[Hika]

Chapter 1: Baptized in Fear.

"...."

"...."

"...."

"...Wh-..."

Eyes open. A void of black is caught in her view. So dark, that she could not see a few inches in front of her hand. The world before her was naught but black. A baptism in a void, filled with naught but voices, her deepest fears in her heart. "Where...where am I?"

"Did the experiment fail?"

The transceiver was still caught in her palms. Recording her voice, even amidst this void of nothing.

"Am I in the Void? Is that possible?"

"I c-can't...move..." Try as she might, every movement would cause excruciating pain. As if the blackness itself was forcing her down, tied by the very decomposition of her body. "Angh....ah..."

It felt as if every atom in her body was decomposing as she moved. All she can do was lay there. In this dark and in this void, crying tears of black. "C...come on..."

"Come on..."

"I have to go home...I have to go home!"

"I HAVE TO GO HOME!!!"

She continues to struggle. Through excruciating pain and darkness. She couldn't here her own voice, screaming into the void would emit no sound. No physical sensations upon her body. She was stuck here forever, it seemed. A limbo of nothing. Feeling nothing, nor hearing anything besides the cold darkness that surrounded her. 

"I have...I have too..."

"I have too..."

"..."

The voices begin to reign.

Echoing upon her ear, whispers. They were in the same tone and language as her own. In this baptism of black, those whispers were her only solace. Voices from beyond.

"Altharim will be ours, Emmeline. The world, will be ours! As I promised..."

"Hahaha! You really think a pathetic thing like you deserves my mercy!? You're nothing but a scuff upon my boot. Shut up and die, you pitiful thing."

"You promised that i'd wear a crown someday. What did you mean by that? Why would you leave me, Emmeline?"

Timelines converging? Other pieces and variants of herself? She pondered, hearing these voices echo in her ear.

"This crown is mine. And everything I had ever wished for. Today...Meranthe will be mine. And it will be a paradise. One free of Magi. Free of pain and suffering!"

"I am a Witch, Emmeline. I don't deserve anything but pain. For all of the pain i've caused others. For the acts i've done, people i've killed. I do not deserve redemption. I do not deserve love. I was destined to be a witch. It's in my blood to cause pain and suffering. Even to those that I love."

The voices continue. Would they ever stop? The woman wonders, closing her eyes and finding solace in the very least, in these memories and feelings of other worlds. She resigns to her fate, hoping that her body would decompose, and the pain will stop.

Opening her eyes, she finds...

"???"

A figure standing above her. It looked feminine, a vague outline of an hourglass figure. A shadow against the black, barely formed, as if an apparition in the dark. 

"..."

"Are you here to punish me?"

The figure looms. Silence permeates her. The shadow does not speak, simply staring with non existent eyes.

Eventually, however?

It lingers forward, offering a hand too the Felinae. If...she could even be called that now.

"No." it says. In a gentle, almost soft voice. As if the figure itself, were an avatar of death...perhaps even this void itself.

"You've done that to yourself." it would speak. It's voice rattling, a hand lifting the woman up. While once unable to move, the hand allows her to float gently upward, unshackled by her decomposing atoms, although they trail behind her.

"I am here to guide." the figure says simply, holding the woman's hand. It guides her across, teaching her in a silent manner, how to float in this realm. "What are you?" Belle asks, and the figure would refuse to answer. Perhaps it already has.

"..."

It gestures for Belle to follow. She floats idly, unshackled by the darkness that surrounded her. "Th-...thank you." she speaks softly, floating about the figure as she followed. "...What can I call you?"

The figure pauses, if one could decipher any facial features at all, they'd find almost a smile on this figure's countenance. "Monarch." she says simply. Gesturing forth. "Follow me, Mockingbird."

"You are not destined to die just yet."

Into the void they would go.

Into a world beyond her own.

Secrets to be unraveled.