Awakening

When I awoke, I thought I was blind.

The room was extremely dim, and the air smelled of dust and dirt. My nose flinched in subconscious protest.

I attempted to move and was hit with a wave of aching pain on my back. It felt as if I had slept on a concrete block for all my life.

Sitting up and putting my hand firmly in the bed in which I laid, I could feel that this was not the soft cushion of my usual mattress. It felt stiff and hard. The bed rustled like dried grass as I moved.

Ahead of me was a door. A sliver of light shines through along its edges.

I crept up towards it and heard voices from the other side. I pushed my ear against the door gently.

"How is our daughter, my dear?" one voice said. The voice was manly, deep and rough.

"I checked on her an hour ago," another said, dejectedly. Her voice was softer, but no less rough. She sounded as if she had been crying.

"Sarah..."

My mother?

"Her whole body felt like ice, but her head was scorching. The doctors said if it came to this, she wouldn't make-" the voice stopped and broke down in sobs.

I could hear the floorboards creaking under the heavy but gentle pressure of footsteps.

"Shh, shh, it's fine my love, everything is fine," the man's voice said. Although he was doing his best to keep it together, I could tell that he was going to fall apart. The same as the woman.

I started to feel a swell of repressed memories. I recalled acting the same way when my dad died a few years ago. My mother soothed me in the same way the man did to the woman now.

But I also know my mom would cry in her bed after she thought I had gone to sleep.

Where am I? Who are these people?

Suddenly, the footsteps began my way.

I scrambled away from the door but I fell before I could get back in bed.

The light was blinding. I didn't realize I had been in the dark for so long.

"Lillian?" the voice said, in a familiar voice.

I recognized it. I hadn't heard it in so long, but there is no doubt in my mind.

"Dad!" I yelled and I jumped.

I landed in the man's arms and he seemed to pause for a moment before returning my bear of a hug.

I felt smaller, younger. My arms and legs feel shorter and my point of view is much lower than I expected.

An audible gasp came from the room beyond.

As my eyes adjust and could see better, I took a look around.

This isn't my home.

Everything looked old and worn. The house looked of a shabby wood log cabin. There was a fireplace and a table, but beyond that not much furnishings.

The man and woman that I see now looked similar to my mom and dad, but somehow different. Their overall features are the same, but there are subtle differences here and there that I could pick out.

I felt as another pair of arms wrapped tightly around me. I turned my head, it felt heavier and less stable than I was used to, and saw my mom, no, this woman who looked like my mom hugging me and this man tightly. They were both silently crying.

"Lillian come here"

I quickly finished the chore that I was working on and headed outside where the voice called for me.

It has been two months since I came to this place. From what I can gather, everything seemed right out of the medieval times.

I found out that I am the youngest daughter of a family of 5. The man and woman I first saw are my father and mother. I have two older brothers named Maris and Antony.

I was only 7 years old.

It feels strange to be in such a small body.

Another thing I found out very quickly was that this world was of magic. And everyone had it, thought to varying amounts.

I stepped out and saw my dad crouching outside our door.

"Careful Lily and watch your step," he said.

My dad in this world was similar to my actual dad. He was kind, hardworking and loved his family.

"Hi dad!" I said to him as I stepped carefully out of the house. The slope that usually led to the door was gone. It had seemed broken and in need of repair for some time.

He stood crouched outside the door, a pile of rocks and rubble beside him.

We live on a small farm in the Kingdom of Pythos. My brothers and dad work the farm, and occasionally take on tasks from the adventuring guild to slay monsters.

I suppose we don't live a rich life, but a peaceful one nonetheless.

My new parents freaked out quite a bit when I started speaking, apparently much differently than I did before my fevers. But they got over it quickly.

I guess having your child wake up speaking weirdly is better than not having your child wake up at all.

It was a grim thought that I had to deal with. Was this body of mine supposed to die?

"Now watch carefully."

My dad gestured at the air with his index and middle fingers pointed out.

"This is a very simple construct. I imagine in my mind a very long line starting at my finger," he said.

He focused in and quickly threw his arm out away from the housing in a straight line. In a flash, a thin blue line of energy had appeared. It started where my dad's finger had started and seemed to shoot out as far as I could see, in the direction he threw his arm out.

A perfect straight line. It was beautiful how utterly precisely straight it was.

I used to use a ruler when drawing but this would've been so much easier.

"It doesn't go out very far," my dad said, breaking my concentration on the line, "just far enough for our purposes."

