Blue Lane

– "Urgh."

Lulu squinted her eyes so hard that her eyes hurt, she didn't want to open her eyes, just a second ago when she opened them to her new location, she was forced to close them again and she felt like she was suddenly hit by a flashbang that caused her to fall backward.

Mulling over the fact she opened them once more, what greeted her was the sight of something she had never once seen before, not surprising since she hadn't left the house, but still; she had never seen anything like it before.

In front of her was a world of blue, she felt like she was tossed from one world into another. Surrounding her was neverending blue land that seemed to go on forever. Looking up she could see the dark clouds forming in the sky, yet it was still quite bright around her.

She could see streaks of blue and yellow flashing through the dark clouds that left great rumbling sounds as they did so, lighting and thunder were flashing through those clouds and she couldn't take her eyes off them.

There was no feeling making her attracted to them or anything of that sort. She remembered how she was asked whether or not she had felt anything – Lulu had no idea what Karma had been feeling, and the look that was on her mother's face made it seem like her not feeling anything might have been an issue.

If it was such an issue why would they even let her go in here? Although she could tell that her mother had a strange amount of confidence in her, it was still confusing nonetheless. How did they decide who could try and Transcend anyway? It was a reasonable question given the fact that Lulu was weaker than children her age.

The lady with the loud box also gave her a strange look when she saw her, like something about her was unnatural. Even though she received gazes of disdain and all sorts of other gazes, the gaze the lady in charge gave her was different – not to mention she didn't seem to care about her hair color, which was a plus in Lulu's book.

Pinching at the bridge of her nose, Lulu cleared those unnecessary thoughts from her head and once more observed her surroundings. Around her was indeed just a blue plane, but there was something off in the distance ahead of her.

Getting on one knee she checked the hexagonal plates attached to her leg, she didn't want something to suddenly happen to them and force her to else her ability to walk, especially when her wheelchair wasn't present.

Standing back up she also checked the ones on her back before deciding to make her way towards whatever that was in the distance.

As she was walking, at a somewhat moderate pace, a sound entered her ears, it was as if something was crumbling all around her. Swerving her head left and right she couldn't see anything in her surroundings changing, yet she could still hear the crumbling.

Deciding to, somewhat ignore the sounds, she once more moved forward, what was she going to do even if something was crumbling? Run? Where? Since she wouldn't be anything she could do, Lulu just steeled herself to move forward. That was when she felt the entire area around her begin to shake – she had nearly lost her footing.

– "Steady... steady."

Mumbling under her breath, Lulu stretched her arms out as she managed to stop her wobbling and keep herself standing up. Releasing a sigh she could hear the sound of crumbling become increasingly loud, it was practically banging at her ears; so Lulu brought herself to a complete.

The thing she saw in the distance was still quite far away, because she wasn't moving that fast she barely chipped away at the distance separating, but that wasn't the most important thing right now.

Whatever that was crumbling was becoming annoying and a great disturbance for her thought process, though the noise soon revealed what it was as the ground all around her began breaking and pulling apart, it was all collapsing around her and caused her to flinch so much so that she mockingly laughed herself.

In the blue plane, all but the area that Lulu was standing on was collapsing and the occasional rolling thunder only dwarfed the sound. She didn't want to move a single inch from where she stood, afraid that she would fall in if she made one misstep.

Lulu stared dead out into the storm clouds, at the same time that the ground around her was crumbling the amount of lightning and thunder in the skies were increasing as their rumbling and roars grew louder and louder. The thunder and lighting even began slamming down into the crumbling ground, quickening the process.

With the lightning flashing followed by the loud and frightening thunder Lulu grew tenser and tenser by the moment, she didn't want to be hurt anymore. She hoped this would continue only happening around her and not to her.

After who knows how long the crumbling began to come to a halt, and although the lighting and the booming thunder still danced in the skies the ground had settled.

Where Lulu stood and stretched out far to the structure in the distance was all that remained from the crumbling, a singular narrow blue road, a blue lane leading in a singular direction – surrounded on both sides by a deep and dark abyss that the lightning and thunder continuously struck down into.

– "T-this..."

She was lost for words when watching all of this happen in front of her. It felt like what was happening all had a sense of flow in it, and that it was all made purposely – but she couldn't put her finger on why it felt this.

She wasn't the smartest person but she bet that if Karma was here she would know why she felt this way, and probably try and point out how obvious it was. Just that thought caused Lulu to chuckle to herself, a smile formed on her face as she wondered how Karma was doing right now.

– "Probably, much better than me..."

"Funny how good I talk when alone."

Ridding her head of any negative thoughts Lulu chided herself on the lack of stuttering in her sentences. She to hurry up and return to her mother, Karma, and Helia so she tried her best to walk faster, as her legs shook, unstably.

As she began to draw nearer to the distant structure lighting followed by its booming thunder struck down on all sides of the blue lane, with each strike a series of images would play there. The first set of images she didn't see, but after the same occurrence happening many times she finally witnessed the appearance of the images.

– "Why..."

They were displaying a series of events that happened to her in the past, these were showing the incident when she first faced an attempted assassination. An event in which she was left a disabled mess.

The images flicked through and showed all that happened, Lulu covered her mouth with her hands, she felt like she was going to throw up. She wanted to turn her eyes away from them, but she couldn't. She wanted to shut her eyes, but she couldn't.

