Prologue:
A wave of nausea washes over her body as she wakes. The room simply a blur of shadows and light, filled with the sound of her blood pumping through her ears. Clutching her head in her hands, she forces down the urge to groan as another assault of nausea attacks her.
Get up.
A voice, distant and like a whisper. She said nothing.
Get up!
Groaning painfully she tries to look for the source of the voice, she can't see through the fog her eyes hide behind and she rises painfully the tears springing to her eyes as her body protests. No- No, more I can’t.
On her feet now, her vision clears enough that she can register the remains of glass and concrete scattered about her feet. Her next step forward causes the ground to twist and tilt beneath her and she falls to her knees. She tries to make her way across the rubble, only pausing when the bouts of nauseous pain wrack her body. In one of these intervals she looks up. Blinking and squinting up through the light, she sees the vast ceiling made of glass. Only vaguely she recognises and sizable hole in it, cracked like an egg a baby bird has just emerged out of. Panting with the effort of movement she slumps onto the ground to rest.
A blink and her eyes are open again. The room has changed. Now the shadows had crept in to occupy much of the room, the sky visible above, has darkened to a bruised purple. She must have laid there longer that her body told her she had.
“Kat!”
A voice pierces the air, causing her head to shout back in response, her eyes pinching shut to shield her senses from any more noise.
“Kat! Are you okay?”
A pair of feet stumble through the rubble about her, halting by her side to try and lift her to her feet. She groans and opens her eyes. A stranger. His brown hair crusted in a layer of dust and his expression open and concerned. He pulls her into a hug that presses against her aching ribs and with a grimace she tries to push him away from her.
“Who are you?”
The foreign voice that speaks her thoughts echoes through her throbbing body. The only response from the man trying to help her out of the building was an amused laugh. She frowns, some distant alarm ringing in the back of her mind. She resists his arms and stumbles back a step, back into the shelter of the building.
“Who are you?”
“Don’t screw with me Kat. We need to get you back to the Academy so we can get you fixed up.”
He makes to hold her arm again and she frowns, shying from his grip.
“Don’t screw with me Kat.” He says, frowning
“I asked, ‘Who are you?’”
“Look, I don’t need to humour your dark jokes. You’ve put me through enough today.”
She doesn’t move
“Kat?”
The feel of the name on her tongue is foreign and she lets it onto her lips again.
“Kat…”
He approaches, face filled with an emotion she couldn’t read. He pulls her into another embrace, lowering his lips to brush hers. The embrace ends when the back of her hand meets his face.
“Get away from me!”
“Kat! What the hell!? It’s me, Jay? Can’t you even recognise your fiancé?!”
She blinks, her expression blank.
He lowers the hand nursing his face and shakes his head slowly.
“No… It can’t be… Oh god…”
Her head throbs again and she doubles over in agony. The only thing audible above her angry pulse, thundering in her head is a gasp.
“Your head…”
Hearing this, she lets her hand gingerly wander her hair to the source of pain. Her fingers grow hot and sticky with blood and she winces away from the swollen lip of a wound.
“Jesus… What happened?”
She looks up at the stranger, a glare levelled at him. She tried to get away from him, her vulnerable state sparking her instincts, but her body refuses, dropping her to the floor instead. With a peaceful ‘thud’ she is reunited with darkness.