ALL NOVEL Chapter 1: Who am I?
She woke up in the middle of a black sea, everything was burning, and her hands were bathed in black flames, but they didn't hurt. Looking down at herself she found that she was dressed in rags with rips here and there, she was barefoot.
"What?" She didn't have any memories of how she had found herself there.
She managed to stand up and take stock of her situation, a headache like the one she had the first time he had gone to drink hit her as soon as she finished looking around.
No wait, that was wrong. She had never drank an ounce of alcohol, why had she thought about that? Also, her pronoun was wrong, she had thought as if she was a male...
She wasn't male, she was female.
Looking down herself she confirmed that fact, a pair of bulges in her chest were evidence enough, but a strand of her silky blonde hair was as good confirmation as she could get without taking off her clothes... And that didn't seem like a good idea.
Either way, she walked to the outside of the room that was in the midst of this black fire, it didn't hurt her, nor did it seem to erode or burn the building she had found herself in. Instead...It was like it was part of the place.
She noticed how her feet didn't seem to be hurt even though she was walking over the debris of a ruined building, and while she thought someone should be around... She didn't find it weird that the place was desolated.
Something within her told her that the place would be empty, but she wasn't sure from where that feeling was coming from. The place seemed to have been before some kind of administrative building, the place she had woken up looked more like a flat turned into office. The hallway ended in an elevator that somehow still had lights on (And she didn't trust to use) and a stairwell at the end...
She ended up walking towards the stairs and found herself at the top end of the stairwell, and a small golden number on a black plate that read [165]. A look at the stairwell showed her the ruins of a city consumed in the same black flames that followed around.
In the sky, she could see a night witouth stars with the only thing shining down into the city was a full moon, a bloody red full moon.
"Tone it down a little with the dramatics will you..." Mumbled the blonde girl while wondering if it would be worth risking her life in the elevator.
On one hand, she could risk her life in the elevator...On the other, she could risk her legs on these stairs till she arrived at ground level... Or get tired enough that she would risk her life in the elevator twenty floors down.
Something within her made that choice obvious, if she could laze away she would do so. So with renewed vigor, she walked to the elevator and...
["Please place hand within the panel for confirmation, if you aren't meant to be here security will be deployed...You have five seconds to prove your identity."]
The stupid thing not only spoke, but threatened her, and then took the choice of running to the stairs from her in one swift move. Whoever was the owner of this thing had a sick sense of humor.
She thought what to do for half a second before the countdown started moving to three, and placed her hand in the stupid thing.
["Scanning...Confirmed authority, thank you for your hard work Boss."]
And opened itself to her, after calling her [Boss], the thing thought she was the boss?
That felt...Right?
But also wrong?
Her mind was a mess, she couldn't even remember why she was there nor what her name was, but she was sure that she wasn't the boss of this thing. ["Floor?"] Even so, the thing asked her, and since she didn't see any button around she tried to speak to answer it.
"Ground floor." It was a girl's voice obviously.
She was female, it was obvious her voice would be girly. But it still surprised her, the high pitch and almost singing tone left her wide-eyed, but that wasn't the only surprise, when the doors closed the elevator's wall turned into crystals that showed the exterior.
Or parts of the exterior, some crystals were broken and showed the normal ruined city...Others...Others showed the same city but without the wounds of destruction. A metropolis full of movement and skyscrapers that wanted to defy the heavens, some type of vehicles flew here and there even!
The buildings held ads for different products and a small monitor even showed ads for a new product from some big corpo ["The Saintsworth's Conglomerate always thinks of you!"] it said while it moved to a new product. Some kind of e-wallet that you could use as a bracelet or something.
But no, that wasn't the big surprise, neither the wallet nor the full glory of this city before whatever had destroyed it. No.
The surprise was her, literally her.
One of the broken panels was clear enough that it could be used as a mirror, and the girl who looked back at her was as surprised as her, "Pretty..." Her singing voice rang true to her as the girl in the mirror touched her face.
She touched her face, it was the face of a girl who seemed to be about 17 or 18 years old, with blonde hair and sky-blue eyes, her face youthful and radiant. Her complexion was what you would call flawless but even so, it had some traces of a natural porcelain-like skin, those that seemed soft but firm at the same time. High cheekbones and a soft jawline that didn't take elegance away from her.
Cascading over her shoulders was her blonde hair, she of course knew she had it since it had been one of the ways to prove her womanhood before, but seeing it in the reflection just resalted how beautiful it was. It almost looked as if the hair was trying to bring attention down to her exposed shoulder and her graceful neck.
