Awakening Ends

I groaned as the full impact of whatever had just happened slammed into my system for what seemed like the hundredth time. My groan was much less for my own sake, considering the numbness that resounded within me and blocked out all other sensations of previous pain or otherwise, and was moreso a signal to whoever it was shadowing above me that I was indeed alive.

Despite all odds and whatever I may look like, I was alive, and that much alone I could be sure of.

Could this even be considered alive? I'm sure it looks bad enough to be mistaken as death. I feel like death ran me over with his hellacious vehicle and then hit reverse just to make sure. I screamed out as my body shifted of its own volition. This pain confirmed that I was alive.

What is alive? It certainly can't be this dead weight of a body. My body feels like a dead weight, my limbs unbearably heavy, and my mind's completely clouded over and quickly fading even quicker than I can process it. Was this what it felt like to die?

Suddenly, I have no idea what has happened to me— In fact, I can't even remember who… I am. I knew only a few seconds ago everything! Where did it go?

Think… I tried, I tried so hard to remember what it was that I had forgotten before I forgot that I had forgotten something. A loud scream seemed to shatter glass within my head, effectively stealing my thin layer of concentration, the few thoughts remaining, and forcing me to give up on anything I'd been trying to do.

It was as if a hand had placed itself in my scalp. I began to grasp the dirt beneath me for security and gasp desperately for breaths as I felt my body solidify and pull apart strangely at the same time.

I then noticed the only thing left within my head was the ability to recognize sensations. There was this cold that crawled through my skin and into my bones wearily and carefully. It devoured my body first, I felt myself unable to even twitch in response to the blandness that drew across my tongue, my last breath. I didn't need anymore.

My body refused to take anymore. I felt full.

No need to be greedy.

But that lack of a sensation suddenly pressurized my chest and I was once again heaving in a single breath. It was pleasuring to have that sensation, so I decided right then that I was going to keep doing this thing. This thing that I faint recall as being called breathing.

The cold in my body was uncomfortable, I realized as I felt something warm slither under my knees, across my back, and pressing snugly into my side. The warmth settled across my skin as if it belonged there, as if I belonged with it. Then my body rose, my stomach dropping nauseatingly and my feeling of belonging disappeared as violent shivers wracked my body.

My senses reawakened with a snap. My eyes flew open with a shock. I was unseeing, but violently aware of my own body. I could feel each nerve end. They were all screaming.

It hurt so terribly much.

I was in pain, that's all I was sure of as my muscles recoiled in whoever's grasp I was in; every muscle ached, every bone felt shattered in a five different places, every nerve on fire as if a firework had been set in each little cell, in each fragment of tissue.

And that was just my body.

My head was at a whole other level of pain. Everything inside was a blank— No. A blank is too clear-cut, too easy to define. Everything was so twisted around itself, locked in so many of the wrong places, and distorted so many times that it had become a bizarre mess that just caused more pain and confusion.

I was broken from my thoughts— or lack thereof— by a small jostle, and I soon recognized that someone was carrying me. I peeked my eyes open, and, upon realizing that they were already open, I allowed them to focus and my empty head to at least confirm this one thing.

The doors opened briefly to take it all in and quickly slammed back shut as the light gnawed on the remaining sense. However, this was not before I caught a glimpse of the tall man who was holding me. It was a chilled feeling he was giving off, and, despite that, I continued to think of him as warm.

His warmth had reawakened something within me. I could not fear that warmth, no matter how cold his outer appearance was.

I peered my eyes open again, much more carefully this time, and tried my damnest to keep consciousness. I tried to not let the black ink of my mind overtake the black heart projected by this man, but I soon lost track of which black belonged to which state of consciousness.

I felt myself losing my other senses in this process of struggle. The beautiful black, the color that represents the greatest evil, the color that can hide the greatest of flaws, the color that binded to me to who I was. This color blinded me until reality became nothing more than a delusion.

This color, black, started my journey from its ending…

I awoke in a room that was faintly familiar, yet, completely foreign at the same time. My blurred vision corrected itself and, the more it did, the more I realized that this was somewhere I'd never been. The more I realized this, the more frightened I became.

