Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
Her ears woke first. A sudden cacophony of sounds exploded into her lethargic consciousness. The sound of distant radios warring for dominance poured out reggae, Lingala, hip hop, the BBC, and a rap version of My Favorite Things. Human and animal sounds intermingled into a thousand voices of daily life. Cows lowed. Cats meowed. Birds sang. Children laughed. Babies cried.
It was the unrecognizable scritching and scratching sound that first inspired her to open her eyes. She struggled, as if her eyelids were dusty from disuse, like a rusty curtain rod.
She blinked.
Golden light danced off a thousand floating, swirling specks of glitter in the air. At first she thought she awoke into a blizzard, until she realized she could see the brilliant purple of a jacaranda blooming in the distance.
Dust. She could see the dust. Every single, individual particle exuded a myriad of shades of ochre, taupe, beige, and ivory in the rays of light.
She lifted her eyes and noticed the intricately woven grass thatched roof above her, attached to circular wattle and daub walls. An open doorway revealed the jacaranda regally raining violet petals on all her loyal banana tree subjects below, violently green in the late afternoon sun.
She became conscious that she not only could see the banana trees, but she could see the individual veins of each leaf, each ant crawling up the base, and even the delicate pairs of antennae on each ant.
Her brain momentarily swirled like the dust particles in the anomalous sensory overload.
Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
Bella quickly sat upright and found herself on a simple foam mattress covered by a plaid blanket on the dirt floor of the hut. Squatting directly across from her came the source of the noise.
Silver claws drew patterns in the dust at the feet of a figure garbed entirely in black, darker than the shadows that first shielded him from view.
She sprang to her feet and automatically crouched into a defensive posture, surprising herself both in the litheness of her movement and the existence of the defensive instinct. She stared at her stance momentarily before turning back to the figure.
He continued to crouch in the shadows, flecks of light reflecting off of claws and the silver claw-like necklace around dark shoulders.
"Who are you and why am I here?" Bella asked, her throat suddenly on fire as she took in the scent that surrounded her and heard the rhythmic beating of a heart. She threw her hands around her neck in surprise and tried in vain to swallow the flames.
"I could ask you the same question," the figure replied in a deep, male voice lilted in the soft cadences of an accent she could not identify.
"My name is Bella Swan. I do not know where I am and I do not know why I am here."
The figure stood to his full height, towering at least a foot taller than Bella. The entirety of his broad, muscular body remained veiled by form-fitting black regalia crowned with a cat-eared mask.
"Bella Swan, you are in the kingdom of Wakanda," he replied. "And we do not know why you are here."