New Black Day (Solo)

by **Sophia** on September 26th, 2011, 4:25 pm

Fall 511 AV

At first, there was nothing. And then slowly, painfully slowly, something muffled seemed to create itself from the nothingness. It was like sitting in the middle of a tunnel with the sounds of day funneled through. Gradually it became louder and more clear. It was the soft sound of wind rustling tree leaves, of birds chirping in the sky, the sounds of the forest. She hated it.

It was the hate she felt first. Before she even had any sense of being, there was some inexplicable hatred for what she heard around her, mixed with a profound sadness. It was startling, and she wanted to cry out, thrash out at the darkness. As she did so, her eyes flew open.

She was standing, though she did not realize it. Around her daylight flooded the forest, making the morning happy for everything else. She wanted to drift back to sleep, but did not want to close her eyes again. Above her a bluebird perched on a outcropping branch, staring down at her and chirping madly. She wanted it gone.

So she bent over to a rock, intending to throw it at the creature to make it stop. But when she tried to, nothing solid met her grasp. She turned her head to see what was the problem. The rock was still there, and yet her hand was not.

She could feel that it was extended to reach out to it, but the limb was invisible to her. Upon further inspection she realized in a panic that this extended to the rest of her body. Only then was her gaze drawn to what she stood next to.

Sophia collapsed, not disturbing a single leaf fallen upon the ground. Her sobs were noiseless. She screamed, and nothing came out. Before her, staring blankly forward, was her body. It was sunken and rigid, and already there were signs of feeding upon it, but it was unmistakably the same face that had stared back to her whenever she looked into a pond of water. She wanted to heave and be sick, but could not. She wanted to run from here, but her invisible legs would not respond. She could only stare on at her corpse and scream soundlessly.

by **Sophia** on September 27th, 2011, 5:36 pm

Eventually she tired of the effort of screaming, despite the lack of volume. She wanted again to vomit, but she only made herself heave dryly. All she knew now is that she had to get away from here. Away from the birds chirping above her corpse.

With effort she managed to lift herself off the ground, an effort doubled when one is unable to see oneself. When she finally got to her feet she began to stumble clumsily through the foliage, unsure of where she intended on going. She only knew to get away from this place.

As she left she felt herself calming slightly. She forced herself to breathe deeply and think about this. That had undoubtedly been her body, and that could only mean that she was dead. She tried sitting upon a rock, but kept falling through the accursed thing. It had not occurred to her yet as to how her feet stayed upon the ground. Sophia tried to remember what had happened.

She remembered summer days spent happy at some times. She remembered learning. But most of all she remembered Victor. At first the memory brought a smile to her invisible lips, but as the memories marched onward the smile began to tug itself into a frown. And then she came to recall the sparring match, and her first wound which had burned like fire. There was no pain to remember of when the blade had entered her heart, but all the same Sophia became to tremble and convulse. How could he have done that? How could he have killed her, shoved a knife into her heart and killed her?! She had saved him, shown him how to better survive within the wilderness, even loved him!

With a burning hatred for her killer she realized that the misery of not having him with her no longer came. And why should it? She was no longer a Kelvic. When she attempted to she could not turn to the mountain lion. The cat she had released, and now prowled the world on its own. And now there was only her and a small bluebird that landed upon the rock she had tried to sit on and chirped happily, oblivious to her presence.

She focused everything she had on that bird. She saw in her mind her sightless hand connect, the effect it would have on the real world. She had to do it, or else remain a wisp of air. With a strange hissing sound her hand came into material reality and the bluebird was flung from the rock rather abruptly. Dazed and confused, it quickly retreated into the air.

Sophia then watched a change overcome her. She knew that she could be solid now, and the solid had to have a form. From the hand that hit the bird back, her flesh began to stitch itself back together in a pale white canvas, slowly at first and then with increasing speed. It was see through, but she knew that others besides herself would be able to see it now. She made it fill her form, give her all the features she had in life. A tattered white dress that was dirty from the ground appeared around her as well, before hair black as a moonless night sprouted from her translucent head. She flexed her new fingers and toes, and then took off to find a path through the trees.

by **Sophia** on October 26th, 2011, 7:24 am

It turned out that focusing on keeping a body was hard in her new state of unlife. More often than not she shimmered and shook, though she did not disturb anything around her. The animals, who could smell her not, went about their business and only became startled if they looked in her direction while she headed their way. Random body parts she had created would disappear, and she would have to halt and concentrate for them to fade back into existence. This would take some time practicing.

Fortunately time was something she certainly had plenty of, and since she had no idea where she was going there was nothing much else to do but think and concentrate. She wasn't worried. Sophia had no disillusions about the state she was in. She knew that she would never hunger or thirst- what spirit did? And she also no longer had to worry about where her scent would go or if some larger predator had intruded upon her territory. Her territory was the air now, and the only predator to keep away was her own sorrow.

Eventually the wayward specter discovered a small horse trail beaten down through the brush. She looked left and she looked right, trying to decide which way would lead to wherever she wanted to go. If she were alive, it would have been a simple matter to crouch down and sniff at the path, much as she had done while stalking prey.

In the end she supposed that it did not much matter what way she went, only that she got away from here. The lingering sight of her decayed corpse was still fresh with her, and she longed to put the trees behind her. She set off northward and, little to her knowledge, in the direction of the shining city of Syliras.