Chapter 1
Fire.
I was born of fire.
Completely unaware of my surroundings, flashes of light and faces that I did not know filled my head as I frantically tried to comprehend what was happening to me. What am I? Terror, confusion and pain were my only companions in this hellacious journey to immortality.
Days – I am assuming – passed, and eventually the pain receded and my (physical) eyes opened. A brief glance around me revealed I was in a building of some sort – a shed? – that had obviously seen better years. Various detritus left behind by – again, assuming – the drunks and homeless that had used this building for shelter scattered the floor, and a general odor of mustiness and disuse lingered in the air. Sunlight streamed down through missing sections of the roof and between cracks in the warped gray wood that made up the walls. Upon noticing the effect of the sunlight on my skin, I gasped. Beautiful. I stared, transfixed by the light bouncing away from my skin and reflecting prisms onto the wood next to me. I reached out to touch the wood where the light reflected.
Oops.
I could only figure that must be some of the softest wood ever created, because my whole arm just sank right through it with no resistance at all. It was as if I had reached into a pool of water. I cocked my head to the side, deliberating how to remove my arm from the wall without further damaging it. Though to be honest, it really didn't seem like anyone owned this dilapidated structure, so did it really matter?
Oh my lord! I just realized I don't have clue who I am, what I am doing here, or what here even is!
In retrospect, I can understand the missing pieces to my thought process, but dear reader, you have to understand that 1: I had no memories at ALL, and 2. I had the attention span of a vampire. Which is to say I had more questions than a saint could answer patiently, and was completely incapable of focusing on any one of those questions long enough to fully digest the answer if it had been available to me.
So back to Day One (as I like to think of it).
Upon realizing that my mind was the proverbial blank slate, I sat down to quietly, and then not so quietly, panic. I drew my knees up and rested my chin on them while covering my head with my arms to try to block out the sunlight that I knew would just fascinate and distract me again.
Think, Alice. You have to figure out what you are doing here. You're really thirsty, so you need to figure out where to get something to drink.
But that means going outside, and I don't know what's out there!
Wait! I just called myself Alice! Holy crap! So that must mean I am called Alice! Yay, score a point for….ALICE!
Really. Thirsty.
Apparently, my body had decided that its needs were way more important than any mental celebration over this newly discovered information, because the fire was back. Clawing its way up my throat, burning almost behind my eyes and making me want to scratch my skin off just to get the fire to STOP. I made up my mind to venture out of the shed and find something, anything to quench this unbearable thirst when what could only be called a mental explosion hit me like, well, a mental explosion.
Girl
In sunlight, sparkling.
Man
In sunlight, smiling
Sound….scent….hunger…
TERROR
Running
Leaping
Catching
Girl coated in red, sated
Man coated in red, dead
I screamed and the windows shattered.