Waking up

Diana had a dream. She saw a crumpled city surrounded by a fierce thunderstorm. A thunder brighter than the sun shook the world. It split the clouds in half and struck the earth in the blink of an eye, destroying an entire building in a second, then the sound came. It was so loud, more deafening than her heartbeat; louder than what her ears could handle, and she fell into a moment of deafness.

She wanted to scream, but her body was frozen with fear and shock, and she felt her hands tremble uselessly on the ground. Only then, did she notice that she was sitting on her knees on top of a rooftop, watching what was happening.

She wanted to run away, hide in a place where this thunderstorm couldn't get her, but she couldn't move her limbs, as if she turned one with the ground. As she started to get her hearing back, she saw another thunder demolish another building far away.

This wasn't normal.

"It's my fault." She heard from beside her. She could only see a man's back, wearing a cloak that covered him from the neck down. "I did this,"

Who are you? She wanted to ask but again, she remained useless. Her ears were still ringing with pain, and she felt as if they were internally bleeding.

"Forgive me," he whispered, but for some reason, she could hear him clearly. His black hair was unkempt, and it flew freely in the wind. "I beg you, forgive me." His words slowly turned as thin as the breeze and it flew past her, into her and finally, turned into smoke and the ringing in her ears was replaced by his pleas of forgiveness, and all she could remember was the pain in her heart.

The scene changed into an unfamiliar setting.

There were five people standing in a circle, holding each other's hand and mumbling a prayer Diana couldn't hear.

All of them were dressed in casual clothes but she couldn't see their faces as their features looked foggy. They were in a great hall where the walls rose high and had no roof. The sun was out, and it shone down directly at the group.

They stood on what appeared to be a stadium made of stone. Vines and plants spread around the whole place.

She realized that she could move her legs and when she was about to do that, the faint sound of her footstep had made the five people, stop their ritual and one of them had snapped their head toward her direction.

His foggy face had sent chills through her body, and she had a sick feeling in her stomach. The members slowly followed his lead and looked at her, or maybe her general direction.

She felt a sudden danger coming from them and had a really bad feeling about all of this. But then, as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice water on her, she woke up startled.

The room she was in was pitch-black. Her body was sunk in a soft mattress, and she was feeling unbearably suffocated that she couldn't help but remove the blanket on top of her and sat on the edge of the bed.

She looked down to herself and saw that she was wearing something silky. She slowly stood up and tried walking without hitting anything. She could see a strand of light coming from the edge of a door, and she walked slowly towards it.

Her leg hit the edge of a table and yelped before holding it close. She let the pain ease slowly before opening the door and almost blinding herself from the light that had streamed in.

She blinked a few times to let her eyes adjust and looked around the place.

The place itself looked really small and almost run down. The room she was in contained a bed, a nightstand, mirror and a closet only. There was also a door where she guessed led to the bathroom as she heard water rushing from there. The door she opened led to a small living room where there were only two couches and a small TV screen. It was minimally decorated, but what was obvious was the drawings that filled the walls.

They were all made of ink. Some were bigger than others but all were drawn skillfully.

Diana blinked a few times and held her head tightly as she felt pain surging in. She tried remembering what had happened before. She remembered the cycle, remembered her death, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember the details of her past life.

She sighed as she felt her head clear up a little and decided to let it be for now.