Her body responded with a jolt and the slender woman sat up in her bed, straight backed and heavy breathed. Dark hair, black as coal and streaked with crimson, flashed out in front of her eyes as her crimson mouth hung desperately open, searching for a breath. Jade eyes stared widely at something unseen but all to real as the bottom lip shook ever so slightly. Her hands, white knuckled and stressed, clung to the sheets. Crisp linen crunched under her grasp as nails, polished a shiny black, tore through them. She tried to scream but something stopped the sound. Something hot, burning, ripped through her gut and took away everything else.
She gasped, finally getting that breath as the intense burning was replaced with an omnipotent chill which shook the slender woman to her bones.
She shook for a moment, this world seemingly foreign and all too familiar at the same time. What had happened in the last week, had it been weeks? Days? Years?
'Oh God,' she thought to herself. 'Oh God? You never believed a day in your life, don't start now,' a voice in her head told her as she threw away the sheets. The chill air bit her bare legs and feet as she padded along the cement floors of the unfinished, ground level loft apartment, but it was nothing in comparison to the chill that was running through her veins with each beat of her heart.
The beat of her heart. Had it really stopped? Had she really died? Shot in the stomach and bled out in a back alley? Or was this all a dream? And since when did she have black hair?
With the grace of a drunk cat, she stumbled to the doorway of what she presumed was the bathroom, catching herself on the doorframe before she did a face plant into the sink. Veined hands gripped the door frame, her nails digging into the wood as she saw a mirror.
Cracked and caked with years of neglect, it fed her visage back to her, whether she wanted to see it or not.
The woman in the mirror was not her. Who was she? She looked young, maybe 19, possibly 20. No older than that. Unnaturally black hair with red streaks which framed her high cheek boned face. Green eyes glowed like ghouls in her ghostly white face, a slightly turned up nose and a pair of pale lips finished the foreign face. Vendetta took a shaking hand and touched her cheek. Cold hand to cold cheek, foreign hand with foreign scars to foreign face with foreign features.
She shook, watching the surreal events in the mirror. "Who are you?" she asked herself, and of course, there was no response. She didn't even remember her own name, or any name. Vendetta, that's it That was all she remembered. Vendetta and the Punisher; the hot, searing pain and hatred which surrounded that name.
She growled and brought her hand down to her abdomen but... there was noting there... Not a scar, not a line. No stitches, no scab. Nothing.
Suddenly she felt sick. The crusted and cracked porcelain of the toilet were no longer her concern as she clung to its cool comfort and yarked up a good amount of blood. Crimson danced from her lips, coating and tainting everything. The room rank of it, and smears dripped down her lips as she looked up at her reflection in the black window. It ran in a river from the corner of her mouth, over her chin and dropped with a strangely soothing plop into the crimson water below.
She lurched again, trying in vain to bite back the bile and blood as the acrid taste burnt her throat and the brackish scent assaulted her nostrils. The water in the bowl was more blood than water now, if it had ever been just water.
She wiped the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand, smearing a line of blood from the corner of her mouth across her cheek in a sneering line, staining her wrist red. She rested her forehead against the seat and tried for a moment to recall all that had gone on, and just how long it had taken, and what 'it' was.
Eyes closed, blood dripped from her lips, echoing in small ripples in the pond of blood beneath her, nauseating her even more. Tears welled at her eyes, just because when she vomited it caused a reaction in her that made her cry. She clenched her eyes and her jaw, fighting back against her stomach and her tear ducts at the same time. She focused on the pain, on what had happened...
She was on her back, the cold night seeping in as her warm life spilt out. Out onto the cold, uncaring stone of the alley way. In her distant mind she could hear steps walking away and a swish of a coat just barely above her own beating heart which was slowly winding down, like a windup watch who was almost at the end of its time. Bright lights invaded in the encroaching darkness and the signs of angels were fluttering. Soft feathers kissed her cheeks, her body as now she was stripped of everything earthly. Something stood in front of her, and somehow she knew she didn't belong here. Not in heaven. Of all people she did not belong in heaven.
"Your job is not finished... You have just begun," the voice echoed with a ghostly chill. Vendetta stood still and couldn't move as the angel moved closer to her. She was afraid for the first time that she could remember. The angel said a name, one she couldn't remember. She hadn't been called by it in so long she wasn't even sure if it really was her name or not. The angel came to her and pressed warm lips to Vendetta's forehead and for an instant the face was familiar. Someone from her past.
The angel's hair was of spun gold, and it tickled when it brushed against Vendetta's bare shoulders. The bright blue of her eyes danced in the golden lights. Silvers bouncing around as it they were soft notes played on a far away instrument. Her voice was light and lively yet serious, gentle and strong in the same way. She was motherly as she cupped Vendetta's face and lifted her from her knees.
"You have to... Go now," she said and with that, here she was.
What had happened? Even Vendetta didn't even know. She curled up, her bare back against the cold toilet and assumed a fetal position. Blood smeared across her face and tears ran rivers through the red stains, leaving lanes of salt in their wake.