Seraphina Celosia
Gardenia Park
BANG! A loud noice sounded from what seemed like all directions around her body. Seraphina woke up with a scream that somehow escaped from her mouth. She felt soaked to the bone and utterly cold from it. She looked up to the dark sky and saw tiny droplets of rain showering over the landscape and all over her already wet body. If there was one thing in the world that she hated most, it was having wet clothes and hair. The way that the fabrics stuck like glue to her skin and how it felt when you walked...she shuddered at the notion of having to walk around in the middle of nowhere in her tattered damp clothing. Seraphina especially didn't like how her hair did the same thing, yet the only thing that her hair didn't cause, that her clothing did when wet was make her chaff in all the wrong places.
She sat up and looked around herself. Her face contorted into a confused and worried expression. Where am I?...She thought as she felt the ground around her wet. It felt squishy and moist as she massaged the ground with her fingers, just getting a feel of what type of ground she was on. Grass, wet grass...She thought to herself feeling a bit perplexed. Seraphina hadn't a clue in the world where she was or how she had gotten there. Her vision was blurry and she brought her hands up to her face and rubbed her eyes trying to correct her vision. Sera stopped rubbing them and looked around confused still. She saw a vibrant green, flat terrain with a few foot high hills in some places. She turned her head to the left and saw a swing set along with a clump of 4 or 5 trees. Sera, now feeling even more confused than she was when she had first awakened, was beginning to wonder how she'd find anything that she could recongize.
Seraphina sighed annoyed and puzzled. Bringing her hands back up, she buried her face in her palms, groaning quite loudly. She closed her eyes and laid back on the ground frowning still covering her face. When she opened her eyes she took her hands off her face, dragging them.
Suddenly, Seraphina saw soemthing glow. She shot up like a bullet exploding from the barrel of a gun, looking around on high alert. All she saw was a glow or at least a flash of a glow, but none the less she didn't knwo what the source of the light was or who. Seraphina looked around and slowly raised her body off the ground and got in a defensive position, ready to take anything that someone threw at her. She looked at her hands and let out a surprised and frightened gasp. She looked on her hand and noticed a marking that was glowing black. It looked like a piece to a game she used to see old folks in her neighborhood play. She forgot what it was called but something in her mind was screaming at her, "Pawn."
Seraphina straightened her small posture and studied the crest. She was almost afraid to touch it, thinking it might burn her finger tips. She brought herself to bringing her other index finger to the middle of the crest, then quickly taking it away as if it were too hot for her to stand. When she realized that it wasn't burning the skin on her, she slowly brushed her fingers feeling it. It hadn't hurt her when she touched making it not like a tattoo, and if anything she found that it felt similarly like a birth marking of sorts, yet what confused her was how well detailed it looked.
"What the..." She whispered out loud to herself puzzled by the strange marking she now possessed. Seraphina looked around and couldn't see much but realized she was in a park of sorts and needed to find some shelter or somewhere to get some food. She realized how hungry she had gotten and started walking to a few buildings she could barely make out. Soon she was at the edge of the park and stood a step away from the curb. Contemplating whether she should go left down the street or right down the other, or perhaps she'd just continue her trek through this unknown city by going straight, through an ominious and eerie looking alley. Seraphina just wanted to transform and run through the streets of the city, but her gut was telling her that that was a horrible idea since even though she didn't see anyone on the streets she knew that exposing herself as a monster would ruin her chance at surviving here.
Suddenly a loud announcer sounded through a speaker all around her. It told her that she had been given a second chance at life and that there was a war that she had to be apart of as part of her "contract" for getting the second chance at living. Seraphina stood in shock on the side of the road thinking, "How in the world did I die!? I can't remember how this happened!" Sera brought her hands up to her head and tugged at her wet dark gray hair slightly feeling contflicted and overwhelmed with too many emotions all at once. Saddness, anger, rage, redemption, and courage. Even though she knew that she had died she pushed all her emotions away and focus on finding shelter. For a weird reason, she mind and body kept urging her right. She decided to go with her gut since so far it hadn't been wrong and besides being dead she figured that now she didn't have anyone to let down yet.
She made her way through the foggy rain and looked up seeing something totally new to her. She raised her hand to her eyes creating a cup above her eyes to try to keep the rain out of her eyes, which helped only a small bit. She could barely make out a castle that was black in color, or at least thats what she saw. Seraphina sighed spitting the rain water that had dripped into her mouth out and onto the ground to her left. She could barely hear the spit hit the ground over the semi-loud pitter patter of the rain against the asphalt on the street. Seraphina only thought of one thing now...what wonders or horrors would she find in the castle that her gut was telling her held something important for her.