'Where am I actually…? Had I lived in Oritha before…?'
The thought lingered in her mind as she walked along the pavement. Va'dia put a hand under her chin and tried to recall everything about her past, but what came out was an empty shell of darkness. A hollow and empty sensation.
She continued to scour her memory without giving up, yet it would always lead her to the same empty feeling. After a while, Va'dia would relax her hand and dismiss the thoughts.
Looking around the busy streets made her snap back to reality that she was completely homeless. All of those generic tank top wearing men looked poor but they surely had everything needed for daily life. Easily a couple of steps ahead of a person who just woke up and got lost.
Va'dia suddenly coughed a few times. When it stopped, she touched her chest in confusion. It was strange to randomly cough, but she simply dismissed it and continued along the way.
Occasionally, she would glance at the houses on the right side, some were completely wooden but with great details and flowery decorations on its elevated porch. However, to her eyes they looked lifeless and more like a prop to give the kingdom beauty.
Nevertheless, they did manage to webbed her attention. Because of this, she mindlessly crashed into a policeman walking in the opposite direction. Before it happened, he seemed to also have his attention on the busy people.
The policeman startled, eyes widened, accidentally activating his stun stick and hurled it to the left. The electricity hummed rapidly as the cylinder barbed-wire head touched Va'dia's left shoulder.
"AH!"
A loud zap echoed, some stopped to see while the others just glanced and went. The shock left a big red spot on her fair skin, it felt tingling and burning pain. In addition, it temporarily stunned her movement.
She staggered away, gripping her shoulder and slightly hunched. Face contorted in pain following with soft groaning. For a brief moment, everything felt distant, before the policeman realized the situation then shook his stun stick to turn it off.
"Crap — ! …Sorry. I wasn't paying attention."
He approached closer and grabbed her right shoulder to lessen the possibility of her legs giving out. After a while, the pain eased, though still tingling. She let out a soft breath of relief while the policeman retreated his support.
"You okay now?"
Va'dia glanced briefly at the man's face and then walked forward without saying anything. On the way, she still gripped at her left shoulder with a saddened look. The policeman watched her for a moment before continuing his patrol, guilt lingering on his face, while the young woman wandered on…
Before long, her stomach growled, pulling her out of the empty feeling and forced her to think about a solution.
"I… I need food."
There were plenty of stores that sell food, obviously she doesn't have a single coin on her. She crossed the street, weaving through the people. Va'dia gazed through a store's big glass window.
Inside, the only display was the receptionist's black shelf that also acted as a booth. Under it was a neat arrangement of different kinds of bread. Some looked expensive, some were just normal rye bread.
Someone was in there too, it looked like an elderly woman was buying bread. Outside, Va'dia scrunched her face, she hated bread. They tasted absolutely soulless without something like egg.
Too bad, she won't be able to afford putting a piece of rye bread in her mouth let alone detesting it.
She sighed, slipping her hand off the shoulder and went to the right along the pavement. A while later, the path ended, leading her to a large bridge and below it was a gaping concrete trench with flowing water at the bottom.
She walked on the stone bridge and gazed around. Not anything particularly interesting other than the armor clad and leather armor clad people. Upon glancing at them, a memory circled around in her mind.
'These are… adventurers right? Then I could go find their guild and do some work for food…'
Stepping off the bridge, she coughed multiple times into her palm and resumed walking with discomfort in her chest. Contributing to the strangeness, her head occasionally aches for one second.
She strolled in the opposite direction among the stream of people, hoping the guild would be somewhere near around. Meanwhile, she walked past a gray hooded person, his outfit was a gray robe from head to toe. That particularity made her glance at the person and be suspicious.
In the end, Va'dia would forget about it. Not that he seemed dangerous.
Turning to the right, she approached a wooden bench and sat down with a soft sigh. All of the strain that built up in her legs had released. She looked at the sky for a bit before looking down at her dirty mercenary outfit, then lazily looked up and observed the surroundings.
Before she could actually relax, a strange discomfort welled up in her entire torso. The feeling was like someone holding an axe high — ready to split her head apart.
'What is happening to me..?'
Va'dia breathed in and out slowly as sweat exuded from her skin. In confusion, she concentrated into this weird feeling, trying to study it. Every time she got close to it, the feeling became worse, and as if it had manifested into reality.
