SUMMARY: What is one to do when they find themselves in a world completely not their own? A world where magic is real, people wear armor and there is no electricity. Where Liz must either kill or be killed. A place which, to her, seems like some medieval fantasy novel. Nothing will ever be the same again. It is survival of the fittest, and she isn't really that fit... – Here, have some romance and canon divergence.
I plan to do a lot with this story, so bear with me. Slow going, at first, but picks up pretty quickly. It will be told from two people's POV. Main Character, Liz, and Cole. I will make it clear who's POV it is from, do not fret.
Note to Self: Don't Die
"Life's a Bitch"
Liz always thought that she would end up dying old and decrepit in a comfortable bed living in the suburbs somewhere. Finally move off of the Indian Reservation she was currently on and live in a better place. Maybe she could have a couple of cats, even a significant other if she were that lucky. Though the young woman was more interested in the cats, if she were to be honest.
Her little sister Elise could live happily in an apartment in the basement of her dream home, perhaps with a spouse of her own. Was that too specific? She thought so.
Fortunately, or not depending on who you ask, that would only be half true. The 20 year old Native American woman went to bed just like any other night, grumbling quietly to herself as she threw her blankets over her head haphazardly. A puff of breath left her nose as her mind whirled with ideas and thoughts on what to write her new research project about. But nothing seemed to come to mind. Her thoughts were elsewhere.
College. Exams. EMT Certification. Full-time job. How to keep food on the table for herself and her little sister. Just normal things. She was 20 and practically raising her little sister. It was hard, juggling college and a job. Add her sister in the mix and it's a whole new ballgame.
But ah, the young woman had grown used to it.
Her life simply droned on and on, no end in sight. Everything was beginning to grow stagnant. Still. Swept away in a dull dim world full of empty promises and forged friendships. She felt there was a void that needed to be filled. Something was missing. Something... somewhere. Perhaps it was her lack of friends?
Liz scratched her chest and yawned as she curled into the bed, reveling in the warmth that it offered. The woman, like with any of her other problems, simply pushed it to the back of her mind for later. Hopefully tomorrow would bring a better day.
Her eyes drooped.
Elise was supposed to be home by now. She thought to herself, worrying for her younger sister. But she was old enough to care for herself. Liz's thoughts slowed and her worries slipped away like water through her fingers.
She'd be fine.
Everything dimmed and went dark.
It all happened so quick. She didn't even know how long she'd been asleep. The woman's eyes snapped open when a scream split through the air. Everything in her body told her to run. Run.
"Oh my God!" It was muffled by the walls, but the voice sounded familiar. The stench of smoke permeated the air and filtered through her shoddy blanket. Adrenaline was pumping through her system, heart beating wildly. What on Earth was going on?
Her heart nearly jumped right out of her chest when the screams turned into wails of sheer agony. Wails that were deafened by the steady roar of—
Fire?
Liz flew into a seated position and was immediately assaulted with smoke in her eyes. She coughed and slid onto the cluttered floor, trying to get lower to the ground. She was prone, hands pushing away days old clothing and schoolwork. Frantic fingers picked at the hardwood, mind reeling a mile a minute. Brown eyes widened as the haze of sleep snapped.
This isn't happening.
That's when she realized that the screaming that she was hearing was from her roommate. Her little sister.
This is happening.
"Elise!" The young woman's voice cracked from the strain, eyes scratchy and full of tears as the smoke only seemed to get thicker and thicker. "Elise, wh-where are you!?"
How did this happen?
The two lived together in a small rundown apartment complex and it was to be expected that something bad would happen eventually. Whether it be burglary or power outages, but this? This was not what she had in mind.
A muffled yell, now. The screams sounded farther away and Liz only hoped that it was because they'd gotten out in time. Another muffled yell, her long black hair was already plastered to the side of her face from the perspiration. From her spot, her door was cracked open just enough to give her a view of their front door. The fire was licking her door frame, the flickering flames eating away at the entrance. Barring exit. Her bedroom door flew open the rest of the way, giving her a start.
Liz yelled, surprised as a pair of legs trotted into the room.
"Fuck! Liz! Lizzy I-" Elise's voice, her little sister. The young girl started hacking and coughing as she stumbled into the bedroom. Her hands flailed about, as if to swat the smoke out of her face. Liz grabbed the young girl roughly and pulled her onto the floor.
Elise hit the hardwood floor with a resounding 'thud!', looking as if she wanted to yell but couldn't. The only thing she could do was cough. Her bright green eyes were shut, tears streaming down. She couldn't open them.
Liz wanted to ask what happened. Why it started, if she knew at all. Had she been asleep, too? But there was no time. They needed to get out of there, quickly.
"We need to get out of here." Was Liz's frantic reply, already taking note of the fact that it looked as if the young girl was having difficulties breathing. Elise was but 17 years old. It couldn't end like this. Not for her. Never for her.
