Darkness. Or what she wanted to say was darkness; she blinked and realized that rather than a black darkness, it was a white darkness. Well, that’s certainly not right, she thought. She sat up from her sitting position on a bed of spider lilies and stretched looking around, trying to make out her surroundings. As she did so, her surroundings seemed to materialize in front of her. A tall golden mirror with pink, orange, purple, blue, and green gems adorning the rim was directly in front of her. She could see everything else around her through the reflection in the mirror, well everything except herself. With an uneasy feeling, she realized she could even see what her body should have been blocking in the reflection. She hardly had time to concern herself with that fact though, seeing as the mirror disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. In its place, a pool materialized. Of course, just like everything else in this strange place, it wasn’t a normal pool. Rather than being filled with crystal clear water, it was filled with what looked like liquid gold. She couldn’t see through it at all, but it held all the visual properties of liquid otherwise. Curiosity got the better of her and she decided go get a closer look. Crouching down at the edge of the golden pool, she noticed the same gems that had adorned the mirror were also part of the tiling on the pool. She also noticed that, once again, she had no reflection. Am I . . . Am I dead?! she found herself thinking.

“No, you’re not dead, but you’re not really alive either,” a voice rang out through the strange space around her and she screamed. Well, what would’ve been a scream, had any sound came from . The voice had come from a girl sitting on the edge of the pool. She wasn’t there before, surely I would’ve noticed another person? This girl was wearing a topaz coloured dress that seemed to radiate with a gold sparkle. Her skin was pale but also looked like she could’ve been made of amber. She was covered from head to toe in gold jewelry adorned with all sorts of orange jewels, even her dress had gold and jewels here and there. While she was looking at this strange girl, the girl began to speak once again.

“I wish I could explain everything to you, but you must return to your body. You are special; different. Surely you and possibly those around you have noticed. At first, it was small things that happened. Small differences. Until now, at least. This is as much as I can tell you at the moment. For now, you must wake, Yerim.” with the girl’s words, everything began to shake violently, and true darkness returned.

“Yeri? Yeri, can you hear me?!” a girl’s voice sounded, shaking her violently. Slowly, Yeri opened her eyes, and groaned.

“Oh, thank God! Wendy! I think Yeri’s finally awake!” the girl’s voice said again, and Yeri realized it was her friend Irene.

“Irene?” Yeri asked softly, realizing that she was laying in a bed, a quite nice one at that. “Where am I?”

Irene turned her attention back to her friend. “I’m so glad you’re okay!!! Do you not remember what happened? I guess that would make sense, you didn’t seem to be concious. We’re at Umbra.”

Finally, Yeri started to return to her senses. She began to sit up and for some reason Irene tried to stop her.

“I wouldn’t recommend—” but it was too late. As she sat up Yeri felt a searing pain coarse through her arms and chest. Looking down, she saw fragments of purple jewels poking out from her skin on her arms and chest.

“What the ?!” Yeri screeched, and Irene winced. And that was when the past weeks events returned to her.