1 Echoes

Alya could not remember. Her body felt cold and her legs felt numb. A pumping pain knocked inside her head. The sound of dripping water drew her attention. When she opened her eyes, she found nothing. It was all black. She looked for a window or reflection of light, but the room was a void. Alya had to rely on her other senses for now, then she noticed. Her clothes were dripping wet, her arm layed in puddle of water. She sniffled her nose, but there was no smell, either.

Her memories had accompanied her other senses and had faded into the darkness. Only dim pictures of the woods appeared insight her head. There were torches as well, but they were moving far away. She kept watching them dance. She wished to see them again.

For now, she had another task at hand. Her thoughts finally felt clear and she lifted herself up, or she tried. It was very difficult, maybe she was still too weak. Alya flipped her body and started crawling into a random direction. When her arm touched something ice-cold, she jumped.

For a second everything went quiet.

A faint whisper echoed through the room. It disturbed Alya, but it felt reassuring as well. Like it had always been around, accompanying her. She gave in to her curious desire and reached towards the source of the sound. She touched the stone ground, then felt a warmer thing brush beneath her hand. It was made of leather and in a square shape, she discovered the thinly sliced sides quickly: A book.

Memories arrived, quickly. They flooded her head. There was a king, a family and a nation. There was distrust, hate and murder. Blood, corpses and now her. Inbetween all of that, Alya layed on the ground. It had started to smell of iron and she was unable to feel her legs.

She felt down her body, the lower she got, the wetter her clothes. Her hand glit over her hip and arrived, one moment later, on the ground.

There was nothing connected to it. The bottom part of her had disappeared, she could not feel anything. Not only where her legs were supposed to be, but her whole body was numb.

When Alya fell back into consciousness, she could finally feel the pain on the bottom of her pelvis. It was certain, she had no legs anymore. But it was fine, she did not miss them yet. Instead, she felt hungry. She took the book and pulled herself through the room. Her hands glid over the cold stone floor, it reminded Alya of a dungeon.

She crawled for only a moment, when steps sounded behind her.

"God bless my heart. You are still alive." It belonged to a man, but she did not recognize it.

"Hello? Where are you?" Still, she could not see in the dark, "And how do you see me?"

"What do you mean? I'm right here." His clothes rustled beside her head. She turned her head. Black. She lifted her arm. Suddenly she could feel warmth on her hand. It was his, he held her hand between his palms, "Can you see me?" He asked.

Alya shook her head.

He went silent for a moment, but he kept holding her hand.

"Okay. What colour do my eyes have?" He asked.

"Brown, why do you ask?"

He breathed out audibly, "Because they are blue, almost like your grey ones."

"I have brown eyes." Alya said.

"Not anymore, it seems." He let go of Alya's hand, but in the next moment, he could feel his hands below her, picking her up gently, "We need to get you something to eat, the town is not far."

She had lost her memory, her legs and her eyesight. If she could remember having them, she would feel terrible. Instead, she was only shocked. It did not feel real. They had walked for a minute, Alya could barely feel the man touching the ground, "Who are you?"

"Olaf's the name. I'm like a commander of the King's men in this area." He answered reluctantly.

Before he could say any more, Alya raised her voice again, "Where am I?" She could feel the pumping of his heart. "And, how did you find me."

"You were hard to miss, laying on the road like that. The blood didn't make it easy on the eyes, either."

Alya gripped the man's arm. "Do you have my book?"

Olaf laughed, "Calm down, lady. I have it, but are you really in a condition to worry about books?"

"Am I going to die?" She was shaking.

He did not answer for a moment, "I don't think so, you have no open wounds. Where did all that blood come from, by the way?" He tried to change the topic,

"What?"

"The blood, it's all over the street and you're drained too." Olaf barely spoke his last words when Alya fainted.

She was brought to an inn and nurtered for the past days. The commander Olaf had paid for everything and said goodbye, he had to get back to work. Alya had a lot of free time. She spent that time feeling her book. Weirdly, nothing was just written on the pages. Symbols, she could not recognize, were etched into the already leaf-thin pages.

Alya could not read nor understand, but she felt it. Even the book was hidden in the room, she felt like she could find it. Every symbol she touched contained emotion and rewoked slices of past happenings. She saw many places and faces, too many to count or remember, but they had one thing in common. It was always dark, not once did daylight shine in the pictures floating between the book and her head.

Alya was fascinated, she kept feeling her way through the book. At some page almost halfway through the book, for the first time, a clear sequence edged itself into her soul:

The hand attached to the arm on the right side stretched. The top of the hand had five fingers, some larger or longer than the others. The hand closed, it formed a fist. The lower arm turned, parts of the palm were visible in the fist. The hand opened, it's five fingers stretched outwards. The blue eye squinted at the light entering it. It blinked a few times, before the fist was closing again. The hand was turned back around.