The young girl got into a lot of trouble, sure. But she still had a future ahead of her. Elise needed to live! With that thought in mind, Liz pushed herself into action. Doing the only thing she could think of.
Everything seemed like a blur, her mind barely able to register everything at once. The memory hazy. Whether that was from the traumatic experience itself or lack of oxygen. It was beyond her. Liz's vision blinked in. Out. In, glass broke in a shower of glittering glass as she tossed something out her second floor window.
Yelling, so much yelling. The yelling was outside, now. Screams as someone yelled, "Up there!"
The roar of the fire at her back kicked her into overdrive. Out. Her vision went dark.
Black. Though she could see nothing, she clearly recalled labored breathing. Frantic, fading. Knowing, just knowing she needed to get her sister out of this. Her sister came first, her sister mattered more. She needed to live.
The people outside screamed simultaneously, as if seeing a horrifying sight.
In, Elise was shrieking profanities as Liz shoved her out the window. Liz watched as her green eyes connected with her brown ones, a look of horror as she fell out the window. The flames were at her back, now. The heat licked at the back of her neck and she just knew her long hair was singed off, dead. Just like-
Nothing.
It was like everything came to a complete stop. The world stuttered and ceased it's rotation. The sound died off, as if behind thick glass. In fact, it was so quiet that Liz half expected to hear her own heartbeat. Her heart should be thudding against her ribcage, galloping at light speed because of what happened. Happened?
Where was she? What was she doing again? Why was she—why was it so dark?
Then, like a flipping of a switch she remembered. Elise. Her little sister. Was she alive? Was she alright? Did they get to her in time?
Liz had taken her sister in after their mother kicked her out. The girls weren't on good terms with their parents and stuck together. Always. They had each other. The young woman felt a jolt of panic at the thought that her sister could be injured. Dead, even.
No no no. That couldn't happen, it just couldn't!
It felt like she was floating away, something pulling at her chest. Like a thread. Tugging, teasing. Tempting her into the dark. Somewhere where she knew she'd be unable to come back, unable to see her sister.
Liz wasn't having any of it.
She fought back, wanting nothing more than to make sure that Elise was safe. She had to be safe. The thought that she was probably dead didn't even cross her mind, the only thing she cared about was—
'beep beep beep'
She heard it in the distance, the beeping of a heart monitor. She knew the sound, was familiar with it. The young woman also knew that it shouldn't sound so fast. The person's heart rate, a crescendo into dangerous levels.
'beepbeep beepbeep'
Liz's world shifted and she was able to see, everything around her a heavy green fog/smoke. Rocks floated nearby and the ground was above her head, she was upside down. But none of that seemed to even register to her. She was too focused on the vision before her. Elise's body was in an ambulance, the very thing Liz pretty much lived in when she wasn't in college. Heck, she hardly got to even sleep at home.
The EMT's muffled yet frantic voices. Clattering. The distinct sound of someone using a defibrillator.
'THUMP' The young girl's body tensed up and fell limp on the cot. Burns shone on her pallid skin. Skin that was once a rich tan. Pale. The people around her began to check her vitals.
Nothing. Again.
'THUMP'
Nothing.
Nothing.
Everything fell away.
There was a call in the distance and Liz could feel herself stir from what seemed like a deep sleep. Everything slowly felt like it was coming into focus again.
It felt like it hurt. It hurt so much. A hollow emptiness stretched so thin, so far, that it pained her. Her chest, her head, her back. But it shouldn't feel that way. She shouldn't feel this way, she shouldn't—
'She died and I couldn't save her. I couldn't protect her.' Her own voice echoed sadly, bringing her back into the conscious world. The light swayed and blurred as her eyes cracked open painfully.
There wasn't even a sense of knowing or nothingness that hit her. No one to greet her or some God-like being to tell her how she'd done and judge her accordingly. She just woke up. Yes, that's right. Liz woke up.
The young woman thought that perhaps she would awaken and hear the soft beeps of the heart monitor or the familiar sterile smell of a hospital. The soft but itchy feeling of the blankets laid atop her as she opened her eyes and stared at a tiled ceiling.
That was not the case. Far from so, in fact, that it jarred her awake. This shouldn't be-
Instead the smell of burnt rubber and meat permeated the air around her. The surface she was laying on felt gritty and unforgiving. She groaned, fingers twitching experimentally. A small rock was in her hand, connected with a broken thread of leather. Brushing that thought aside, she tried to recall any previous events.
Where was she? Why was she so tired? Why was she hurting so much?
She remembered the accident, her sister dying, then waking up only to wake up... again? Something didn't add up, there. Liz's whole body felt overly sensitive, like every nerve ending was on fire and flipped into overdrive.