After a while, it became nothing more than the feeling of being watched. With confidence, she looked up and quickly darted her eyes here and there, until she stopped on a specific alleyway that was getting obstructed constantly due to the walking civilians.
The young mercenary narrowed her eyes, everything went silent for a moment. Eventually, she could make out a gray humanoid standing emotionless there.
'Wait… he's… gray… had I seen him somewhere?'
Minutes went by, her memory scavenge revealed that the answer was yes. She hurriedly stood up and continued to the right, occasionally glancing at the figure with a nervous look.
What she was feeling now wasn't truly fear, but awkwardness accompanied with nervousness. After two minutes, she directly gazed at the alleyway with a frown, and saw nothing besides wooden crates and barrels.
Va'dia let out a soft sigh and resumed along. Even with that mysterious person gone, the feeling remained unyielding. So, she breathed in and out slowly with hope of subduing it.
She observed, seeing nothing other than odd-coloured, top-hat wearing men in vests taking a walk with their luxuriously dressed children in the midst of ordinary people.
'Where's the guild…'
Things are getting desperate, though she doesn't have anything to be hurried about. The feeling kept her restless and going forward until she saw that person again. This time he didn't hide in an alleyway, instead, out in the middle of the street.
She stopped in her tracks and stared at him with a deep frown, fist clenched, teeth gritted. The strangest of all was that the civilians just walked past him, literally as if he wasn't there or existed at all.
When the next few walked past and obstructed her vision, the man disappeared. Consequently, the feeling finally dissipated. Her lips parted and closed immediately, things were just so strange that she had no room to be surprised.
Va'dia inhaled to the brim of lungs then exhaled as the final blow to the constant anxiety. She continued her search for the guild as usual but could not stop thinking about herself.
'Why me? Am I cursed?'
There were quite a nuisance amount of questions that she could not answer, the most important one of all was, who's that and why could no one see him?
These questions swiftly became incomprehensible and too heavy to bear, so she dismissed them all and only kept the most important.
Time quickly flowed by, the sun went to the west as the streets got darker, quieter, and devoid of people. Her search went on pause for now, as she needed a place to get through the night.
The tall street lights activated, their glass concealed yellow magic stones was what emitted light, painting the streets and pavement in soft yellow hue.
She stepped in a dark, barrels and crates filled alleyway. Though looking tight because of the stuff, this place was comfortable enough to lay down without problems. Even with that being said, she still had to make a clearing.
Va'dia started with a barrel. She grabbed its metal edge, dragged it and placed it in the middle of the way. Acting as an obstruction so no one could see her and decided to choke her in sleep.
The crates were the heaviest, it was obvious that she could not hold up a big wooden box and expected to not struggle with movements in such a small space. With a bit of thinking, she decided to only move and pick up the medium size ones at the end of the alley.
Although it was quite a struggle, she managed to move most of them away.
'What's this?'
Her sight fell upon a wooden hatch that was underneath all the crates, it looked old and moisturized. She stared, pondering about its age along with what was beyond it. Maybe it was worth the curiosity?
Without much thought, she grabbed the metal ring then tried to pull it up from behind. The hatch moved a little but then got stuck, as if it was locked from the inside. Despite this, she gritted and went full force, veins surfaced on her arms.
After what felt like an eternity, the hatch finally sprung open, staggering Va'dia backward in surprise. Her lower spine hit the edge of a crate, sharp pain spread around that area just as fast as the hatch.
"Hhk—!"
She put a hand at it and slowly walked toward the opened hatch to investigate while face contorted in pain.
"Tch—ah…"
Looking down the hatch, she saw a dusty concrete staircase that led to nothing other than darkness. The small chain that held the hatch now lying noodly on the first step, its underground concrete walls stained and branchingly cracked.
One part of her mind demanded to just go rest and dismiss this altogether, while the other wanted to explore whatever was down there despite not being able to see anything.
She sighed, her life had nothing valuable to care for anyway so it should be fun exploring the unknown. She stepped down and hunched slightly to avoid the roof, as air gradually got colder each step.
