Lysandra Malkov
A cold gust of wind grazed Lysandra's face, her alabaster skin looking like a fragile hyperrealistic painting basked in golden luminescence.
Her eyes darted across the training room with an unreadable expression. However, she glared in a direction every two breaths.
There, she could see her reflection, glancing at her like a shimmering moonlight rippling in a dark lake. The gleaming spectre was a depraved replica of herself — engorged eyeballs with vertical pupils.
Lysandra sat on the collapsing wooden floor, feeling unnatural chills slither through her pores — her arms in a strong tuck with her legs. Her heart pounded against her chest as she watched the wraith in silence. Neither of them broke the corroding silence since their meeting.
Reflecting on her arrival, Lysandra felt her body tremble. She had never experienced such blinding pain before. She had at some point believed the inevitable had finally come, after longing for it her entire life. Yet… she was back in a strange, dying space, just like her old self in an endless cycle of thorns.
Would she ever escape this gnawing fate? A fate that made her bag for death, but even death deemed her unworthy — forsaking her. Every breath she took in that hollow dungeon, she prayed it was her last. For the cult to crucify her — a heretic who didn't wince as she struck the boulder on his face, and then the knife on his chest. With balls crushed to meat paste, she watched him whimper to death.
Shaking off those old, plaguing memories, her thoughts returned to the present. Lysandra would've sworn that she was in a dream, or the alley to hell, but the excruciating encounter a moment ago cast a contrasting gloom in her mind.
Just like anyone would act when they suddenly found themselves in an unknown dilapidated hall, she went to the weapon shelves at the extreme, hoping to pick a knife. Yet, immediately she touched the sanguine dagger, a torrent of chaotic energy burst out of it, blasting her off like a rag doll.
The blast left her disoriented; seeing her unsettling reflection added to her suffering, but the growing silence was worse.
If not for the pain that she still felt, Lysandra would've sworn by the dead gods that she was going crazy. No, not just her — the entire world could be going crazy because since when did reflections learn to talk? That, with a twisted expression carved on their face.
Time wound forward like a slithering serpent, echoes of impending hours pulsating in her head. No longer able to withhold her curiosity, Lysandra spoke.
"Who are you, and what's this place?" She asked in a hushed tone, her eyes darting back and forth, ready to run — that was if she could outrun whatever she imagined would pounce on her.
"So thou dost know how to speak?"
A sweet, sonorous voice sang in Lysandra's ears, making her heart tightened. Her reflection's voice was a mournful delight. It made her want to shut her eyes, forever in a slumber, deep in the dark abyss. Even though Lysandra had thought of her own death every day that passed, this voice right here sounded like what death itself would avoid.
"Mine apologies." The reflection smiled. Her uncanny grin wriggled to her ears as her tone adjusted to a regular young lady in her early twenties, just like the original.
Lysandra's heart skipped in trepidation, her body frozen like a broken golem, not daring to move even a strand of hair. This thing was dangerous.
Whatever it was, Lysandra wanted to avoid her at all costs. However, what could she even do... back to the dungeon? Oh yes, she'd accept her old lives with wide arms if it meant not getting creeped out in a strange training hall with bizarre weapons and a deformed apparition.
"Welcome to Cursed Paradise, at some time, I did think thee witless." The reflection laughed, revealing broken fangs, and a crimson fork tongue, that mirrored between flesh and phantasm.
Lysandra felt worms crawl on her skin as she watched the disfigured entity before her in a foreboding calm. Her mouth refused to open afterwards, and her eyes could only glue to her own reflection.
"Thou art a peculiar one." She clicked her tongue as her fangs ground against her scaly lips.
"Let us see… how long shalt thou endure ere death taketh thee? A few seconds, minutes, or perchance some hours after departing this sanctuary?"
"JUST STOP." Lysandra bellowed, pulling her hair. Her trembling eyes ladened with lunacy.
Every syllable that left the mouth of that thing made her feel nauseate. From the weird language to the incoherently insidious words. Why would anyone put a smile on their face as they dictated someone else's death as though they were talking about the items on their wish list?
To her dismay, Lysandra soon facepalmed, her eyeballs threatening to pop out, grim realization dawning on her. Did she just yell at the abominable entity? Stilling her breath for whatever punishment was about to come, Lysandra watched as the apparition's expression changed, taking a step towards her, and then another, and another.
Lysandra crept backwards, her eyes not daring to leave the approaching figure that had a large, unnatural smile on its face.
Thud!
The sound of her back hitting the wall echoed like the whispers of the grim reaper, and she could only pray in silence, hoping the wall would split open and allow her to leave this bitter shackles.
But hope was just a thing of the myth. Reality was too stark to allow such a sweet concept to exist, and just like that, her reflection was an inch away, her hand raised above her prey.
Lysandra felt her chest tighten, almost pissing her pants, but what followed allowed her no time to register what it meant.
"Hahahaha."
A hysteric laughter reverberated across the walls, making Lysandra's brows arch as she narrowed her eyes.
"Thou shouldst behold the look upon thy face… as though thou wert to perish of suffocation! Hahaha… mine, mine." The apparition slurped, licking her lips.
Lysandra felt something in her belly about to erupt — it was anger. Her pale face was now a shade of chilli, finding out that her own reflection had tricked her. Yet, she knew better than to snap back.
"Fret not, for mine task is to guide thee, not to slay thee. That which shall bring thy doom liest beyond." The apparition said, pointing to the exit of the training hall.
"For now, however, come forth and choose thy Domain."
The reflection muttered in a lifeless tone.
An impending doom lingered above the frowning Lysandra. The future looked bleak, filled with uncertainties. But one thing w
as certain — her next decision would change everything that ever was.