She woke up on soft green grass. It didn't make sense. The temperature felt like she ought to have woken up in a desert.
She looked around. Behind her was stone slabs that stood upright, each with a pile of dirt in front of them. 'Graves', her mind told her.
In front of her, the green grass suddenly halted, and hard sand started. Buildings stood on that dry ground, but none of them looked right. They seemed to have missing parts, like parts of their roofs, and their walls had holes in them. Their windows were smashed out, and the doors hung half-unhinged. 'A village. A ruined village,' her mind told her.
The smell of her own sweat mixed with something metallic in the air. Her stomach churned when she realized. Blood.
Her hair hung on her sweat-and-dirt-covered shoulders. It felt oily and dirty. She looked down at herself. She wore a light, filthy white dress, that clung to her body with only thin rope-like sleeves, almost as thin as thread. The dress ended mid-thigh.
Ramielle. Her name was all she knew. She didn't know where she came from, why she ended up there, in a graveyard. She had no memories.
Ramielle stood up, wobbly. Her body didn't take the sudden move against gravity very well, and she fell, landing on her hands and knees.
'Come on', she told herself. She took a deep breath and tried to stand again and succeeded this time. She slowly and shakily walked towards a nearby wall of a ruined building. The soft grass gave way to harsh, hard sand under her bare feet. It hurt walking on the sand, it scorched her feat.
She noticed red stains everywhere on the ground and on the walls. A revolting smell found its way in her nostrils, and she gagged, covering her nose and mouth. Against the wall she was headed to, sat a damaged figure. A woman, with her eyes stabbed out, and throat slashed. She was missing a right arm and a left leg. Ramielle's heart beat wildly in her chest. What had happened in that village? Why were there so many dead bodies and blood?
Ramielle hesitantly reached for the dagger in the dead woman's left hand. It could only be a monster that did this, she thought. If so, she needed something to protect herself with. She grabbed the dagger.
Suddenly a rat, almost half her size, jumped from behind the body, at Ramielle. She screamed as the rat bit into her shoulder and she fell on her back. She swiped the dagger across the rat's body, and it stopped moving. She felt warm liquid pooling on her. With a shriek she jumped up and threw the dead giant rat to the ground and got its insides off her. Her dress and hands were now also stained in red, just like the village. 'No...' she thought mournfully.
Her shoulder stung, and she saw that it was bleeding. But she had to move on.
She dried her hands on the back of her dress and started walking through the village, holding herself, clutching the dagger tightly in her hand. She felt herself shiver in fear. As she walked, she nearly tripped over a headless corpse.
Nearing what was the village's main square - or so she thought - Ramielle heard a dark chuckle. A man appeared from the shadow of an abandoned herbalist's office. His eyes where red and he seemed to have such a big grin, it seemed to split his cruel-looking face in half. A tongue flicked out of his mouth and licked the blood off a knife he held to it.
Ramielle's eyes widened with fear. Her body trembled. Did this man - or creature - destroy this village? Was he the one responsible for all this blood?
The man swaggered menacingly toward her, "Well lookie here. I haven't seen such a pretty girl in a long time." Ramielle backed away. "Oh, don't be afraid, " he looked at his knife, turning it around in his hand, and then glanced back at her. "This won't hurt one bit."
Ramielle's back hit a wall, and she held out her dagger, speaking what felt like her first words, "P-please, s-stay a-away." He continued pacing towards her, only a few feet away now. "Please! I-I don't want more b-blood on m-my hands!" She felt tears spilling from her eyes. The man ignored her, and she jabbed her dagger toward him, but he knocked it out of her hand, and it flew across the abandoned marketplace, landing with an echoing cling-clang-cling. She gazed mournfully at the only way of defence she had.
The man pinned her body to the wall, her legs between his, her hands above her head. The man towered above her. Ramielle sobbed in fear. The man shushed her and licked her neck. He then grazed it with his knife. When he glanced up at her, he smiled cruelly.
Then, suddenly, she had an idea. If she hit his head with hers, it would surprise him, and maybe he would drop his knife.
Without letting another second pass, Ramielle butted her head as hard as she could with the man's. And just as she had hoped, he grunted, dropped his knife, and staggered back an inch - just enough for her to catch his knife and drive it into his chest. He fell to his knees, and then to his side.
Numbly, she stared at the body that lied at her feet. 'What have I done?' she thought. She felt the need to go on her knees and pray for him - for some reason - but something caught her attention.
Another noise came. A half gurgling, half screeching noise. A mis-formed woman came running toward her. Her body seemed skew and her feet was pointed inward. She had hatred and death in her bottomless white eyes.
Ramielle screamed and curled in a ball on the ground, "Please! No more! D-don't hurt me!"
A hard sound ended the gurgling. 'A gunshot,' something told her, even though she didn't know what it meant. Hesitantly, Ramielle looked up.
The body of the strange woman fell violently to the ground with a thud. Ramielle looked in the direction from where the gunshot came. There stood a young man. He had no expression on his face, and his gun still pointed towards her.
Ramielle felt panic rising in her chest. He was going to kill her. The beautiful boy with the blackest hair, and eyes the colour of sapphires was going to end her life. Ramielle curled in on herself again, "Please. I had enough. D-don't hurt me. Please."
She heard a click and froze. Then footsteps neared her. She slowly glanced up, as the boy knelt before her, his face still expressionless, "If I meant to kill you, I would've killed you and the Corpse with one bullet. Lucky for you, I don't kill the living."
Ramielle felt her body relax in relief. It was a good feeling.
