“Oi, wake up. You cannot sleep here or you’ll get frozen to death. Hurry and wake up.”
Although Aurora felt her body shaking, she was unable to move her arm because of how cold it was. Her entire body ached and felt as though it had been frozen.
The heavenly power Aurora possessed ought to be doing something to heal her right now, but it wasn’t reacting to her.
Her powers didn’t even seem to be being restrained.
“Darn it! Are you dead already? After all that I did to get you unfrozen and this is how you respond to me? What can I even do with your body?”
The thinking was difficult for Aurora in her current situation. All Aurora could focus on was the voice calling for her and the hand shaking her body.
She was not even aware of how much time had passed ever since she had fallen unconscious. Aurora did not know anything at all.
But despite all this, Aurora knew she had to show some kind of moment to survive. Her present circumstances did not look ideal but she was not out of help entirely.
“Huh? So you are alive. Good! Then keep holding on to me and I will save you. If you fall asleep here then you will never be able to return home.”
‘Home? I want to go home. But I cannot fall asleep.’
Those words were like a compulsion and Aurora found herself following them more and more. Her mind did not allow Aurora to fall asleep after she heard those words and this was how Aurora survived the whole time.
The subtle warmth of the body carrying Aurora out of the hands of a certain death felt familiar and so reminiscent that Aurora found herself leaning into her.
pa?,??-,c
“Hey, don’t move around. You are lucky that you managed to escape your situation without getting any frostbite or losing any limb. Not everyone is as lucky as you are.”
Golden hair and blue eyes met Aurora. For a second, Aurora felt like she was looking at Clove but then her brain reminded her that the blond’s features did not match Clove’s.
The only thing this female had similar to Clove was her aura and the color of her hair.
Even the blue of her eyes was different from Cloves.
“How are you feeling now? I hope you are feeling better than before. The hot water managed to get the warmth back into your body at least.”
The female had a nice and soothing voice. Aurora knew that her fondness of her savior’s voice was likely a bi-product of her current mental state and the familiar aura she had, but Aurora could not deny the fact that she liked it.
Nor could she stop her body from leaning into the hand caressing her head. The action felt too natural to not be done.
“Once you are done, you should come out and eat breakfast with me. Food is hard to come by in recent times. This earth is changing far too fast to keep up.”
“Do you know, just recently a fissure opened nearby and swallowed a village? The scientists have decided to call this fissure the ‘abyss’ and they are thinking of sending a team down there to study it. I am one of these selected candidates as well.”
“Oh, I have not introduced myself yet, right? My name is Clara. It is nice to meet you.”
Aurora hardly heard the blond speak but the talk of ‘Abyss’ caught her fancy. The more she heard from them, the more confused she felt before it all came crashing together in her head.
The death pool, the sinking feeling, being dragged away and then having a familiar face help her out.
‘Lady Clara must be the mother of those tainted being mentioned’.
Is this a piece of her soul then? I did learn that her spirit had fragmented, much like Clove’s had.
Aurora needed answers to so many questions, but she was aware that she would not get any at this time.
The thing about such fragments of souls was – they were not aware of their existence. They forever lived in a designated loop and were content to live out their lives in peace.
But it took a significant amount of energy to keep this loop going. It was not surprising that anyone who came close to the Death Pool eventually died.
I must remove this spell as quickly as possible. If I remained here, this piece of Lady Clara would attempt to eat me as well.
Aurora did not doubt her power. If she faced Lady Clara head-on then Aurora might win. But that would just reset this loop.
‘I need to look for an opening in the cycle to escape. But I have no idea how to achieve that.’ Aurora had never been in such a situation before.
Everything Aurora had mentioned before was a result of hearing others’ experiences. But hearing about something was different than experiencing it for yourself.
“Hey, the water must have gotten cold by now. Hurry up and come out or all my hard work will go down the drain.”
Lady Clara called out to Aurora and she had no other choice but to come out of the water and face her current circumstance.
Lady Clara seemed to be in a good mood. Her humming was loud enough for Aurora to head even in the bathroom.
It was a calming and familiar sound to hear and Aurora finally managed to pull herself out of the water and calm herself down.
“Come and sit down. I hope the breakfast is to your liking.”
Aurora quickly took the seat opposite the would-be goddess but her appetite was nowhere to be seen. She could not even pick up her spoon and bring it to her mouth.
“You know, you should not be picky with your food in these times. Who knows when the next time you eat will be.”
Lady Clara teased, her spoon aimed toward Aurora. Even this action seemed familiar to Aurora and her brain decided to make a few unnecessary connections.
Aurora did not know why, but the more she stared at Lady Clara, the more she missed Clove. She was even beginning to see the other blond in the future goddess.
“I’m just not hungry. Maybe it is because my body is recovering from the cold still. Can you store this food for me to have later?”
Aurora would have stored her food in her system but her system was not working right now. This had only one implication – Aurora’s current body had no magic in it.
She was no better than an ordinary human. Aurora could not even combat disease in her current condition.
It was likely a result of the ‘setting’ which had rendered Aurora useless.
‘Seeing as how Clara has no magic as well, this has to be a time before humans gained magic. This is unknown territory for me.’
No matter how much Aurora tried to hide her disdain, she could not help but find this situation worrisome.
Being powerless was not a feeling Aurora was used to.
“I see. In that case, you should rest for now. I will start heading toward the Abyss study station pretty soon but I don’t want to leave you alone either. Would you like to come with me?”
Things were happening around Elysia. And they were happening too fast for her.
One second, Elysia was being pulled toward one side, the other she was being pulled toward another. Reasoning and feelings were bifurcating Aurora in different directions.
‘I don’t know why I ended up here or who wanted me here, but sticking with Clara, for now, would be a good choice. I have a feeling I Clara is the key to solving this problem and I need to stick close to her to solve it.’
In the back of her mind, Aurora knew that something huge was about to happen. Her brain was trying to warn her against following her heart but Aurora still decided to take this risk.
‘You are just trying to deny the truth you have realized but it won’t help you out. It is better to give up and stick to what you know best.’
Had Aurora listened to her head then and not her heart, she could not have come to the sick realization about Clara’s true identity and her connection to Clove.
But as things seemed, regrets were something one could not avoid and Aurora was an unwilling victim of her circumstances either.
Besides, what could ever happen in the world created by a soul fragment?
‘Past cannot be changed without rewriting it entirely. I am sure it will be alright in the end.’ This place was not a rewrite of the past, but a play that reflected things as they had been.
And Aurora was just following a character in that script as well.
Updat𝓮d from freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.co(m)