The awakening
‘Open your eyes, Aisa! Just open them!’
‘Open your eyes because you are not dead. Not yet, anyway!’
The girl found herself in complete darkness, and as she blinked a few times, she tried to adjust her eyes to the absence of light. Yet, the disorientation and confusion made her dizzy, and she couldn’t shake off the overwhelming sense of the unknown that was unfolding before her. She opened her eyes, heeding the cryptic whispers that had guided her to consciousness, relief washing over her that she was in fact, alive.
Although, she felt a tiny shiver running down her spine, bringing with it a mysterious and misunderstood question that left her wondering - why shouldn’t she be alive?
‘Where am I?’ she thought to herself, unaware that she had spoken the words out loud. An unexpected roughness emanated from deep within her throat, catching her off guard and causing her to flinch.
‘What is happening?’ she whispered, taken aback by the unfamiliarity of her own voice. Startled, she hurried to her feet as if trying to wake up from a dream.
‘A bad dream?!’ she thought, this time, talking only inside her head while hoping for some clarification from the whispering voice. But there was no answer. Only silence that echoed throughout the darkness in which she had woken up. She let out a deep sigh and began to scan her surroundings, hoping to uncover some semblance of familiarity, only to be pulled back after a few steps.
‘What the ...?’ Aisa thought to herself while looking at a short chain which pulled her back to her resting place. One of her legs was tied with a chain, like an animal that was forbidden to run away.
‘A prisoner?!’ she wondered, tugging at the tight bracelet encircling her ankle and trying to wrap her head around this whole situation. But she was unable to remember anything prior to the higher voice that had spoken to her.
She pleaded in her head, begging for an answer, waiting for the voice to whisper any thoughts or hear anything other than her own terrifying realisation that something horrific must have happened. Only nothing could be heard, just an eery silence that petrified her to the core.
‘Please talk to me. Please.’ she repeated again and again. Tears welled in her eyes as she beseeched for a response, swallowing the knots forming in her throat. Yet, the oppressive silence continued to press down on her, suffocating any hope for a reply.
As minutes stretched into what felt like endless hours, the weight of despair settled heavily upon her shoulders. The silence in the room was deafening, and she knew there was no point in crying because no one would answer her questions or prayers. She wiped her watery eyes and focused on freeing herself from the constricting chain, which was beginning to feel tighter and tighter around her ankle.
She couldn’t see much, although her eyes had gotten used to the dark, but there wasn’t really anything to observe in that place. Cold, metallic walls greeted her touch, mirroring the chill of the chain. No bed, no chair, no table, not even a thin mattress, only the hard, unforgiving floor beneath her.
‘Even animals get some hay to lay down on’, the girl thought to herself, shaking her head in disbelief. She looked into the darkness, searching for a door or an escape window, but she couldn’t see anything. There was nothing in sight apart from the coldness of her chain and the freezing embrace of the walls and floor, on which she sat defeated, hoping someone would have to come eventually and bring light onto this whole situation. She touched the chain again, analysing its material, measuring the length with her arm while scolding herself for being unable to remember anything.
’This must be what amnesia feels like. Unable to recall any event from my past, not even recognising my own voice”, she chuckled to herself while shaking her head. When it suddenly struck her like a bolt of lightning, the realisation that she didn’t recognise herself at all. Thick hair covered her arms, and her hands felt rough and calloused, with long, chunky fingers that seemed foreign to her.
“I must have hit my head because my eyes are deceiving me.” - she said quietly while touching her head in search of the wound, which would clarify everything, from the mishearing to the strange sensations she was experiencing when touching her body. Only she became more terrified by the prickly sensations her fingers were sending to her brain. She was feeling rough hair stubs covering her face, giving away the shape of a rugged beard that seemed to have been growing for quite some time.
Aisa rose, a sense of disquiet settling within her, as she explored her altered form. She was starting to understand that the silhouette her fingers were touching wasn’t hers. The stark contrast between her current state and her former self was alarming. Not that she had any recollection of what her body looked like before, but there was something lingering in her mind, a shadow of a hidden memory, which was telling her that this silhouette didn’t belong to her.
“This is just a dream. A bizarre and clearly bad dream, but a dream nonetheless.” She muttered, shocked by the deepness of the voice she didn’t recognise, and let an involuntary laugh escape her mouth, which echoed in the room. She couldn’t believe that the voice coming out of her was so unfamiliar and foreign. Every word she uttered seemed to betray the person she used to be, leaving her feeling lost and alone.
’I have to wake up! Aisa exclaimed, pinching the unfamiliar flesh, only to feel the searing pain affirm its reality.
She began to shout, ‘Wake up! Wake up!’ Her cries escalated, resonating through the void. ’Wake uuup, please!“, the terrifying screams turning into agonising cries.
‘Wake up!’, she implored, but nothing was changing around her. Eyes closing and opening to the same frightening sight of nothingness, and desperate pleas evolving into whispering sobs that only she could hear, chanting like a mantra for the asleep to awaken.
‘Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Just wake up!’
Until the voice answered her.
“I am up!”
