart as far as I can decipher…” he carefully replied “as for other organs er…perhaps I should put this situation another way...”

Oriana only frowned upon hearing the man’s words. In her eyes, it seemed like Altan…that nasty little orange toad, wanted to do nothing but stall for time. He probably knew less about her state, her situation, than she did! And now the man was scrambling for answers? She didn’t exactly put any sort of faith in him, even with the miracle of life he performed.  

Or supposably did.

Regardless of her current leering thoughts towards Altan, she bided her time. She simply curled her fist into her abdomen, and watched the man scurry to his messy, hazardous bookshelf. He jerked his eyes around frantically, as though his was trying to find the book desired in a haste. His hands then finally jerked out to the shelf, and yanked out a simply, black and white canvas bound book. 

Crash!

The speed at which he pulled out the book caused it to slip right out of his hands, and crash right to the floor. Instead of frantically plucking the book from the floor and whipping through the pages, he simply released a dry, amused chuckle. 

‘M-My apologies,” Altan carefully picked the book up by the spine, and rested it against this forearm to flip through the pages  “I’m…still trying to comprehend all of this… Are you er-are you familiar with soul theory? “

“Dark and uh…light souls? Something like that?” Oriana lightly asked. She was somewhat familiar with the idea of the body holding two souls but…she wasn’t exactly an expert in it. It seemed like frivolous religious ideas in her opinion. 

Altan explained “Bright and dark souls. As we know, our bright soul controls are basic bodily functions and possess the ability for the select few of us to wield magic and whatnot. Although it tends to hold into selected memories, our dark souls retain our desires and powers our ability for life; a ‘true’ soul in its own definition. It is said that after death, the dark soul rises up to the sky to become a star, and the bright soul soon follows and returns to the earth to be born anew”

He then closed the book, and gestured his pointed fingers towards Oriana “In your particular case, your dark soul had left your body, but your bright soul hadn’t. I simply took advantage of this and…transplanted a sort of ‘dark’ soul into your vessel. In any case…” He cleared his throat, searching for more insightful words for the frantic woman.

“So, I’m a living dead…creature?” Oriana reasoned with a frown “You made me into a zombie?”

Upon hearing the word ‘zombie’, he pursed his lips tightly “I-I-w-well now that you mention that…”

Altan quickly shook his head, soon throwing his previous line of thought to the wayside “N-No not a zombie but…let’s see…”

In an effort to explain himself better (and perhaps not bring even more stress and confusion to the body that he brought back to life), he snapped back to his scattered bookcase. He drifted his hands across the spines of the various books tossed onto the black, pointed fingernails scraping and grazing the material of the covers.

“Now with your dark soul gone, I assume you have many questions regarding exactly who you are,” Altan mindlessly continued “I believe we can come to a conflict together, but for now, we should examine you and your revived body. I’m not quite sure how long you’ll be quote on quote alive but- I wonder if a blood transfusion…”

As Altan mindfully browsed through his many, many books and droned on about his theories, Oriana was left to stew in her own thoughts.

‘No use getting panicked about what I am anymore, I am…dead’ Oriana quietly thought to herself, clenching her body uncomfortably. Although it was a difficult concept she had to accept, she found herself comprehending the fact that she did in fact die. Although she couldn’t exactly recall what lead to her death, she could at least surmise that she was murdered by the strange…orange haired man in front of her. And speaking of him…

Every fiber in her being told her to be weary of him. No man, let alone human being, in their right mind would pluck a corpse from the middle of nowhere to bring back from the dead. Most of the man’s explanation regarding how she was brought back to life went right over her head. It was like hearing her teacher endlessly drone on about math, a subject she wasn’t exactly fond of. It certainly didn’t help that he seemed to put up a good front, judging by how kindly he had treated that small, mousy girl (who’s name she couldn’t quite remember at the moment. Mabel, was it?).

As she began to dig her clenched fist into her chest, she felt a small, oval object indent into her skin. She couldn’t quite determine whether the object was firey hot or icy cold against her skin, but rather the pressure of the object from her fist into her hand. She instantly frowned, and reached carefully down her shirt to pick up what appeared to be a small locket. She was rather surprised she didn’t feel the locket hanging from her neck, but she surmised that her body temperature was colder than most frigid of winters. She was curious about it nonetheless, considering how scratched and worn it was. 

She carefully dug her jagged fingernails into the crevasse of the locket and carefully pried it open. And the moment she saw the dirty, little photo smashed into the inside of the locket…

She dropped the locket to the ground. 

“O-oh no…no no no-“

It was at that moment, her memories flooded right back into her mind. It was nearly overwhelming, her brain being stuffed with so much information that it felt like it could explode. She recalled running desperately for her life. She recalled the sound of men yelling, cursing at her as she darted through the forest. She recalled fighting for her life as she was unceremoniously killed, pushed into a broken tree stump. And perhaps more tragically…

She knew why she was running for her life in the first place. Or rather…who she was running for.

She clutched her pailing face, her eyes nearly bulging out between her clawed fingers. She wanted to collapse right then and there and scream for her life again. She wanted to collapse in a big puddle of agony as her brain turned into a mushy pile of anxiety and fear. But, she couldn’t. 

“N-No I-I have to get out I-I have to-“ her voice was a slur of words, indescribable madness.  

She slowly backed up from the oblivious, orange haired man and…ran out of the room. Her feet pounded up the stairs. Her legs stretched across Altan’s office. Her hands clawed onto the doorknob. She didn’t know where she was, but…

She knew she had to find a way out. And now.

So she ran. She ran as fast as she possibly could. It was an all too familiar feeling to Oriana, especially given that she was running for very very life before she died. 

But even now, she was running for someone.  

She yanked the doorknob of Altan’s open and raced back through the lounge area. She yanked another doorknob open and raced through a storage area. She yanked another doorknob open and raced through..the lounge area again?

In that moment, she skidded to a stop. Although she was still frantic as ever, she collected her thoughts enough to process that something wasn’t quite right. She carefully opened the doorknob on the other side of the lounge area and carefully twisted it. The moment she twisted the door open, she was yet again met with a small room littered with dirt junk and boxes. A storage area.

“W-what the-“ Oriana blinked in a stupor. She carefully stepped inside of the room, and peered around the many walkways that were haphazardly made around the boxes that packed the room. She knew if she wandered any further she would get even more lost. As a result, she turned her attention back to the little, or she doorknob that was stuck to the door. She racked her brain for answers, anyway to escape this seemingly endless building, 

Then…she remembered a small, important detail. Before Altan even opened the door, he twisted the inner portion of the doorknob. She assumed that meant the rooms were all connected somehow, and all she had to do was twist the doorknob in the correct way for her freedom. So, she began to carefully turn the inner portion of the doorknob, causing the small, curved window above the knob to wildly scroll through a rainbow of colors. She then stopped on a particular color, one that made her sigh in utter relief. It wasn’t so much because it was stark, white, but rather it was the only sheet of color that had words etched into it:

Back Exit

She couldn’t wait. She couldn’t hesitate even further. She gripped both of her shaky hands upon the door and swung the door wide open. The moment she did, she saw great relief. The great, wonderful, outdoor world.

But the so-called “great” outdoors was whizzing past her, and fast. And below her feet, sat train tracks. And in back of her was the sound of an engine, roaring away through the green valley. Then it hit her. 

She was on a train. One of those traveling, merchant trains. 

But, she had little time to react. As soon as she slammed the door open….

She fell.