Eunia woke to the chirping of a bird. Or was it a bird? What exactly was a bird anyway? She did not remember. In fact, she did not remember anything at all.
She tried to force her eyes open. They were stinging. It was too bright for her to see anything. How long was she asleep? She had no idea. Her eyes started to adjust and she took in her surroundings. She was lying down horizontally on the ground, covered in mud and tree sap. Surrounding her were trees, thousands of them, their leaves and branches making a canopy so thick, they covered the sky.
The sky. She had a vague memory of the sky. Black and empty. Absolutely ugly. But she recalled a faint sense of endearment towards it. Perhaps she did not lose all of her memory. If she had, how would she know what a tree was, anyway? She remembered bits of places she had been to, things she saw, but they were all blurry and hard to decipher.
Her head was pounding. She felt weak yet she managed to summon enough energy to stand up, only to collapse again. She touched her forehead to the ground. Her headache was getting worse. What a spectacular way to die, she thought to herself, until she spotted some.. thing on a nearby bush. Her inner instincts told her to go towards it. Food? She did not remember what food looked like. All she knew that, it might be the only thing that would help her survive. So she tried to crawl up to it, with every movement her muscles made, spikes of pain shot through her body. She could not bear it. Her vision was loosing focus and she was feeling dizzy. She was going to black out again.
Her eye lids started to droop. She tried to fight it, but there isn't much you could do against your body's mechanisms when you have no energy. Why was she trying to survive anyway? Its not as if she remembered anything. Was surviving even worth it when you have nothing to go back to in life? Perhaps her body blacking out was a message from whatever entity that controlled fates, that she was better off dead.
So she decided to obey her body's command and pass out. Forever? Maybe. She did not really care. As her eyes closed she caught a glimpse of a figure coming towards her. A monster? No, too unlikely. An animal, perhaps? Might be so. As the figure came close by she noticed red hair. An animal with red hair? She did not recall the existence of anything like that. She did not have time to notice anything else as her body gave in and everything went dark.
"••••"
When Eunia woke again, she was not surrounded by trees. She was in a cell. A pretty odd one, nothing she familiarised with from whatever was left of her memory. She was lying in a cot. Her body was numb, but her headache was better. She was able to focus better. She tilted her neck, to take in more of what the cell looked like. Actually it was more of a room, comfortable, like in a house. The walls were caked with animal dung, and there were vials of potions on the shelves. Beside the cot she was lying in, there was a table, sprawled on it were plants and ...were they fruits? They were strange, she had never seen them before. But perhaps she did, she just doesn't remember them now.
She heard a creak of a door. She turned her head back with great difficulty, as her body was still stiff. She saw a figure that looked similar to her. Same species? He had curly red hair and orange eyes. He didn't look old, perhaps he were the same age as her. But she didn't know how old she was. Or where she was. She opened her mouth to speak, having trouble at first to form words. She managed to say,
"Where am I?"
The red haired boy just gasped, orange eyes sparkling as if they've seen something very fascinating, and ran back to where he'd come from.
Confused, Eunia tried to sit up straight on the cot and immediately regretted it because her back now hurt so bad, it felt like somebody was throwing knives after knives at it. She shrieked in pain, and then another person came in from the same door from which the orange eyed boy had come from. This time, it was a woman. Eunia found her beautiful. She had volumes of curly red hair just like the boy, twisted in lose braid. She was wearing faded brown dress, which looked like it had seen better days. But her eyes were lovely and interesting, Eunia couldn't classify them of one specific colour. It was as if they change their colour every second. But there was something about those eyes that sparked kindness and love.
Maybe she could trust this woman.
"Please," the woman said, as she came towards her, "please refrain yourself from shrieking. I do understand that you are in pain, Eunia, and I have done my best to heal you. But I'm afraid this place is not safe" she paused and stared at Eunia's perplexed expression.
"My apologies, I forgot to introduce myself." She sighed "My name is Bahala, I am the woman of this house."
Eunia was still gawking at her in confusion, she said, "Eunia... thats my name. It's one of the only things I remember. But how did you know about it?"
Bahala sighed. "It is hard to explain. Right now, it is none of your concern. You do not have much time, child. You must get as far away from this place as you can."
Eunia looked her in the eye and said, "You said it is not safe here. Then why bring me here in the first place? Why save me? What benefit did you have? I do not believe it could be just a simple act of kindness-"
"You ask too many questions, child." Bahala said as she cut her off. "My son will take you to a place where you shall be safe. You must remain there until the time comes. Till then he would take care of your needs. And you must do the same for him as I would be gone."
Eunia had no idea what the woman was talking about or what place she was referring to. She wanted to run away.
"Do not even think about it," Bahala said. And then suddenly she was paralised. What? Eunia thought Sorcery?
"Malgeen, come in, it is time to go" Bahala said, and at that the orange eyed boy from before came running in and stood beside her. She could not protest, could not move her mouth or her limbs.
She was helpless.
And within the blink of an eye, they were teleported.
******