Darkness.
Pain.
"Eyes up doll face." The comforting voice came from a strange floating object, hovering in front of her face. A faint blue glow coming from it's centre.
Her chest starts to burn. Clawing at her throat, unsure of what to do, her new found consciousness starts to fade. "Hang on. You need to take a breath." Breath? What's that?
The strange object starts to flit about agitatedly. A beam of light shooting from it's centre directly into her chest. Some primal instinct starts to kick in and sweet, glorious, cool, disgustingly stale dusty air fills her lungs.
It might have caused her to cough and splutter, but the burning was subsiding and her awareness slowly returned. Rolling onto her hands and knees, she took a moment to let the dizziness pass and slowly looked around.
Only shapes could be made out in the dark gloom, but from the way the odd little lights voice bounced around, it sounded as though they were in a pretty small space. "That was a messy revival." Moving back into her line of sight it peered up through her curtain of hair. "Normally people don't need to be told how to do basic bodily functions...or so I'm told." He starts of in a lecture and finishes less confident. "Your my first. My first revival that is. In fact, thinking about it, I guess you'll be the only person I ever bring back."
The voice tickled something in her memory. Bringing forth affectionate, safe feelings. His voice, for it was definitely male, while having an oddly robotic twang was warm and grandfatherly. Try as she might, the memory wouldn't solidify. It was as if it was suppressed behind a thick fog. As soon as it was skimmed it faded back into the smoke.
An awkward silence hung in the air. One party dazed and confused, the other, floating and staring. The little blue light opening and closing, mimicking a human blink every few seconds.
"Are you ok? Can you stand?" he asked concerned. Nodding, slowly she gathered her feet beneath her, she started to shakily rise.
Where was she? More importantly who was she? What was the strange glowing metal star hovering about her head? A million different questions ran through her mind wanting out. However, her voice had other ideas. Instead of any words being formed, only a quiet rasp was allowed to escape.
Her hand reached for her throat. Not in the desperate panic filled actions of earlier. A gentle, cooling touch this time, cradling her broken vocal chords. "How strange.' He was way too close, obviously not aware of personal space bubbles. Or maybe he was and didn't care. "The resurrection should have brought you back into working order. Somethings not right".
This should be weird. It isn't a normal every day occurrence to wake up in what seems like an underground cave, having what should be an inanimate object talk to you about revival and resurrection. It was as if Star Wars had mashed with the Walking Dead for some lame sci fi show.
Surprised, she shakes her head trying to figure out what exactly a "Star Wars" and "Walking Dead" were or meant. However, like her previous memory, this one also slipped out of her grasp.
"I mean, there is this one guardian who doesn't talk at all, but I think that's more of a choice rather than not being able to. I heard they gave the queen and her brother some severe attitude. Can you believe it? You would decently need a voice for that. Maybe Mara Sov took it, not liking what she heard?" He was rambling, it felt like he was rambling. Such a human emotion from something made out of... what? Metal? Plastic? Who was Mara Sov?
Did it matter?
The light moved away illuminating a wall. Stumbling her way over and after walking into and eventually falling over some debris, she stood behind her companion. "There's only one way out of here and that's the way I got in. Through that vent up there".
Looking in the direction he had zoned in on, she saw an opening in the wall. Glancing towards the floating gadget confused as to how he expected her to Reach it. Turning, she started to feel about for something big enough to step on, hoping it would give her enough height.
"Jump and pull yourself up. I'm sure I reconstructed the muscles right. Well, I hope I did".
That was crazy talk. There was physically no way she could jump and reach that opening. Never mind have the strength to pull herself up.
"Trust me."
Taking a moment to think about it, she oddly enough did. Quietly moving back to stand underneath the grate she sighed. Realising there wasn't much else of a choice, she took a steadying breath for her shaky legs and bent them in preparation for what seemed like an impossible jump.
The last thing she heard was a frantic "Wait! Wait! It isn't that high! You won't need to put so much..." Before her head cracked against the roof and she came crashing back down to the earth.
This time the darkness swept over her in an instant, putting a stop to all the questions she couldn't voice.
