CHAPTER ONE - EXPOSURE

I wake up to a revelation.

But I can't quite remember what it was.

Was I the color that lit a twinkling star on fire or was I the fire that engulfed the entirety of the world that loved me?

Either way, I am now awake to a feeling of disgust.

"Up straight, you dimwit!" says a voice, as something smacks the back of my head with bitter intent, but still with a feeling of sadness.

"Can you not even sit straight?" he smacks my back again, but this time with less force which is almost like a gentle touch.

I turn around quickly, with one part of my mind still in anger at the pain that was caused, only to catch a glimpse of a familiar face yet very different.

I don't quite recall the origin of this familiarity. But this sight has a fuzzy feeling. 

What I see is a short boy, almost no more than fourteen years old, with a bronze glass half filled with water held in his right hand, and a pale look on his face that's fixed on me as he continues to stare at me, supposedly at what I just did.

Did I scare him just by turning his way? I think.

But he brushes it off sooner than I expect him to, as his red blood gushes out of his skin, with an uneven curl of his lips, and he continues, "Work," almost insisting it as he stammers trying to run away from me.

"Brother," he stops.

"I am leaving for work… Do you need something before I go?" he says, making a pause at each polished word that falls out of his mouth, either to make sure that I catch each of it in a comprehensive grasp, or with sheer sarcasm of which the latter is which I always bet on.

But I don't quite think that's the one in this case. 

"What the hell are you talking about?" I finally give up on pondering and ask him in my crooked voice which almost sounds like a gargling beast.

I slowly stand upright in his face, my towering figure shadowing his entire bony structure, and I take away the glass from his hand and drink from it in the hope of clearing my throat.

The boy who had held the most nonchalant expression on his demeanor, found his jaw quickly dropped on the floor, as a look of sheer surprise fills his face supposedly from the words that were gracelessly emitted from my lips.

"Ah,"

"Um"

"Uhh," he tries to stall me, so he can think up of words that could mean something, but when I speak again, "What are you going on about?"

"Where am I?"

As soon as he hears me say those, the boy with sloppy long hair covering half of his face finally loses it, as both fear and tear take over his face and he rushes away screaming, "Sister!?"

"Sister!" he yells, as he runs away towards a wildly flung open wooden door that led to a veiled corridor, and he disappears in an instant.

Ugh.

An amicable feeling of nothing but distaste chokes my breath at what just happened. It reminds me of something more unpleasant than what just passed, but I cannot seem to remember any of it.

Or do I remember all of it? I cannot tell.

Is there something truly wrong with me? I begin to wonder.

Why is this familiar inkling causing me slight disgust but a greater urge to do something that I feel and know is irrational?

Why is there a sudden itch in my mind, a yearning to jump off of a tall building?

For now, I look around to see where I am locked away.

Am I a prisoner here?

It sure didn't seem that way with the boy, except for the first part where he called me a dimwit when he smacked my head.

I find myself, as I look around in a majestic chamber next to a grand structure, that which is just a bed.

The mattress is made of the purest cotton sheets piled on top of each other. And a wild comfort reeking from it tries to seduce me to lie on it forever.

But my eyes and heart are restless so as I wander my gaze, still, my vision doesn't leave the dark, brown wooden columns of the bed, that is lined up perfectly alongside the corners of it where an extended, flowing veiled fabric covers the entire thing, possibly designated that way to provide some privacy.

I try to move away from the extravagance, but find the space only with more lavishing things each more ornate than the other.

Right next to the bed, only a certain distance away is a great table. Placed on it is a collection of fruits and nuts whose names I could never learn.

A pitcher of water made of glittering gold catches my eye, but so does a heap of ornaments piled on top of each other, the kind that could sate any god's lust for shining things.

But it is only the mirror truly catches my heart, my curiosity in a clutch, while two humongous windows of which one is open wide, while the other is covered by a giant curtain of pure, untainted silk gently swaying in reaction to a morning breeze comes in next.

It is still the mirror my hands unconsciously reach out to before I could even think of it.

By the time I finalize my thoughts and reach for a fairly large mirror, which I hope would fit in my hands, a trumpet shatters my ears, or so I think before I can hear the sounds of elephants marching away, the melody of songs, almost like a war-cry reach me next, but in the very next second they cease to be like it was nothing.

Though the sight of the window is yearned by my heart, I still choose the mirror first, to try and remember what I am.

There are so many questions that needs to be answered, and I think in my heart that this way I can start my search for all of them.

In that desperate attempt, as I try to move, my feet are held down to earth by something that chokes them in a hold, and I promptly begin to fall ever so slowly before hitting the ground.

The sound of the thud when my face touches the marbled, but rough ground is almost like the sound of thunder, just much louder.

This sound gains a motion to compel a speech from the outside as a stranger's voice begins to say in a gentle whisper, "Are you sure he stood up all on his own?"

"Are you actually sure that you saw it?" as footsteps fast approaches the door still open.

"If you are trying to lie to me again, in hopes that I will still find any of it cute, you are so wrong," says a woman.

These words, though not intended for my ears, strike deep fear into the core of my heart as I frantically wiggle towards the mirror in a hurry.

If I am horrid, I wouldn't want anyone else to look at me.

Whatever I look like, I don't want them, whoever it is to see it before I could. 

Just before I start moving again, my reach falls hilariously short from the ground as the boy from before and a woman too stunning for my eyes and my beating heart walk in so very concerned. 

Soon the silent room is filled with gasps as the woman comes in rushing to my aid.

"You idiot," yells she at the little boy. "How could you even leave him unattended like this?" she screams at him as she tries to pick me up.