Already on edge, I began to survey my surroundings. It consisted of two beds of solid white side by side. My eyes locked with them instantly.

White.

That color. It strangely made me ill. My bones ached and my chest protested heavily. It created this feeling of… guilt. But why so? My thoughts quickly snapped off there when my eyes trailed upwards from my partnered bed. My eyes locked with another frightening thing. They locked with bright eyes that were set upon my bed-ridden form, unshaken by my hard gaze.

I observed the boy of no more than sixteen years as he stared at me with an intense wonder. He sat across the room, unmoving, unnerving.

Jeez, by the way he was looking at me you'd guess that he'd never seen a girl before!

I drifted my hand over myself. Good, I was wearing clothes.

I couldn't help but squirm under his penetrating gaze, a gaze that very much seemed to study my every feature and note my every move with an unknown level of perception and deduction in his great-in-size eyes. I misdirected my own pair abruptly, ceasing our lock of gaze before they permanently locked together.

It felt like our eyes were acting as the windows that peered into our souls, and I was fearful of what I would see in his or what he would see in mine— which would undeniably be something that even I didn't know about, from the state of my head in this point in time. Instead, I settled my gaze on the blank white canvas of a wall across from me. It was making me more nauseas by the second, but that was far better than the dizziness that took over my head when I looked at the boy.

The boy, who suddenly seemed to remember his purpose for being there, jumped up from his perch and pulled a rope hanging from the ceiling by the door. I couldn't help but let my eyes drift curiously to the only other portion of color in the otherwise white room. Why would he do that? What is the point of pulling on a string from the sky?

Granted, it's far more intricate than a mere string an d it's likely not actually connected to the sky, but you get my point.

I soon was forced to use some great deduction skills to conclude that his actions must have been some sort of a signal. I deduced this only a few moments after three others came rushing in. I couldn't help but watch as they came through the doorway. Each displayed his or her own level of grace and coordination plainly— ahem!

They all eventually picked themselves up and gathered at my side. Nothing was said. My eyes took them in, their eyes swept over me. It was awkward, but I didn't let that stop my curiosity as I drunk in their every accoutrements.

One, as far as I could tell, was a man somewhere in his 30's. He wore a white chef's coat and, curiously enough, goggles dangled from around his neck. Mildly interested, I stared them down a bit longer than the rest of him, my irritation with their purposelessness becoming more ferocious by the second. It actually shocked me how much I actually cared about a stupid pair of goggles.

What a pointless place to put them, my inner voice snarled meanly.

It made me smile lightly, not that any of them would actually notice if I did happen to smile— or jump out of the bed and dance like a monkey— for they were far too busy with their new task of talking amongst themselves— or to me... I'm not entirely sure.

Anyway, moving on, he had dirty blonde hair and a bit of a shadow on his chin and neck— relieving me of trying to ponder his age— with an unlit cigarette hanging loosely in his mouth. I had the strangest temptation to flick it out, but resisted the urge begrudgingly.

The only woman out of the four looked to be about 20. She had red-violet hair and wore a frilly bonnet that, alongside some ridiculously large glasses, distracted from her rather attractive looks. I noted another mild irritation: the giant-lensed glasses hid her eyes by utilizing even the slightest amount of light and creating an overbearing reflection. However, when she turned her head a certain angle, I caught sight of some distinctively sharp brown eyes.

They slightly unnerved me— perhaps that's why she tried to distract from them?

She also wore maids' attire: tightly bound bodice, frilly skirt, frilly accents, lace up boots, and a large white apron. These all seemed to tie in nicely with her puffy bonnet and exaggerated glasses to create a friendlier appearance than her eyes hinted to. Her giant smile topped it all off and made me grin even more.

My smile was still so slight that they probably didn't notice, but it could be detected and discerned as a serene expression from first glance.

