When the light came, it wasn't a relief, but a brutal return that dispelled the darkness around. The light was cold, unforgiving, like a knife blade piercing the gloom and exposing everything.
The first thing Mya felt was a paralyzing pain. It was unlike anything she had ever felt. It wasn't the fatigue of a climb or the shortness of breath after a run. It was heavy, overwhelming, seeping into her bones and trembling through every fiber of her body. She felt like the world had decided to shatter her and put her back together... but something had gone wrong.
Her mind slowly woke up, as if it was piercing through a fog soaked in suffering. At first, there was one trembling thought.
"She had an accident."
But she couldn't say it out loud. Her throat felt like it was frozen solid, and her mouth couldn't move an inch. Her body was encased in concrete – dead and unyielding. Only her short, ragged breath proved she was still alive.
Each attempt to move ended in an explosion of pain, as if someone were electrocuting her nerves. Images, jagged and fragmented, flashed through her head. A cliff. A peak. Kian's voice. A scream. A stone.
That stone and the moment when it was under her feet and the world she knew collapsed. Time stopped. Then there was the flight. That strange moment when it seemed that there was no more earth or sky. Only space and a premonition of inevitability. And then the impact. The earth, which did not accept her gently, but like an enemy.
She remembered the warmth of her back on the grass... a warmth that now seemed to be returning, but perverted, seeping from a different source.
She blinked. The clouds seemed to stand still, motionless and heavy as lead. Everything around was too saturated, too alien – like a dream that slides along the edge of a nightmare.
She breathed shallowly as something pressed down on her chest. She felt as if she was wearing something heavy... hard. Metal. Cold and unfriendly.
"What the hell is this? Armor?"
The thought came suddenly and with an unexpected edge of panic.
She closed her eyes and opened them again, trying to control the chaos. She raised a trembling hand. The fingers were longer, stronger, the skin thickened, like someone who had fought their whole life. Scars crisscrossed her forearm like stories carved by time and suffering. The veins were more pronounced, the muscles harder, the flesh... foreign.
Her heart pounded, bringing with it a new wave of fear.
She braced herself and struggled to lift her torso. The wet grass stuck to her skin. With every movement she felt the blood running down her arm, warm and sticky. The long hair that now fell to her shoulders was darker, more matte. Dried blood glued the strands together into a thick, heavy curtain.
She touched her face. Sharp cheekbones. A jaw like carved from stone. An open wound above her eyebrow – throbbing, deep. This wasn't her face. This wasn't her body.
Panic was growing.
"This isn't me. This isn't my... who am I..."
She tried to stand up. Her legs were strong but alien. Every muscle worked like a machine efficiently, but without the familiar rhythm, without that silent cooperation she had known all her life. She felt like a guest in her own body. Or rather – in someone else's body.
She looked around.
This place... wasn't her world. The paths led nowhere, the rocks stuck out like the teeth of some ancient monster, and the air smelled of damp, iron and... blood. She felt it everywhere—on her tongue, on her skin, in her nostrils.
This wasn’t just another landscape.
This was another world.
Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled. Purple lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating the outlines of the forest—twisted, dark, as if the trees grew here not toward the sun but toward something deeper. Darker.
Mya's new senses registered it first: footsteps, heavy and confident. Not human. A deep roar in the distance made her body react on its own—tense and ready.
This wasn’t just Mya anymore.
So who or what was she?
But she knew one thing: the world around her didn’t forgive weakness.
Her body trembled, though she felt no cold. It was fear that sent shivers down her spine, spreading in waves across her skin. Mya tried to move again, but every muscle seemed to resist, as if it belonged to someone else. Despite the pain, despite her body’s protests, she propped herself up on her elbow and looked ahead.
Everywhere was chaos. The bodies of women, dressed in armor, were strewn on the ground. Some of them still clutched swords, the blades of which were covered in blood. Their armor, forged from dark metal, was inscribed with battle runes. Their faces, frozen in expressions of fury and pain, told of the brutality of the last moments of their lives. Strong, unyielding, with bodies adapted for war. Their hands were stripped of unnecessary delicacy, sculpted by years of fighting. Their hair matted with sweat and blood, their arms marked with wounds old and fresh.
The sky was bleeding. The red of the sun mixed with the smoke, creating the illusion that the entire world was burning. Somewhere far away, the wind howled, piercing the dead fields like a mourning song for the fallen. Mya wasn’t sure if it was her mind playing tricks on her, but she felt as if she could hear whispers. Whispering voices floating in the air, too quiet to understand, too clear to ignore.
“Are these… souls?” she thought. “Am I… dead too?”
Her heart was pounding, too fast, too hard. The roaring in her ears drowned out her thoughts. Everything inside her screamed to run, but she didn’t know where. Nothing was familiar. Not even herself.
She looked at her hands—strong, wide, smeared with blood that couldn’t be hers alone. She wasn’t hurt. At least not in the way she’d expected. This body was strong. Designed for combat. Shaped by years of battle and suffering.
And yet Mya was a prisoner in it.
She groaned again, this time more in frustration than pain. The cold metal of the sword’s hilt dug into her side, reminding her that she was part of this alien identity. Was this the key to what had started it all, or just another piece of a puzzle she hadn't yet managed to assemble?
The sun, red and huge like the eye of an angry god, was lowering towards the horizon. Its glow cut through the clouds, coloring the sky with orange and burgundy blood. The shadows that had been passing over the horizon began to approach, taking shape. Mya squinted, trying to make out the details. And then she saw them.
Amazons.
They were like sculptures carved from marble and fire, their slender yet powerful bodies seeming to transcend the boundaries of human beauty. They were not delicate like the women Mya had seen before; they were majestic. Their figures radiated strength: arms tense like bowstrings, thighs hard as stone, springy movements that reminded her of predators on the hunt.
Paintings covered their faces, arms, and thighs like ritual masks and protective symbols. Their piercing, sharp eyes were different colors, from gold to emerald, as if nature itself was reflected in their pupils. There was history hidden in their gazes, for they had probably seen more death than one man could bear.
They moved in silence, their steps quiet but full of power. As they walked, the earth gave way to them. Although they looked like an army, each of them was a separate force of nature. They were like wolves—inaccessible, beautiful, and deadly dangerous.
One of them crouched over a fallen warrior. She took her hand, closed her eyes, saying something in a language that was rough, guttural, and at the same time melodic like an echo among the rocks.
Although they were surrounded by an aura of brutality, their presence was beautiful. Their strength did not take away their femininity; on the contrary, it sharpened it to the maximum. They were not human in the way Mya knew. They were born from the anger of goddesses. And they wore that anger with pride, like a crown. Mya looked at them with admiration and a bit of envy.
Then they noticed her, and she did not know where to hide.
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