Her eyes cracked open again, the light jabbing daggers into her sensitive eyes. Slowly, she pushed herself off of the ground with one shaky heave. It took more effort than it should have and upon closer inspection she had been laying on a rather charred and blackened section of land. Sloshing of water filtered through her ears, along with the deathly silent forest around her.
Liz knew the animals always got silent when something disturbed their habitat and the thought caused her body to tense. But when her gaze slowly dragged upward. Up and up. Even her eyes were sluggish.
She was informed just why that was. Why the animals were quiet. Why it smelled like burnt flesh and rubber. The scene swayed as her head bobbed in disbelief. Terror gripped her insides.
"Wha—aughh." The young woman coughed and turned away from the sight, feeling her stomach clench and threaten to spew it's contents onto the soot-filled ground.
There were numerous bodies splayed in front of her, smoke and steam sizzling and filtering into the air through their armor. That's definitely where the smell was coming from, she realized. The thought itself seemed to break whatever semblance of control she may have had on her stomach.
She gagged and began to regurgitate onto the ground between her knees. The woman's hands braced onto the ground and after the heaving seemed to calm, she noticed just how small her hands seemed to be. Why were they so small?
Matted brown hair fell like a tattered curtain around her dirt covered face, reminding her just how wrong this all was. Brown? Liz's hands twitched and she opened her hand, looking at the small rock in her hand.
'I couldn't save her.'
She clenched her jaw and pocketed the odd thing, refusing to think about where her sister could be or why she was suddenly out in the middle of nowhere. Could it be that perhaps it was all just a dream? Was this a dream? Her breathing shuddered and her lungs burned. Dreams didn't hurt.
Okay okay, she needed to get herself together. Panicking would not get her anywhere. If she didn't look at the bodies, perhaps she could find the strength to stand up. Stand up. Get up. Leave. Get out of here.
Get out. Get out. Like a mantra. Keeping her mind on one task. Ignoring what was in front of her. She couldn't...
Liz's legs wobbled like a newborn foal's, her body seemed almost too heavy. It took a few attempts and a few scraped knees later, but she was able to stumble away from the grisly scene. It wasn't right. None of it made sense.
Hadn't she been at her apartment? Was she drugged and hallucinating in the hospital?
She coughed, the pain grounding her to this world. Her legs were getting cut up from the foliage, her hands ripping away at the greenery. Liz cared not for all of the noise her fumbling body was making. The wildlife was still silent. Still.
There had to be a road somewhere, right? Her tired eyes scanned the area sloppily, trees. Trees and more trees. She was in the middle of a forest of some sort. She couldn't hear anything, only the hesitant chirp of birds as she got farther and farther from the carnage behind her.
Every time she tried to call for help, her voice cracked. A whisper.
How long has she been walking? Probably not that long at all, in fact. But her body felt as though it had been severely deprived of any type of food or water for days. The fatigue and how shaky she seemed to be just by walking at such a slow pace was a giveaway of the state in which her body had been left in. The stick she'd picked up to use as support wasn't helping in the least.
A road. Or what she assumed could be a road. It taunted her in the distance, much farther than she felt she was even able to accomplish. She'd gotten this far. She had to.
"What have I gotten myself into, this time?" Liz wondered aloud, voice sounding so much different than it should. Smaller, maybe. She couldn't really tell because of how scratchy her throat was.
Her walking stick stabbed the dirt and cracked, splitting in two. Her body tumbled with the lack of support, face first into the grass.
Liz didn't feel like she could go on anymore. Her eyes drooped, exhaustion taking hold. Scrapes and bruises blotted her already battered body.
I died and I'm going to die again.
Great.
She listened. For what? Cars, maybe. And that's when she heard the distant sound of hoof beats, causing her to lift her head weakly. The broken walking stick lay behind her as she clenched the soft grass beneath her palms.
Normally, the sound of people approaching her in the middle of nowhere would have put her on guard. But she couldn't find it in her to care. Emotionally and physically depleted. Drained.
"That's her! That's the kid." Someone hollered, voice traveling across the vast expanse of the field she'd been crawling across. Liz peeked up through her matted hair and located the source of the voice. A man in shiny plate armor sat atop a large black horse. The beast stood tall with a well groomed mane, holding the warrior proudly. He came to a halt a short distance away and began to dismount, metal clinking and leather groaning under the weight.
That's the last thing she saw before her vision decided to short out, like someone pulled the plug on a television. The last thought she had was wondering why anyone would cosplay in such ridiculously heavy looking armor.
x0x0
Reviews are life. Your thoughts are important to me. Seriously, it's the only way I know if anyone actually likes this story. Any feedback is good feedback (unless you're flaming just to be an asshole, then please at least be a bit more constructive will you?) Replies will either be through PM, for those with accounts, or here for the guest reviewers. The version of this story on AO3 has pictures~. Just saying. ;3