And while dressed in rags that exposed flesh here and there, her figure still seemed to shine through!
A well-proportioned figure, elegant poise, graceful movements of her hands that tracked down her body and toucher here and there to make sure it was her body, she had needed to pinch herself if only to make sure it was.
And even with the silly pinches she did to herself, the giggles the girl in the reflection made were captivating enough "Am I a narcissist?" worried aloud the girl in the mirror.
She examined herself up and down and noticed she was dressed in cargo shorts under the drags with a simple sports tank top over the ruined gown she was wearing.
But looking at it from the outside...This was closer to what a lab coat would look like if someone didn't wash it and instead dragged it across mud...She didn't though it smelled weird, but she would definitely change it as soon as she could, but for now it would serve as a covering for her wonderful body.
Now if only she could find a name to that face...
["Ground level...Thank you for your hard work Alexanders."]
The elevator said opening the doors to a reception area, it seemed the thing was bugged or something. That explained why it had called her [Boss], it was reading her data as some guy called Alexander...s?
Why the extra S?
No way she was that guy, she hadn't checked her body fully but she was sure that she was female...At the very least she didn't feel anything press against her underwear, a quick peek under her cargo shorts proved that yes. She was female.
And yes she was wearing cute underwear, that wasn't relevant to her current problems though. So it shall be ignored.
The reception on the other hand, was obnoxiously big, with a single big reception desk in the middle of the room, some chairs and sofas on the side, a big ass nuclear missile as a fountain (Who does that?).
This place reeked of someone having a big ego and showcasing it to the world, only the small nondescript purse in the reception desk seemed out of place. Above the reception desk was a statue of an eagle carrying a scroll in his talons.
The same emblem could be seen in a metallic plate in the middle of the room and once more above the double crystal door that showed the outside...Wait.
"What the hell is doing that purse there?" The blonde girl said aloud recalling how that was the only normal thing in this building so far.
Granted, she had skipped hundreds of floors and probably some extra ones that went down. But a girl can only do so much you know?
So with trepidation and some apprehension she walked towards the purse... Nothing happened, the black fire kept burning, and the place was still silent with only the sound of her bare feet hitting the debris on the floor. Soon enough she was standing in front of the reception desk, no one was manning it, there were some papers around, but most were charred black.
And with some fear in her heart, she grabbed the purse and closed her eyes...
"That was anti-climatic." She said while opening the purse and emptying its contents on the reception desk she had taken it from.
Afterwards, some personal articles fell into it, a cellphone, a cracked obsidian bracelet, a charred silver bracelet (Why two bracelets), a school ID (It read institute on it), some coins, and a nice comb...
That was it, she examined first the bracelets since they could be used as barter if she found someone else in the ruined city...They seemed to be made out of some kind of weird metal, but on the inside some cables and circuits seemed to be charred black, some kind of shortcut probably. Shoody made if they could end in this state only after one fail.
The cellphone was dead, and she hadn't seen a charger on the purse either, she would save it for later and maybe charge it back, but with some luck, the poor idiot that lost it didn't put a password on it...
The comb was nice and fit in her hand quite nicely, so she would keep it and pretend she didn't know should her owner show up...Well, maybe she would return it after finding more people, but only after doing so!
And for the last article, she grabbed the ID and turned it around, "Elizabeth Starbright...[Hero Trainee]..." The sucker that lost her things seemed to have quite a weird name.
Who even would use Starbright as a last name?
Then after noticing the photo was somewhat charred she tried to wipe it clean with her thumbs and found soon enough the face of said sucker, a blonde hair that was taken extreme care if the silky look was something to go by, hers was silky too of course, but it didn't shine like the girl in the picture.
A pair of sky blue eyes and a placid smile, a well-defined face, and a posture that would make queens seethe in anger since it held more prestige than them...
"Oh...I was that sucker..." She knew that face, it was the same face she had seen in the elevator, it was her face. "Well, there is something about being called Starbright..."
She was Elizabeth Starbright...And she didn't know where she was.
After having a small breakdown about her own name and how while it felt right, it also didn't feel right for her. She ended accepting it, if nothing it meant that she didn't need to feel bad about stealing someone's else properties. It irked her wrong though.
The purse just didn't feel right, it was like someone took her belongings and threw them into the first purse they found, the thing didn't feel right in her hand.
