And so began the cycle of waking up and falling asleep.
Rinse and repeat.
It was frustrating at first. Horrible, the second feeling she had felt. Now, it felt… odd.
The routine, in a nutshell, went like this: Eyes crack open to the bright morning star, desperate breaths, and gasps, and the strange soothing warmth that washes over her entire body.
Rinse and repeat.
It wasn't too bad…
(She was lying to herself)
(But, at least, the subject of meeting Death and combusting into flames was forgotten)
The process of this process repeating respectively was overly annoying to the point she had asked herself: Is there even a point?
At first, she thought she had gotten back into the habit of being a light sleeper.
What a way to start a new life you barely even know about.
But no, this was not light sleeping. No, it was not.
Usually, as a normal sleeper would, you would have some weird imagery your mind cooks up for you and sometimes you'd get to experience it—faintly.
For her, it wasn't really that simple.
She wished.
She sat idle, hunched over, playing with a weed of vibrant green grass near a beautiful pond filled will lotus flowers.
A lucid dream, she had assumed at first. But coming back to it constantly? No, that wasn't possible.
Maybe it was. She didn't know.
She just wanted to forget the flames and the terrifying wendigo monstrosity.
She felt it all. The brush of the singing wind and the tickling touch of the grass underneath her feet. There were no other living walking beings in this pocket-reality-thing. Just her. And only her.
She often stayed near the pond filled with lotus flowers that always ever showed its beauty to her whenever she came close. It was off-putting but she shrugged it off.
Probably one of those kinds of plants that have defense mechanisms.
The pond—that was really nice despite the tingly feeling whenever she'd dip in—had this odd sense of peace around it. If she were to tell someone that a pond gave off a feeling of safety they'd probably look at her in disbelief.
She liked the pond. She felt content whenever she'd relax and poke at the flowers. The reincarnated Goddess wanted to explore to the edge of this landscape.
She could see other lands in the distance if she squinted. High grey mountains standing tall with bright yellow trees surrounding them, and large arches of cliffs pointing out diagonally that gave off a sense of apprehensiveness whenever she laid upon it.
(The grey mountains and arches represented her brothers, but she hadn't known that by then)
She woke up again.
The Sister Goddess continues to sleep for years
People continue to die after her Touch
Everyone knew the legend of the Sister Goddess, a Creation between the two Brothers.
A split between both their powers. Light and Dark. Creation and Destruction.
The natives that protect the sacred land She sleeps upon lower its numbers every single day. Every single day warriors are blessed with the sensation of courage and strength; healed injuries that impossible to be healed. Every single day those protectors are dead within days.
People whisper that the God of Darkness gave his Sister the power of Death. Others argue that the price of granting these gifts was your own life.
To this day, inhabitants still continue to do what they've done for years.
In a land far from Her Domain, a woman holds a scepter inherited by ancient heroes of old by the bed of her dead lover. She tightens her hold, sobbing quietly.
"How could the gods let this happen?"
She tries to keep count of the days that past
But they don't seem accurate
It's longer than that of what she's expected
She tries to keep track of the time whenever she returns back to the Other World.
She gathers plucked grass and pressed them on the wet soil, creating tallies made of grass. The soil that had the weeds embedded into it eventually dried up, the wind carrying the brittle grass away from memory.
The number was inaccurate. It hadn't had mattered at all.
It was irrelevant. Time didn't matter.
(It did.)
She'd begun to lose her hope for the best.
Outside of her dream world the weather around her Domain wails, striking down unsuspecting inhabitants and travelers.
She shook her head, back and forth, forward and backward.
It felt weightless—the antlers on her head. They resembled reindeer antlers and the Goddess couldn't help the amusing thought as the tune to Rudolf the red nose reindeer played in her head.
She laughed for the first time in ages.
If Nature itself had been a real human being, it would've rejoiced.
The Sister Goddess hummed in content, the thought of hanging bells on the antlers she now noticed existed made her burst into soft laughter again.
The wind rustled and laughed with her.
She tugged at them. Her laughter stopped.
Now that actually hurt.
The story starts
And there's no going back
She wakes up. This time, it starts with an agonizing sharp inhale of breath that makes her desperately reach for—nothing was there.
Her breaths were labored and she closed her eyes in weariness, waiting for her world to bleed back into the Other World.
Only, it didn't come.
She paid no mind to the thunder that rumbled in the background.
The girl opened her eyes slowly, blinking rapidly. She licked her lips and sat up, now lost for words.
The Goddess' silver eyes dilated as her eyes roamed the floating monstrosity.
The girl was blinded by her fear and anger that she didn't notice the change her humanoid vessel had transformed to.
Death, who watched the unsurprising change, opened its mouth, a ball of blackened flames swirling and ready to fire at any minute.
The Sister Goddess' human vessel vanished. The elfin-like child was now replaced by a tall, naked, humanoid woman whose pale complexion was now a soft turquoise blue. Deer antlers crowned her head and her nonexistent features scrunched up.
Death fired.
All was shrouded in pure, white light.
Rewritten: 1/29/19
I rewrote all of it because I disliked how I put the original chapter 3. I still remember staring at a blank page for twenty minutes.
The man from the Original is now just the poor dude who dropped his offerings.
By the way, I rewrote all the chapters. Most of its the same, but added with minor details.
I do read reviews and the PMs. I just don't know what kind of response I can give. (Kudos to those who gave a suggestion for this nameless OC, I believe I have a name already)