I watched as he walked a few steps out and with a scissor like motion with his index and middle finger, literally cut the magical straight line off. The tail end seemed to shatter into trillions of little shards before disappearing.

"Today, we're going to fix up the slope up to the door," my dad said.

"We're going to use magic?" I asked cheerfully. The high pitched voice still sounded strange to me.

"Of course! Everyone uses magic."

I watched intently as my dad walked back towards me.

"I got barely a magic education so it takes me a few tries to get everything done, but you'll see how much easier life is with magic."

I watched as my dad pulled out a length of rope with little knots tied at regular intervals.

"If I remember correctly, the door is about 3 knots from the ground..." he said as he measured the height.

He proceeded to walk over to the floating light blue line of pure magic and measure out a segment 3 knots long. Using his fingers, he snipped off the length of the line.

"Now here's the hard part, I always forget how long I should make the part along the ground and the actual slope itself."

My new father stood there puzzled, holding the 3 knot length of magic in his hand.

"Why not 3?" I chimed in.

"No no, I remember that doesn't work. I remember, if you put the base as 3, then the slope part is very hard to cut out."

We both stood there puzzled.

This feels so familiar. I remember studying for this!

"What if you made the base 4 knots long and the slope 5 knots?"

"No harm in trying I guess."

My new dad sauntered over, measured out lengths of magic equal to 4 and 5 knots respectively and cut them. Returning back, he placed each piece of perfectly straight line segments below the left side of the door. First the 3 knot line, which seemed to float about twisting and turning in the air. Next, the length 4 knot which snapped onto one end of the other line. Immediately after that, the 5 knot segment seemed to jump right our of his hand and snap perfectly onto the remaining ends. What was once a jumble of two lines floating and rotating in space because fixed into a perfect right triangle. When that happened, each line segment which had been glowing a faint blue seemed to switch to glimmering gold.

"Wow! How did you know that would work?" my new dad sounded surprised and proud.

"Well I think this is a right triangle," I said.

This is the one thing I remember from my geometry class. After all, being an artist means you have to be familiar with many shapes!

My dad chuckled and said, "There's no such thing as a 'right' triangle Lily, every triangle is just a triangle. No right, wrong, left or right about it!"

What? Do they have different words for them?

"Um, yeah I just remember these lengths worked because of the Pythogoron theorem or something like that."

My dad burst out into a hearty laugh, "Have your brothers been teaching you some things? Ahh I barely remember the Pythosian theorem."

Pythosian? That's definitely not right. They must have different naming for these things!

I chuckled as my new dad turned back towards the work. He quickly constructed another copy of the triangle and connected them into a triangular prism, which glowed with the same faint golden glimmer. He moved it effortlessly, as if directing air, to the gap between the door of the house and the ground.

He put his hand over the pile of rubble and with a quick word, pieces of the pile of rubble began to fly out from the pile into place within the golden outline of the prism.

It was over in less than a few seconds, but what emerged was a perfectly constructed triangular prism packed tightly in with what used to be a tiny pile of rocks and gravel.

I was in shock. Does that mean I can do the same thing? The ability to make anything I can imagine to come true?

"Whew, thanks honey. I would've been here all day figuring this out if it weren't for you."

"Magic is so cool!"

"Well since we have some extra time, why don't I help you practice?"

I instantly got excited.

What shape should I do first? What if I drew one of my OCs? That would surely impress my new dad!

I closed in my eyes and imagined deeply the character I spent hours and hours drawing instead of doing my math homework. I flung my arm out the same way he did.

My OC did not appear in front of me.

Instead, a squiggly deformed blue line floated in the air in front of me. It seemed to squiggle a bit before the entire thing exploded into brilliant shards of blue in front of my face.

I fell on my butt, and in front of me, my dad started to laugh a bit.

I couldn't help but feel embarrassed. I felt my cheeks getting red and tears forming in my eyes.

I'm not usually this emotional.

"Oh no, don't cry my dear little Lily."

"But I didn't do it! I wanted to do it!" my voice was shrill and sharp.

"We all fail the first time. Don't worry about it, your mom never got the hang of it either."

"But I want to do it! I know I can do it!"

"Why don't you practice another time? I see your brothers and mother coming back. Go help mom with dinner now!"

I huffed and turned back into the house, stepping easily now using the new slope of solid rock we had just built. I was still upset but I was beginning to calm down some. Now, more than the mystery of how I got to this strange land, I had a burning thought in my head.

I am going to figure this out no matter what!

With that thought, I began to experiment.