"Chaos Lost- Chapter Five" by Johanna Holmlund

Strangeness.

Something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Ky came back to herself, dragging her soul from that raging river of light.

It was dark. That was the first thing she noticed, even without opening her eyes. But there was something else, something she couldn’t quite realize, something important.

The moon still shone through the window, but the light seemed dim and tired. It hadn’t moved more than a thumb length. Hardly any time had passed at all during the eternity they’d spent in the spell.

They. Kris.

If Ky was alive…

Ky still hadn’t moved, even so much as opened her eyes. Some deep coil of fear within her told her to keep them closed, to run away, anything but face what had happened…

Don’t look. Again that fear spoke to her, telling her that all was not well. Something had turned her world upside down, and she wasn’t ready to know what.

Reluctantly, she opened her eyes. Immediately something seemed off balance, slightly skewed. Her vision was different- everything seemed brighter, sharper.

Slowly, she sat up, trying to ignore the sickly feeling in her head and nausea in her gut. Nothing seemed to move quite right, and…

And she was alive.

Kris, not Ky, was dead.

For several long, agonizing moments Ky could feel nothing but anger, so much rage that it drowned even her grief. How long she sat, alone in Kris’s bedroom, she did not know, nor did she care. She closed her eyes against the moonlight, now horribly dim in comparison to the ocean of light she had experienced. That moonlight had promised her an end to whatever life lay before her, but had instead taken from her the only thing that mattered.

The anger did not subside, but Ky grew accustomed to it, and finally found the strength to open her eyes and confront her existence.

As she looked about the room, her eyes quickly pulled to the body beside her. She felt something inside her chest tighten, but from what emotion she could not tell

The person… the body lying next to her was her own. It had to be.

Long, dark red hair spread across the floor beneath… beneath it. A nightshift covered a thing, small form, and one of the legs was twisted and deformed, and a crutch lay alongside the body. It wasn’t breathing.

I am dead! Her head spun, filled with confusion and relief. Euphoria rushed through her, making her feel as if she was floating. Perhaps she was…

But no. No, because she could feel herself breathing. She could feel the floorboards beneath her. She bit her toungue, hard, and was rewarded with a drop of coppery-tasting blood.

Disappointment was quickly overwhelmed with a new rush of fear and confusion.

How? How can I see myself, yet feel my body around me? She looked at her hands in utter bewilderment.

The bewilderment faded almost immediately. Ky could feel her heart beating in her chest, hard and fast. Dizziness almost overwhelmed her, and the world faded to a peculiar gray for a moment.

She was not looking at her own hands. She had seen her hands every day for her entire life. To look down and see something other that the small, callused fingers and the scarred palms was… it was more than she could absorb. But to look down and see what she knew in her bones to be the hands of her brother?

Tears stung her eyes, but she hardly noticed them amidst the sheer terror that threatened to destroy whatever sanity she had. She sprung clumsily to her feet, but her awkwardness did not stem from a deformed leg. She was certain even before she looked down that both legs were whole and strong- and Kris’s.

Is it even possible? A quick glance in Kris’s mirror did more that confirm her fears. Kris’s face, twisted in horror, gazed back from the polished surface.

She was shivering, both with cold and shock. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. This was wrong, this was all wrong…

But hadn’t Kris told her? Hadn’t he said that the strongest parts of them would survive? Certainly Ky’s body was weaker than Kris’s- Ky had simply assumed that the rest of her was weaker as well.

Did he know? Could he have suspected that it would happen this way? Ky felt sick at the thought. Nausea churned her- Kris’s- stomach.

A soft sound, barely a whisper, cut through her thoughts like a knife. It was nearly dawn.

Shainsa would wake any moment.

Suddenly, her panic at the situation was replaced by an even deeper fear. What would Shainsa do when she found out that Kris was dead?

But she wouldn’t know, A tiny part of her mind whispered. She will look at you and see Kris! She certainly wouldn’t care that you are dead, either! This voice failed to calm her for even a moment. What would happen if Shainsa guessed? Ky certainly couldn’t pretend at behaving like Kris. This would be proof to Shainsa that Ky was evil, and her punishment would not include death. No, Shainsa was far too smart to kill something sent to her by the gods for whatever reason. She would simply make Ky’s life as harsh and miserable as possible.

She had to leave. Every thought was shoved from her head by the urgent need to get out of the house, away from her father’s land, and never turn back. Everything else could wait.

Clothes. She couldn’t leave wearing nightclothes. Quickly, she pulled breeches and a tunic from Kris’s drawers.

She closed her eyes as she changed.

Walking was difficult- nearly impossible. It wasn’t just that she had never walked without a crutch. She felt top-heavy, as if she could tumble down at any moment. Everything was the wrong distance from the ground; her head was far higher than it should be, yet her legs felt so short in comparison to the rest of her. She began to feel slightly nauseous, and she was moving far to slowly to make any real progress before dawn.

She needed to sleep, to assimilate what had happened, to let her mind adjust to a new body. She began looking for a hidden nook or cave to sleep in during the day, out of sight of any searchers that came looking for Kris.

But Kris was dead…

Despair began to settle about her shoulders, and the air was thick with misery. She felt as if her mind were falling slowly into darkness…

There- the spark, the tiny flame, flared, staving off complete hopelessness. It was still present in the back of her mind, the feeling that there was something other touching upon her thoughts, something that loved her. Something that told her that Kris hadn’t been the only one who’d ever cared.

Left…

Not a word, hardly a feeling. Just the barest idea that she should go left, left and slightly ahead.

There, under the roots of a huge tree with a hollow large enough to sleep in. A hollow she would never have found if she hadn’t known to look for it.

She curled up inside, feeling awkward and disjointed, all the time holding tight in her thoughts the brightness that was her only companion.

As she drifted off to sleep, there was something else. A box… not a box, but almost the impression of one, hidden deep in her thoughts. Open just the barest crack, something wondrous within, something she’d yearned to find for years without knowing it. Just a little wider…

With a feeling of sorrow, the presence took hold of this box Ky tried so hard to open, and slowly closed it’s lid, hiding its wondrous contents from view.

Later, later…

Hardly aware of the whispered promise in her thoughts, Ky drifted at last into sleep.