BLUE AND WHITE

"Hey, Wanna go outside?"
"Me? Hmm... What will we do there?"
"I dunno, maybe just hang around near the port."
"You really want to go outside for that?"
"Well, if it's not with you, then it won't be fun at all will it?"
"... Siegh... Come on, then."
"Outside?"
"Yes. Outside."

CHAPTER 2 - UNFOLD

A loud, sickening thud echoed up and down, through the whole dark chasm.

Everything was black. Nothing could be seen. Roku helplessly floated though the complete darkness.

"What... what happened to me?" He thought. "Why can't I see anything? Wasn't I falling a while ago? I-"

"Proprius Resarcio."

"W-what? Who?"

"That is your name."

"N-no... That's not-"

"Yes, it is."

"What-"

"A fortnight ago, you were renamed. You are now labelled Proprius Resarcio."

"Labelled? What do you mean... labelled?"

"You can wake up now."

"Wait! What were you talking about? Why was I renamed?"

"Your life takes a sharp pivot toward a completely blank and mysterious page... Only yet to be written on."

Roku's first few seconds into consciousness began with with a thin, horizontal white line. Little by little, the line grew and portrayed a bright, blurry image. He still didn't understand what was his eyes were revealing to him.

The haziness soon took form.

Small but numerous circular lights, which eclipsed the strange rod-like instruments, were exposed all over the low ceiling. The strange devices that were situated beside him, loomed over the cold, hard surface he lay on.

Roku responded to his surroundings.
He made an attempt to get up from his reclined position but a strong weight forcefully pinned his hands and feet down to the chilly, metallic bed.

"What... what is this? Where am I?" He started to panic. He thought "What am I doing here? A while ago I was falling and I... remember hitting the ground."

The reminiscence of the painful crash he had to endure at the bottom of the gorge entered his thoughts. A new emotion engulfed his consciousness. It was a strange mixture of fear and relief.

Roku thought in total hysteria, "Why am I alive? That collision with the ground should have killed me! And... what is this place!"

He remembered falling down with such a speed that could have made a person faint. The cold air swiftly rushed past him. Fright swallowed him up as his completely helpless body ramed into the dirty bottom. The last moments of awareness in Roku's surroundings ended with his body being driven down past the floor into a lower level of surface. He suffered every bone-cracking moment of the agonizing collision with the ground. The expression that rested on Roku's face was found to be an unexplainable terror.

A female's voice made itself perceptible to Roku's ears. "Oh, so you are awake."

His head, the only part of his body free to move around, glanced to the right. Her body was sihouetted by the intense luminescence.

"Proprius."

Roku's mind stopped working for a short while.

"Proprius Resarcio." He said. That was what he was "labelled" as.

"Why, yes. Hmm... first day into your new being and you can even hear what your consciousness doesn't. Very impressive."

She was mistaking him. He did not want to be called that strange name. He is Roku. That was the name given to him when his entire fate was decided. Supposedly, if his fate was even decided at all.

"My name is... Roku." He declared. "Not... Proprus... Resc..."

"Still a bit weak." The woman disappointedly said. "But that will have to do." She pressed something under the hard surface he lay on. "The metallic cuffs, pinning him down, split apart and gave him the freedom to move. "Get up."

Roku followed. He steadied his wobbling body. As he glanced around the room, he saw nothing but the platform he reclined on, the few rod-like things he noticed a while ago and the monotonous silvery sparkle of the walls, floors and ceiling. He looked at the woman and found out that she was only a young girl acolyte. She, who didn't seem to be any older than him, had beautiful brown hair, which hung down all over her extremely attractive appearance. Then, the most obvious question for the moment popped into his head.
"W-where am I?"

She made an odd, amused smile. "Um... It was funny... in an morbid sort of way. Your body came crashing down through the top of our conference room! Your bones were all crushed, blood was splattered everywhere-" Roku's weakness returned. "and of course, your body was in a shape no one could... er, 'fix'." She had such a happy-go-lucky and bouncy way of talking. She paused and stared at the weird expression on Roku's face. "Well, no one but us."

"Us" She said. That most probably meant that there were other people here.
Roku kept his body up with his hands, acting as pillars on the surface he lay on.

"I'll... or we'll, rather, explain later." She held her hands in a sort of spell-casting pose.

"Prodigium alieno!"

The moment the short incantation ended, a shining portal appeared on the hoary floor.

"Step in, please."

Roku didn't really know if he could trust her. Everything just seemed so damn suspicious. Izlude sinking, that big of a chasm, his being labelled like an insignificant laboratory rat and... his unexplained "resurrection" from apparent death. He thought, as he slowly walked toward the portal, that everything, which happened, ensued too fast for his consciouness to comprehend.

Another question entered his mind.

He turned around. "Uhh... excuse me, but who are you?" He didn't want to be rude and he didn't refer this exactly to her but to this whole place. There has to be more people here...
He just wanted to know what was going on.

The girl's eyes were shadowed by the strong lights above. "Everything will be revealed to you soon enough."

She took a step forward and pushed his weak body into the warp portal.

Roku could do nothing but watch as his vision progressed from a falling state to a waving blur of light blue light and finally, total darkness.

"The beautiful silk sheet flows freely through the air, waving wherever the breeze guides it to."

CHAPTER 2 - UNFOLD
END.