So she decided to throw it away!
She was wearing cargo shorts and those had plenty of pockets in them after all!
So she threw the broken parts in one pocket, the cell phone in another (With her ID) and after making sure her treasured comb had its own pocket, she threw the purse away!
It even made a nice sound while hitting the windows of an empty building.
*dooooooooooooong*
Maybe she had hit a bell?
Now...You may think that doing this kind of thing in a city that was destroyed and was constantly burning was bad right?
That this would attract some kind of beast or enemy right?
I mean, burning city ruins? Blood moon? Starless night?
Those are the things that mean something was wrong with the world after all!
"AND YET THIS PLACE IS EMPTY!" She screamed at the top of her lungs.
Yes, this place was empty.
She had been walking and searching around for almost half a day, going in and out of buildings, first methodically...One by one, making sure no one was around, searching for supplies, weapons, and clothes (Boots).
Then prioritizing those that seemed to be important, those that looked sturdy enough to hold refugees...
Then only going at those that seemed to be markets and malls...
Then go straight to a tourist-looking kind of shop searching for a map and use it to go straight to the nearest hospital...
But even after doing that for the whole day she found nothing, the bloody moon didn't move, the city kept burning, and she was still alone. Without a single shred of an idea or memory about how she had ended here.
"What did you do to end here Elizabeth?" She asked to a mirror.
She had started resting near mirrors, looking at her reflection and speaking to herself, "I know you don't remember, I was there when you found out about it." And it made her feel better.
She was getting to terms with her reflection, her appearance didn't stun her as much as before, and she was getting comfortable with herself, that was a weird feeling to have.
Why wasn't she comfortable with her own appearance?
She just didn't know, her dusty lab coat now was her impromptu picnic blanket, the dark flames seemed to avoid the thing like the plague and it was nice to be able to sit on the floor without being bathed in dark flames.
Those...didn't hurt her, and they actually felt kinda cozy, but something within her told her that it was dangerous to be in them for long, she was half tempted to return to that building she had awoken and search for more clothes to use, since the lab coat seemed to repeal the flames, maybe something was there that could help her?
And while thinking about that lying down in her dirty lab coat...That happened.
A single drop of water hit her in the face waking her up "Rain?" She said aloud while touching her face, her fingers found the culprit soon enough, but...It was different?
It didn't feel like water, somehow she knew it wasn't water, and it burned away in her hands, turning into motes of golden light that flew into her.
"W-what?" She almost stumbled back, but she threw her hand to try and grab something.
Her hand found purchase and so she didn't fall into the ground...Only to be confused once more as to what she had grabbed, it felt cold to the touch and firm, looking at her hand she found that she had grabbed the handle of something that was stuck into a wall.
It seemed to be an overly ornated handle of...A broom? A stick? A tube?
She pulled on it and it seemed to come out of the wall smoothly enough, almost as if it wasn't stuck on said wall, and when it was fully on the outside the wall wasn't worse for wear.
On her hands now was a spear, a very pointy, very sharp, and very very dangerous spear. The dark flames seemed to want to jump at the thing, and when she moved the spear near them the thing sucked the dark flames and made itself more [Solid].
"What the hell...?" She somehow knew that the spear should be heavy, and yet on her hand, it was as if it weighed nothing as if she knew how to move it and that the thing would move following her will.
Then another drop of water fell into her face and she dropped the spear, the thing sank into the floor without leaving any evidence that it had been on her hands before, and like before, the drop of water turned into motes of light that sank into her body.
This time, however, she was ready...And she didn't fall back at that feeling, it was...Warmth, as if someone was hugging her very [Soul] and soothing her.
But at the same time...It was the feeling of melancholy.
The warmth energy felt sad, and it longed for something, it prodded at her as if she had whatever this warmth energy wanted, but she didn't know how to answer or what it was.
She only had an inkling of a direction, but even that...Even that she wasn't sure.
Instead, she waited, she didn't sit down into her dirty lab coat, she didn't try to pry the spear from the floor (She didn't even know where the thing had sunk down), instead she turned her face towards the night sky.
Towards the bloody moon. And waited.
Because right now, that was the only clue she had about who she was, maybe that would allow her to find more people too?
Either way, she at least now had one more direction to move forward, the first one was the building she had awoken in, and the second was...Whatever those motes of light wanted from her.
Her name was Elizabeth Starbright, and she would find whatever that warmth light motes wanted from her, and she would deliver it.