So, it has finally come to this...
Aria watched with eyes void of emotions, feeling her emotions turn cold like she had never felt before, at the strangely familiar man. Even in this bloodied state, his pale and bloodless face—but a bit of a blur with one of her swords stabbed through his abdomen, and the noticeable loss of limbs, he remained laughing at her wickedly—his face bore a striking resemblance.
The kind of face that made her burn with an impossible urge to kill.
Aria felt strange. Like she was seeing through the eyes of a person who felt so, so cold—like she had lost something or everything—it was as if this person seemed no better than a corpse.
Something was preventing her from fully seeing the man's face, but she knew from his movements that he was screaming. From pain. From anger.
Then the whole room erupted into flames. There was ash and smoke creeping into her nose and her mouth, but she remained watching him. At the man's suffering. And it didn't take long for Aria to notice that it was her body who had created the fire.
But she was laughing. For the first time, Aria felt emotions bubbling from within her, but then she heard other screams—there were others with him.
Aria continued to laugh and laugh, even as the flames took her flesh and bones into ash.
And Aria knew, even as the ceiling slowly collapsed around her, that the body she was in remained madly laughing.
---
Aria jolted awake, her body feeling like it had been doused with cold water. For a moment, she thought she tasted ash and blood in her mouth, but the ringing in her head made her realize that her phone had been blasting her usual annoying tunes on her bedside table. It was the only sound Aria found that was actually capable of waking herself up. She was a very heavy sleeper.
However, as she quietly suspected, it may have to do with the disturbing dreams that keep hunting her every night. That's right. Aria had been stalked by nightmares ever since she could remember. Curiously though, her dreams were always the same thing. A blurry man laughing in a taunting way. With Aria seemingly the one who stabbed him. Flames and ashes. And a version of herself laughing herself to madness.
Aria rubbed her face with her hands, using her sleeve to wipe the sweat dripping from her forehead; she reached with her free hand towards her phone and slid the button to turn off the alarm before it woke up the entire neighborhood. That's how loud and irritating the alarm was.
After finding herself not able to fall asleep again, Aria groaned irritatedly and kicked off the blankets. Still tasting ash in her mouth, she slid off the bed and went to the bathroom. Opening the lights blinded her momentarily, and she cursed. And with half-opened lids, she felt her way towards the sink and quickly turned on the faucet to rinse her face. It was only after she had spit out the water in her mouth that Aria looked up and saw her reflection staring back at her.
A pale young woman with dark circles under her cognac eyes—a trait everyone always notices and often calls her out for it, either impressed or envious. She originally had a fair ivory complexion that only made her paler—like some sort of twilight vampire, minus the vampire and the twilight, and more haunted-looking. Her usual gorgeous coffee brown mane was nowhere to be found. In its stead, Aria had dyed it to look like a sunset this year---a wild mixture of blue, orange, pink, purple, red hair strands, and everything in between. She was known for having crazy but gorgeous hairstyles that she changed every semester. And she was also known to often get in trouble with the principal or the professors because of it, too.
So, when someone enters the cafeteria, they would surely expect to notice her fiery hair first before everything else.
It was no surprise for anyone to know the fact that Aria was very pretty. In fact, she was one of those gorgeous enough people who was not part of the university's unofficial mean girls' clique. There are people who would want to approach her, only to be scared off by her cold, indifferent facial expressions.
"Oh god, I look horrible," Aria said. "What a wreck."
Aria sniffed and grabbed a towel to dry her face. She went back to her room and slipped out of her pajamas to dress into something more casual. Aria pulled on a V-neck white shirt and denim shorts, which she tightened with a belt, a pair of socks, and her favorite go-to brown heeled ankle boots. She also tried to make herself look more presentable with a bit of naturalistic makeup and her usual rosewood tinted lip balm, and even tried to pull her hair up into a wild ponytail, with bits of hair strands framing her face.
She grabbed her laptop and typed in a short group message to her friends—Teagan, Carter, and Austin:
theladyaria: Heyaaa, its meee! The one and onlyyy! Meeting latur at the usual place, around 1 o'clock okay?? Hmm? What was that? You'll attend? Mkaay, laturrr. Byee.
Yep, that's right. Despite her signature indifferent face, Aria was surprisingly a bubbly, optimistic, and mischievous person. And the only ones who knew this side of her were her closest friends and family. While she grabbed her things and prepared to leave the house, Aria noticed someone typing on the group chat and waited. Like usual, the computer geek and hacker, Carter Craven, answered first.
cartergraphy: Jesus fucking christ aria. really? do you know what time it is rn? -_-
The next message came from the ever-loving, ever-crafty, arts and crafts genius, Teagan Woods.
itsteetime: Oh, here she goes again.
And after a while, then came the message of the insomniac, game-addicted, mathematical genius, Austin Moriarty. And his odd, non-existent alter ego, Alter Austin.
austin.therealone.: zzzzz...
austin.theotherone: dude, wake the f up.
austin.therealone.: *sleep bubble pops* huh? Oh, hello
cartergraphy: jesus christ
itsteetime: austin, did u stay up all night grinding again? Those games of urs are going to be the death of you.
austin.theotherone: uh huh, i told him to do that
austin.therealone: shut up. U are not the boss of me.
Aria laughed at their conversation. It was always like this, no dull moment in our circle of friends. She's especially fond of the alter ego that Austin created. It wasn't legit and he didn't really have any personality disorders or anything. It's just something he did for fun, and now he's switching accounts to have both egos participate in conversations.
On her way downstairs to grab some food, Aria punched in another message before she quietly snuck out of the house.
theladyaria: otw to the cabin, see u
The replies soon followed, the moment I pressed the send button. I turned and walked out of the house without bothering to read them. I already knew what they were going to say. It's always the same arguments anyway.
cartergraphy: please dont, ur going to blow the backyard up again
cartergraphy: don't u have any idea how troublesome it is to fix it all again
itsteetime: steer away from my plants. I just managed to grow those tomatoes. ABSOLUTELY DO NOT PERFORM YOUR EXPERIMENTS NEAR THEM
austin.therealone: guys forget it, she stopped seeing ur msgs
austin.theotherone: hwek hwek
itsteetime: aria? Do u understand? hello?
cartergraphy: damn it