She started to squeeze her arms, practically digging her fingernails into them as she gritted her teeth. As she was being force-fed her traumatic memories and the pain from her burns, she felt them flaring up; if she continued like this she would collapse before she even saw the Mirror.

Pulling at all the strength she could, Lulu forced herself to move through along the blue lane while she continued to get closer and closer to the structure in the distance, more and more images appeared and they would be played on repeat in her head, over and over again.

The pain from her burns that were flaring up and the pain that was pounding at her head was causing her to stumble and wobble along the path she was on. There were quite a few times when she almost stumbled off the edge into the empty abyss but fortunately, she was able to catch herself.

– "There it is–"

She was close, the object that was in the distance was close, so close that she could tell what it was, it was a giant mirror. Seeing the Mirror gave her a boost of confidence to keep moving, but that didn't matter as she fell to her knees.

"Ugh! Aagh!"

The pain from both her injuries and the mental pain from being shown horrible memories on repeat was exhausting and incredulously hard for her weak body to handle – it was honestly a miracle to Lulu that she was able to hold on – she didn't expect that she had it in her.

– "ssta-"

– "sssstand"

– "Wha– Ugh!"

Hollowed and ghastly hushed voices began making their way towards her ears, they were urging her to move forward. She wanted to figure out where the voices were coming from, but she was surprised by what felt like a punch in the gut, causing her to lurch forward.

Strangely, after the pain from her gut subsided she was able to think lightly clearer, at least clear enough for her to move even though she was still being assaulted by the memories.

Pulling herself off the ground she made her way closer to the Mirror – even though it was at a snail's pace and she was constantly forced to pause due to pain, or the headache caused by the memories and whispers; she still made it to the base of the stairs leading up to it.

The voices were stranger than everything that was going on, they came out of nowhere and she couldn't see anything or anyone that they would come from, yet she felt like she was connected with them. It felt as if she could trust whatever they told her, almost like they had always been with her.

She had to ignore these feelings, nothing good would come from trusting such feelings; but she did question whether or not this was familiar to the feeling that Karma had asked her about.

Ignoring it for now she looked up the stairs, she could barely walk as is, she would probably fall as she went up the stairs. Using her hands as well as her feet. Lulu resolved herself to climb up the stairs that way.

When she was at the top of the stairs and now only a few steps away from the Mirror she sighed as she was sprawled across the ground – she was hoping that now that she was here she could relax.

Alas, even that wish of hers wasn't granted. The voices in her head were increasing and becoming increasingly more enthusiastic as they urged her to approach the Mirror, they seemed to be in a bigger rush than her.

With a grunt, Lulu rose to her feet, she clicked her tongue, the memories were no longer being slammed into her head and she could focus better. Though her head was clearer, she didn't have enough energy to give much thought to the Mirror and noticed how there was lightning carved and swirling around its frame.

When she stood place in front of the Mirror, the lightning and thunder that were crashing into the abyss surrounding the Mirror and blue lane increased in quantity, increased so much so that it lit the sky up; making it look as if there was a giant wall going from the abyss up into the sky.

The light from them was practically blinding as she covered her eyes, they wouldn't adjust to this bright of light easily. The sound of rolling thunder was going on for so long that she felt her ears pop multiple times as she couldn't get rid of the ringing in them.

Stretching her hand out Lulu reached out and touched the Mirror, and as soon as she did everything around her went deafly silent, there was no more rolling thunder, ringing in her ears, or constant ghastly voices. There was just silence.

Uncovering her eyes she looked around, no more lightning was striking, they just vanished into thin air as if they never existed. Looking into the glass of the Mirror, Lulu wondered what was going to happen next – there had been nothing but chaos since she arrived so she didn't know what to expect.

The glass of the Mirror acted like water and began to morph and twist like a whirlpool. The Mirror shook, it showed images that flashed by as quickly as they came – Lulu was able to catch a few that were images of a giant ring floating above a planet's surface along with another ring that was hidden by a cavern of rocks.

Both gave out a great air from them even with their short appearances in the Mirror. The giant rings were cemented in her head, she couldn't get rid of the image no matter how hard she tried, she clenched her head as she came to a sudden realization.

– "Rings... yes rings."

She had seen many rings while she was in her home, and none of them looked large, dangerous, or weapon-like. That's why when seeing these two large rings the only thing that came to mind was the mission she was forced to accept when she reincarnated: "Find the Rings. Return order."

A whole load of baloney that's what that was, she was just a weak little girl. What did they expect her to do to complete a mission of such a ridiculous scale – it was honestly nerve-wracking. There were times in her room when she had panic attacks thinking about what she would do about this mission, but now it was like they were blatantly reminding her of it.

There was a problem though, she was completely and utterly powerless, even if she did Transcend from this Mirror she would still be weaker than everyone else, she didn't know why they expected anything from her.

That was when rumbling returned to the skies. Looking up, Lulu could see red and blue clashing in the sky, there was a thunderous conversation happening in the sky. She was suddenly hit by a sense of foreboding, the hairs on the back of her neck stood and she unconsciously took a step back.

As if to answer her nervousness two varying thunderous roars pierced through the clouds as two bolts of lightning, one red, and one blue zig-zagged towards Lulu at jarring speeds – not giving her enough time to react as they stuck down her, as if she was a large lightning rod; following after them was the sound of rolling thunder.

Lulu could not be seen as her entire being was engulfed by the two bolts of lightning, that spread out electricity along the path as if there was no better conductor.

There were no cries or screams of pain, just lightning, rolling thunder, and a Blue Lane.