Speaking of grins, the boy who had been in the room when I first awoke had the biggest and goofiest smile I'd ever seen. He had longish blonde hair with red clips holding the bangs back. Honestly, if I didn't know better I would have thought he was a girl. He wore a dirty-white shirt, orange-red plaid pants, and a hat hung from his neck and sitting on his back, dirt smudges covered nearly every inch of his clothes and skin. Perhaps he's the gardener, I thought blandly. His eyes were ablaze as he glanced from the conversation of the others to my studying gaze, his hat and hair swishing each time his head moved.

What was with these guys?

Do they really need accessories?

The last person in the room was a distanced old man. He was about 70, give or take. And, honestly, he looked stupidly useless as he sat off to the side sipping his tea and chuckling lightly.

I mean, I can sorta see how he was, once upon a time, a very capable young man, but I can hardly see any of that anymore. His clothes are sharp, his hair styled to perfection, and his manners are seemingly impeccable, as judging from how he sat politely in the corner watching me and these cohorts quietly—but the air he gives off just… ruins that professionalism he likely once held.

After I got a good look at them and realized that I had tuned out the majority of their conversation, I tried to listen, to pick back up in the loop and try to figure just what exactly was going on. And, upon realizing that their words were just an incoherent mess in my mind, I attempted to stop them, to make them cease in their futile efforts to carry a conversation with me, but my voice didn't seem to want to escape in projecting my thoughts. So I settled for once again tuning them out. That is, I tuned them out until all eyes were directed, and apparently questions, to me alone.

"Who are you? Where did u come from? What's your name?" Came the bombard from the young boy alone. I flinched at the sharpness that came from being talked to and tried to ask myself these questions. I received no answers and discovered a weird sensation that urged the answers from my tongue, resulting in a silent stutter.

"Finni! The poor girl just woke up! Give her time to gather her thoughts!" The woman berated maturely.

I like her, I smiled slightly more. The smile quickly slid from my lips, however, as a gun flashed before my eyes, blinding me. My expression returned to that of a blank one, and my thoughts wandered further away from the events in my subconscious to those at the fore of my mind, the events taking place in front of me, the parts that actually make sense. But that apparently was not acceptable, I was not allowed to run from these things, and I unwillingly dove back into the mix of colors in my brain, trying to comprehend something, anything in the jumbled mess so that I could return to reality.

A voice sounding like gravel drug me back up with a yank and I listened with a curious glint in my eyes. His voice slowly returned to that of what was expected, the screwed up acoustics of my imaginative brain fading. "Yeah. She's been out for about two weeks. Avoiding work and explaining herself." He mumbled lowly and irritably, the cigarette bobbing in his lips idly.

I looked at him, narrowing my eyes, and scrunching up my brow slightly in giving him a confused look. He glanced idly down to me and paused, looking straight at me, into my eyes, his expression slowly morphing into that of shock.

Like he didn't think I would hear that.

"Mey-Rin. We shouldn't be in here without Sebastian." He whispered to the woman, seemingly self-conscious of my gaze upon them all. Bout damn time, I rolled my eyes at this, I've already studied them thoroughly enough to draw them from memory. That is, if I could draw. Can I draw?

"I know that, Bard. But we couldn't just leave her here without making sure she's alright. She is a young dear in an unfamiliar place after all, she needs to see what kind of people are around her." She said maturely, shyly, and lowly. "Plus, Mr. Sebastian got the signal too, so he will be down here shortly, yes he will." This sounded not so calm or mature, especially the way she seemed to swoon over the 'Mr. Sebastian' part. My high impression of her dropped about halfway at that moment. I merely batted an eyelash externally.

The door suddenly opened again and in stepped two distinguished peoples. The previous inhabitants looked at it in expectation and I understood from their mannerisms a hint of high respect for these people before they split to the sides so that our new guests could walk to the bed I now lay upon.

"Young Master, she's awake." whispered Mey-Rin— as I had picked up her name from Bard.

I allowed my eyes to drift to the form all were watching. There stood the youngest I'd seen yet: a boy with big blue eyes and an eye patch covering his right eye. He remained silent and just stared me down, his gaze cold and calculating— probably drinking me in just as much as I had done his compadres. I stared back, my eyes unwavering as I studied his small form.

And I knew one thing for absolute certainty: this life of mine was about to get interesting.