3 Blackfire

By the time Vyrena woke up, the fire had turned into a pile of ashes. Some soft embers remained, providing minimal light. Sunlight shone through the glass windows of the cabin, allowing her to see her surroundings. She sat up from the bed and let out a yawn as she stretched her arms.

Vyrena took another glance at all of her items. They were not very much per se, but they were more than what she had started out with and that was good enough for her. Using the dagger, she cut the blanket and managed to fashion it into a makeshift bag. She put in all the items she could not carry in her hands or her pockets and took one last look at the cabin.

"Thank you for providing me with shelter," she said as she bowed to the empty room with a grin on her face.

She removed the door of the cabin and walked out into the forest, taking in a deep breath. It was time for her to move on.

Vyrena followed the downstream river diligently, never moving too far away from it. She found more edible fruits and nuts as she moved along and to pass the time, she would hum a tune. The tune seemed to be something she had once heard from her previous life but Vyrena could not be certain. Everything still felt disoriented.

She had tried her best to piece the different details together to see if any of it would make sense. Her lone walk along the river had given her the time to make out a rough idea of what had happened till this point.

The host's name was Vyrena Seawoods, and her family lived in a village at the corner of this forest. The village of Oaksalt had been overrun by mercenaries and she was the lone survivor as far as she knew. Everything was lost, all the houses were set on fire, women were raped and kidnapped, men were slaughtered, children were rounded up to become slaves. Vyrena had run away from it all, into the Green Forest.

She roamed around, trying to survive on what she could find but Vyrena soon grew tired and tried to rest under the tree. That was where Vyrena Seawoods died and where she awoke.

-I know for certain this is not where I was originally from. I know I had died and now I have taken over the body of this young girl.-

Vyrena stopped in her tracks and looked down at her hands. She knew in her previous life, she had lived to be older. Maybe in her fifties? Her hands were once stained with the blood of others, and they had wrinkled over time. She looked into her reflection in the river, her hair was jet black, her pupils were dark grey. Vyrena's complexion was fair and her body felt energized after a full night's sleep.

"I shall give myself a new surname," she exclaimed to herself.

<Vyrena, you wish to change your surname?>

"Yes, that's correct! To reflect the changes I have been through, and to respect the host."

Vyrena thought for a while, the host and she shared the same name, so she would keep it. It represented them both. The host had passed on peacefully, no hate, no wishes. But she was not to be forgotten.

Vyrena took off the necklace that she had hung around her neck and examined it with great detail. She swore she felt as if it was of some importance, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not recall. The black coloured dragon must mean something.

Just then, a memory flashed across her mind. A distant memory, from a long-forgotten past.

"This is for you to keep, to remember me by," a loving unknown male voice spoke. The man showed her the necklace and put it around her neck.

"What about me? What do you have to remember me by?"

The man smiled and showed her the necklace that already hung around his neck. It was a black phoenix. The man held the phoenix in his hand and moved it closer to the dragon pendant that hung around her neck.

"They are meant to be a pair, just like us," the man said as both pendants fit perfectly together.

In the present, Vyrena felt a warm feeling in her heart. She touched held on to the dragon pendant tightly and closed her eyes as a wave of sadness washed over her.

"System, I would like to change my surname to Blackfire. From now on, I shall be known as Vyrena Blackfire. But you, will address me as Vy."