Mountain, Capital Shire of the Ruling Sphere of Phelia
Present day
Lumi's eyes opened in a dazzling white room and the first thing she became aware of was the painful pressure that was in her bladder and threateneing to burst out.
Driven by the deep sense of urgency that comes with a sudden call of nature, Lumi dashed out for the nearest exit, unaware of how and where her feet landed or the height from which she had just jumped. She did not register the feeling of the soft touch brushing between her bare toes as she swiftly made it into what she hoped was the bathroom. No, not until she was seated on the toilet bowl, relieved and able to reflect.
'Where am I?' she found herself questioning, her whereabouts unknown even as she pulled the toilet lever in a manner that is common to most toilet goers.
The bathroom was white as her eyes observed. A spotless white that covered the full length of its six ten feet long surfaces, that is including the floor and ceiling as there seemed to be no distinct distinction between that floor that was beneath her feet or the walls that seemed to be constantly closing in on her. The same could be said of the ceiling. The colour, the blandness, it was all the same and were it not for the shape and the inclination of the equally white bathroom sinks, the bathtub and the toilet bowl, she could not have been able to tell exactly which side was up. That and the permanent light fixtures that were mounted on the ceiling above assured her that that direction was the true up and not any other way.
Lumi still had no idea what had happened to her but one thing was sure. That experience had left Lumi with such a skewed sense of direction that she seemed to even doubt the very force of gravity that was actively acting on her feet. Maybe she had damaged her Cochlea or was it her semi-circular canals as her brain was not working well enough to positively tell the two apart or their functions. Memory retrieval was also proving to be little too problematic in her present state of mind and then, there was that issue of her taste buds. The taste of rusted nails mushed together with green banana sap and a whole lot of fresh extracts of aloe vera juice seemed to have invaded her tongue and taken over and no matter how much she rinsed it, Lumi found that she could not rid herself of the foul taste on her tongue. It was like someone had given her a dose of quinine or some other sour drug and not in the conventional way that involved a needle and a syringe or even a water drip, but through several spoonfuls of the stuff, bucketfuls even considering that it would not go no matter what she tried.
'yuck!' she wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her shirt which astonishingly was also white and not the brown of the heavy woolen jacket that she usually donned as she went around.
'Really...Where am I?' she stood up, the fabrics of her long A-line dress, also a dazzling white like the rest of the room, rustling as she moved to peep back into the bedroom through the bathroom door.
'A mental asylum?' she laughed as she mentally kicked herself for her silly sense of humor. 'Did I finally lose it and ended up being committed?' No, not likely. She rebutted the idea knowing fully well that the mental asylums in her country were nowhere close to being that fancy. Not just that the room was spotless, but all the furniture was white and very luxurious - a deluxe king-sized bed, a fancy vanity set, even the rug that was under her feet, it's shuggy ends still caressing her bear toes was fancy. In fact, everything in that room was white and the only hint of colour that Lumi could find was the glowing gold insignia outlined on one of the walls in a familiar form of a roaring lion within a blazing sun. There were no windows, no visible vents and all the walls were uniform and apart from her sorry dear self, there seemed to be no other sign of intelligent life whatsoever.
It was all so very possible that she had an insect companion somewhere, or an arachnid, but those did not count as intelligent life and Lumi doubted that if she did find any, she would be able to carry out any sort of conversation with them. So, she stuck to that. She was alone and did know how long this situation was going to last.
'What did I get myself into this time?' her fist found the surface beneath the carving and punched it. Her knuckles flushed as pain radiated around her fists causing her to groan more out of frustration than the pain that was now spreading to her wrists. As the pain abated, her fingers stretched open and she sprayed them along the wall tracing the sign that seemed to draw her in to touch it. As if in response to her touch, the sign hissed as the entire section of the wall behind it moved back before being swallowed whole into the floor to reveal a doorway that run the entire length of the ceiling to the floor. It was all so unexpected that as she stared at what was once a wall she failed to see the old man with a white mane for his hair and blue robes for his cloaks approaching from the white corridors beyonds. Not until he was close and was calling out a greeting.
'Greetings Aluminaria,' Surprised, her eyes grew wide and as big as saucers.
She was shocked at the familiarity and partly due to the outlandish blue garment that the man wore with the same yellow or golden insigina embroidered on his chest, right above where his heart should have been if it had been on the right side. 'I am Head council man Birit and I am here to receive you and guide your way to The Gathering.'
'The Gathering?' she swallowed before gathering enough courage to pose the question that was in her mind. Even so, her voice came out as shrill little squeak that had she been anywhere else would have embarrassed her to know end.
'We're these the people the same who had abducted me? Or had they saved me?' she thought as she took in the differences and yet subtle similarities in the fabrics of the two garments. Conspiracy theories continued to weave through her mind, leaking fear and havoc through the filters she was yet to properly reinforce in her head. In all these doubts, she was sure of only one thing - her relief at knowing that she was not alone, abandoned or whichever the right word that was. She just knew that she hated being alone and the crazy white of that windowless room was driving her right to the edge of claustrophobia.
'Yes, the Gathering. The Gathering of the Inner Circle? Any questions you may have will be answered there.' She gulped again as terror gripped her at the old man's words. 'Inner Circle'? That word alone made it sound like some sort of cult. Then add the peculiar blue robes, the insignia, the crazy white rooms and that thing, that thing that had abducted her and the idea was now cemented in her mind.
Was she to be made into a virgin sacrifice? She felt tempted to tell them otherwise, but then, that could backfire, she reasoned and if her theories were anything close to the truth, it could mean any of the many different possibilities, the culmination of which would probably see her dying before her time. So, she stilled her tongue and instead chose to first gather some knowledge and ground herself, before making some rash decisions that would see her end up or speed up the process of becoming some cannibal's dinner.