The surface suddenly got flat tempting her to stand straight, all she could feel was that the area was a big room and surely no one was around here. Va'dia relaxed then took a few steps forward in the pitch black darkness.
She stepped on what felt like a hard, jagged, small ball. Rolling it under her boots for a moment before flinging it aside with a flick. She walked, which led to her digging in a pile of dirt and somewhat spiky or heavy objects weighed on her boots.
Va'dia immediately stuck out, she theorized that those heavy things were destroyed concrete, was this an old abandoned bunker? To find out, the mercenary followed along the wall with her right hand touching it as guidance.
Not long later, the wall ended, forcing her to go left like a crab. She outstretched her hand to hopefully grasp anything, which proved to work. The structure was all-round and quite large, like a cylinder, she barely managed to hug the whole thing but this was it.
'This… is a train station!'
To make sure it was true, she went forward slightly and dipped one foot down, it was completely empty with no surface, then this really was a train station. Honestly, this place was perfect, having the coldness here soothing while sleeping was like a paradise for a homeless person like her.
A train station usually had benches thus Va'dia did the same crab method to find one. Since almost every station layout was the same, it didn't take long. She swept the dust off and sat down, although this would make her right hand covered in dust but better than rusty nails penetrating her and giving infections.
She just sat there, finally carefree for the time being.
On occasion, strange sounds could be heard. Since it was audible she suspected it to be close and somewhere to the right. However, she paid no mind, just probably something collapsing. This place was old anyway.
Welp, she was stupidly wrong, as the sounds got closer they became clearer and more like… talking. Whoever was down here definitely was not normal, then that means those were the Kjech. A little nickname for criminals that were born with a special ability to see in the dark.
'Crap… please don't see me.'
She breathed in and out, preparing her senses, this was her only way to "see" and fight if it happened. Sitting completely still, back straight, as she silently waited for that duo to come.
The confidence Va'dia had now wasn't from hers, she just simply felt she could do it without knowing why.
"How's the transport going?"
"What transport? Can't you just say it all in a single sentence?"
"Uh… the black-magic stones from the cultists."
"...it went horrible. I had to abandon my comrades and run away from that fucking knight bitch! I could have just waited until night and things wouldn't go this way!"
"Well then, how are you going to pay your family's debt now?"
The conversation didn't continue after that. Va'dia tensed at the abrupt stop, she set her arms in a position that was going to be convenient and looked unsuspicious to them. Now she just needed to wait.
Time flowed by, the silence continued to stretch on. She thought that they didn't see her and had gone past, but she still kept her guard up no matter what, the uncertainty injected in and spread like poison.
Her body heated up and sweat while with the cold around was an annoying combination, her senses slightly faltered because of it. She closed her eyes because they didn't have any use in the pitch black darkness.
Here came movement. Something was cutting the air, moving forward with great speed. Immediately, she imagined it to be a knife and ducked, simultaneously launching her fist toward the left. Impacted on something slightly hard, soft, and fabric. She then quickly hurled herself forward to get out of the situation.
A sudden sharp sting struck her waist, she could feel her fabric around that area detached, the cold air messed around with the skin creating a burning sensation. After making a good amount of distance, she touched her waist, the sensation was wet and slightly hurt.
The air came rushing forward, footsteps could also be heard. A downward motion from the left and an incoming slash. She moved her right shoulder slightly backward to dodge the stab then threw up a hook to the man's jaw. By instinct, she retracted her hand and side pushed the knocked-out man into his mate.
The right man staggered but quickly pushed him away and angrily approached her with his knife drawn back. Sensing the danger, she placed her left leg forward. When the knife came, she bulged her right hand into a fist and swung it backward, crashing into his face with a force equivalent to a flying concrete rock.
However, she was a second off, which was enough time for his knife to plunge into her shoulder before she could swing the fist. Either way, it was done. Va'dia started quietly gasping for air when the pain throbbed.
Everything was eerily silent now, she couldn't sense anything around.
…
Suddenly, her entire neck tightened, and she couldn't breathe. Someone was squeezing her neck with just one hand. Va'dia instinctively squirmed and tried to pull the hand off but to no avail. She stared at the white-gloved hand as consciousness faded away, tears slipping down her cheeks.
All resistance left her body, she went slack.