But catching the fact that it was only a sheet of silk at my feet that made me fall, I quickly brushed her helping hands away to get up on my own.

And when I do, I find her jaws similarly on the floor, like the boy from before. Her dilated eyes forcefully hold up tears just at the simplest action that was just mine.

"I was trying to get to the mirror," I try to tell the both of them in the wake of their concern.

"But I got caught in this sheet and fell on the ground,"

No words come out of their mouths, and they only exchange looks, too stunned to speak.

I take the moment provided as providence from a higher power, and reach out for the mirror. In a quick swoop.

And so, I finally get it into my hands this time.

I almost still immediately drop it clumsily, as more woman dressed up in pretty and expensive cloths and more lavishing ornaments, the same as the fair lady that the boy had dragged here.

My actions get a crowded gasp in response, but I reflexively catch hold of it before it could break, an action that compels another round of gasps from my nosy audience.

It doesn't bother me much, a surprise that I don't think much about for now. Their gazes, though pretty alien to my senses, doesn't feel too overwhelming as there is still a familiar sense that is unexplained as of yet.

So, I simply drag the mirror slowly from the ground in an awkward silence, as the sight of my trousers is the first glimpse of my body.

It is unlike anything that I think I have worn before.

Made from the blend of the purest of cotton and silk, white in color, I have tied it around my waist down in a distinct manner that is both comfortable and honestly good-looking.

It is both simple and elegant, and only the borders of the fabric are designated with gold and silver patterns running across, which I don't really liken.

As I make my way up, I find my upper body half-naked, with only a small piece of a different cloth, but of the same color and origin, now circling what it can of my chest.

My face, however, is what surprises me the most as I find in it the most handsome features, with a crescent moon most majestically drawn on my forehead, two tiny stars are drawn quite close to it in a gold and glittering ink.

The hair is dark and black, and it flows down the back of my neck, but also on my face in shiny strains like a river cascade.

"What are you trying to do?" speaks a voice in the crowd, but I don't spare a thought to it as I continue to examine myself.

My skin is well-tanned, brown, and shimmering without any scars or marks, all of which I find ever so shady.

I distinctly remember having scars all over my body, so I trace my memory to find one on my arms and stomach, but there are none.

"What happened to me?" I ask them, but the two of whom are too dumbfounded by what they just witnessed to speak to me a decent answer that I can accept.

You've been retreated all this time," speaks he, the boy.

"Oh no, wait. Is that the word? He promptly asks the lady next to him.

"No, it's not," he tries to think on his own and comes up with, "You my dear brother… have been recarted all this time," with the most confident look.

"You idiot" smirks she, the woman, but surely, she was amused much more than she let on.

"Do you remember who you are Ishaan?" she now turns to me, which quickly instigates a feeling of discomfort in my chest.

"You had been in a deep slumber and you just…" she says, pausing for no reasoning, possibly to get a hold of the situation herself.

I quickly turn to the mirror again, and I look into my brown, flaming eyes, as my head is shot in a piercing pain as I realize there is something that just isn't right.

I try to remember what it was that I woke up to, but even without me trying hard, a myriad of black and white images of a world so distant strikes my mind in a hope to shatter it whole.

"I was dead?" I mumble.

"No, you were…" tries the boy to speak up, but the woman quickly shuts him down.

I hold my head as pain strikes again, but as I endure it, I try as hard as I could to remember what all of this means.

"Ishaan?!" speaks she now after giving me a moment, trying to reach close to my arm's length, but I promptly push her away, as I fall to my knees, not of my own volition, but in the wake of this action, I touch her hands, which instantly hits me with consecutive waves of relief and it floods my memory.

I have always wanted to die.

Why?

I remember now.

It was always pain, and always hatred that everyone who ever laid their eyes upon me held in the deep caverns of their hearts or right on their sleeves.

Did I really die?

I remember that for seven years I served in the regal army fighting for my homeland, or so they had told me.

All of this is simply overwhelming.

"Hey kid?" I turn to the boy now.

"How long have I been sleeping?" I present my words that way, so I don't give away my thoughts.

"Almost," he says, looking at the woman who is still in shock of what's happening, "Almost seven years" he stops to breathe.

"Seven?" I whisper to myself.

And just before it could think any further I remember that I died when a massive chunk of debris from a collapsing building hit me and killed me.

But death wasn't my despair.

No.

It was something else.

There was something much worse than the feeling of it.

What was it? I try to pace around trying to remember what feels like, it is an eruption or cracking of earth beneath my feet, that feeling.

And just when I take another step, a tiny ball of glass falls out of my pocket, inside which is a shining beacon of whirling colors.

It feels like it almost fell from inside my body. So, I grab it up instantly like it's the most vital organ that can bring me to life.

That does it, as I remember a conversation that I am not meant to remember as I recall the things that were said by a cosmic entity which had spoken, "Your soul is a plaything because the gods that make you, sell you for entertainment"

Does that mean whoever held my soul has now locked it away in this body now?

But there is still a familial familiarity that the woman standing in front of me exudes, that I can't quite explain.

What exactly is happening here?

Just as I continue to walk around, trying to think, a man rushes in and tries to enter the chamber, but the women standing outside hold him back in one piece.

"You are not allowed inside," says one of them.

"You are not even supposed to be on this side of the castle," says the other.

But wearing a shirt made of silk, his hat made of cotton bound to his head, the man who was wearing a scarlet ruby that was held by flowing chains, stopped to breathe as he was sweating beads to say, "War!"

"We're under seize," as he collapses on his knees.