The boy with the sapphire eyes stood up and turned to walk away, but Ramielle caught at the bottom of his coat. He looked at her from over his shoulder, "What?"
"What's y-your name?"
"Daniel."
Ramielle smiled, for the first time since she woke up in that retched place, "Thank you, Daniel. I'm eternally grateful."
Daniel's expression changed for an instant but returned to its original way. He then plucked his coat from her hand, "I don't need your thanks. I didn't save you. The only way to be saved in this damn world was to die. Now it's not even that anymore. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to be on my way."
He started walking away, but Ramielle bolted upright, ignoring the pain in her shoulder, "Wait. Please."
Daniel groaned and turned around, "What the hell is your problem, chick? I've got places to be and people - well, Corpses - to see." Ramielle gazed around her, "I have no idea where I am - where I came from. All I know is my name. And that I woke up in a grass covered graveyard in the middle of a desert-like deserted village. Can you give me any answers?"
Daniel shrugged, "Nope, sorry. Best of luck." He started to turn when Ramielle stopped him again, "Wait, please. At least take me with you." She tightened her arms around herself, "I don't want to be alone. I'm scared."
Daniel's eyes zoned out for a brief second, as if he were remembering something from his past. But he quickly covered it up with a blank expression. "Fine, you can follow me. That's it. No chatting. No gossiping. No drooling over past crushes. No jokes. No giggling. No nothing. You keep quiet and follow me. That's that."
Ramielle felt the best feeling she ever felt. Without thinking, she hugged Daniel, "Thank you, thank you." Daniel pushed her away, "Yeah, yeah. Whatever." Ramielle stood still for a moment, then asked him, "Uh, pardon me for asking, but what is a 'crush'?" Daniel's left eye twitched, "You don't know what a cru- arggg whatever. Silence or I leave you here."
Ramielle held her hand to her mouth and nodded quickly.
Her vision suddenly became blurry, and her knees gave way from under her. Daniel caught her before she hit the ground, "Oh for the love of-- What the heck?" He saw the bite mark on her shoulder, "How the hell did you get a rat bite? Now I'm burdened with caring for you too. As if your presence isn't a nuisance already. We have to find some herbs." He glanced around and saw the herbalist's office. Daniel picked Ramielle up and carried her, without effort, to it.
When they reached the herbalist's office, he placed her on the counter and started searching among the few bottles of dried herbs that was left on a web-covered shelf. Ramielle felt weak and her body trembled. Daniel came back to her side, placing a bottle of dried herbs and bandages next to her on the counter. "Be glad. This is the last bottle of this herb left."
Daniel tended to her wound and bandaged it. Ramielle still felt weak from blood loss, but her vision wasn't as blurry as it was before. "Can you stand?" Daniel asked. Ramielle climbed off the counter and stood up, even though her knees where a bit wobbly. "Yes, I'm alright. Thank you."
Daniel gestured for her to follow him, "Come on, let's search one of the houses. We need some supplies and you need better clothing. And shoes. Your feet won't last an hour if you continued walking barefoot." Ramielle nodded, and followed him.
They walked and ended up between two houses. Daniel glanced at the one, and then the other. He then glanced at Ramielle, "Pick one." Ramielle glanced at the house on her left. It seemed much more ruined then most of the houses in the village. She glanced at the other house. It looked perfectly unharmed. It seemed like it wasn't even part of the rest of the village. Like the graveyard, it had green grass and flowers growing in the garden. It was strange. Even the windows and door were still intact. But there was something else...
Ramielle pointed at the unharmed house. Daniel looked a bit shocked at the house's state but shrugged it off and led the way inside. Inside, the house had furnishings and rugs, and curtains happily hanging from the windows. It even smelt nice. Then only thing it had in common with the rest of the village, Ramielle thought, was that its owners were gone.
"I'm going to take a look around here. You go upstairs and get yourself some clothing. If you find anything useful, like weapons or whatever, bring it too." Daniel started opening drawers and cupboards.
Ramielle went upstairs. There, she found that there was only one bedroom. She stepped into it and glanced around. There was a bed, neatly made, a dresser and a vanity table. She went to the dresser first. She found a pair of brown pants that had pockets in them, with a strange belt that looked like you could attach things to it, and a white sleeveless shirt. She placed all the clothing on the bed. That was when something on the vanity table caught her eye.
Ramielle walked towards it. There on its surface, two necklaces were placed. 'They're astonishingly pretty,' Ramielle thought. She picked them up. The one was a golden cross and the other was a blue gem in the shape of a teardrop. The cross felt warm and comforting in her palm. The teardrop felt cool and safe. 'What strange emotions to feel by holding two trinkets in one's palm,' Ramielle wondered.
When she turned, she hit her knee on the vanity table. It shook and a picture that had been stuck to the mirror came loose and fell on the vanity's surface. Ramielle carefully put the necklaces down and picked up the picture. In it, a girl, looking a slight bit older than Ramielle, and a boy roughly the same age as the girl, smiled back at her. The girl had long honey coloured hair and greyish blue eyes, and the boy had blonde hair and eyes the colour of lightning. Ramielle turned the picture around. Stuck to its back was a folded piece of paper. She removed it and unfolded the note.
Ramielle read it, not knowing how she knew how to read, though.
She glanced at the trinkets. That explains what she felt. She took the book from the bottom left drawer of the vanity. She had to find Danica and Hector.
Ramielle put both necklaces around her neck and placed the book next to the clothing on the bed. Maybe Daniel would know how to find Hector.
She looked at the clothing in total confusion. One way or the other, she couldn't understand why she could recall odd things, but not how to put on clothing.