Pain erupted from her head and chest.
A moment ago, she had been immersed in a wonderful dream, one so peaceful and pleasant that she had almost forgotten the world beyond it. Yet, without warning, that tranquillity was shattered, replaced by an unbearable agony that immediately dragged her back to consciousness. Her eyelids trembled as she struggled to open them, only to find that even this simple action seemed to demand more strength than she could muster. Something felt terribly wrong.
The pain in her head was sharp and persistent, whilst the sensation coming from her chest was considerably worse, as though something had pierced straight through her and left an enormous void where her body should have been intact.
For several moments, she could do nothing but lie there, struggling to understand what had happened. Her thoughts were sluggish, refusing to co-operate as she attempted to recall the last thing she remembered. There had been a collision. She remembered being inside a car with her aunt, and then... what happened afterwards? She tried to reconstruct the sequence of events, but the memories remained disjointed, slipping away whenever she attempted to grasp them. Another wave of pain interrupted her thoughts, forcing her attention back to the present. She instinctively brought her trembling hands towards her injuries, pressing one against her head and the other against her chest in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding. The warmth beneath her fingers was unmistakable, and when she shifted her hand slightly, she felt blood running between her fingers and trickling down her skin. It continued to pour from her wounds, spreading across the floor beneath her and forming a growing pool that reflected the faint light around her. Her breathing became increasingly uneven as she realised just how badly she had been injured. The wound on her chest was especially alarming. She could feel the terrible opening beneath her palm, and although she could not properly examine it, she instinctively understood that something was seriously wrong. Her hand pressed harder against it, as if she could somehow keep herself together through sheer determination alone.
Her mind struggled to comprehend the extent of her injuries. She had no medical knowledge that could accurately determine whether she would survive, but the amount of blood she was losing, combined with the severity of the pain, left little room for optimism. Whatever had happened, she needed immediate medical assistance. She tried to move her legs, hoping to push herself upright, but her body responded sluggishly, and the slightest movement caused another surge of agony to spread through her. Her strength was rapidly diminishing. Even maintaining consciousness was becoming difficult, and she could feel her thoughts growing increasingly distant, as though she were gradually sinking into a deep, bottomless sleep. No. She couldn't afford to lose consciousness here. She needed to understand what had happened, where she was, and whether anyone could help her. Yet, despite her desperate attempts to remain awake, her eyelids continued to grow heavier.
Bang!
A sudden gunshot shattered the silence.
Her eyes widened slightly, and whatever remained of her fading awareness immediately turned towards the sound. For a moment, she wondered whether the noise had come from inside her own head, but another distant commotion convinced her otherwise. There were gunshots nearby. She could hear them clearly enough to recognise their nature, although the sounds seemed to come from somewhere beyond her immediate surroundings. Her heart began to beat faster, each pulse sending another uncomfortable sensation through her injured chest.
Gunshots? What is happening?
She tried to lift her head, but her neck barely responded. The movement made her vision swim, and she was forced to lower it again.
I was able to survive the collision, but I don't know what is happening outside.
The thought offered little comfort. If there were people shooting nearby, then whatever situation she had found herself in was potentially even more dangerous than she had initially assumed. She needed to get out. She needed to find help. But as she tried to gather the strength to move, she realised that her body was no longer responding as it should. Her fingers loosened against her wounds, and her consciousness began to slip away without her realising how close she had come to losing it entirely.
Then, amid the fading sounds of gunfire and the growing darkness at the edges of her vision, a voice stirred her consciousness.
"You must open it."
The voice was gentle, almost soothing in its delivery, yet there was an unmistakable insistence behind those words. It did not sound as though it came from the surroundings. Rather, it seemed to reach her from somewhere within her fading awareness, where the distinction between thought and perception had already begun to blur. She tried to identify its source, but her exhausted mind could barely process the fact that someone had spoken to her at all.
"Open it. Tear it open, if you must."
The voice repeated itself, its tone remaining composed despite the urgency conveyed by its words. She frowned faintly, or at least attempted to.
Open what?
The instruction made little sense to her. She was gravely injured, possibly on the verge of death, and yet this unknown individual was asking her to open something without providing the slightest explanation. Was this person talking to her? If so, how could she hear them when she could barely remain conscious? She attempted to speak, to ask who they were and what they wanted, but her mouth felt unbearably heavy, and no words emerged. The effort alone left her exhausted. She could only listen as the voice fell silent, leaving her with more questions than answers.
Then she sensed something in front of her.
At first, it was little more than a vague impression, an indistinct presence that seemed to occupy a space her eyes could not properly perceive. Gradually, however, the surroundings became clearer, and she found herself in a place that bore little resemblance to wherever she had been moments earlier. The pain remained, but its immediacy seemed strangely distant, as though her awareness had been separated from the body that was suffering. She looked around as best she could, her gaze moving uncertainly across the unfamiliar space until she noticed a feminine figure sitting calmly across from her. The woman wore a dress, and her posture suggested a composure that seemed almost absurd given the circumstances. Although the image remained blurry, the figure was unmistakably there. She could not determine where the woman had come from, nor could she understand how she had appeared without making a sound. Yet there was something about her presence that made the woman feel as though this encounter had been expected.
"Focus inward, and you will sense more of it."
The figure's voice was the same one she had heard earlier. Its calmness contrasted sharply with the confusion that continued to accumulate in her mind. Focus inward? What does that even mean? She wanted to ask for an explanation, but she had already discovered that speaking was beyond her current capabilities. Moreover, the figure did not appear particularly inclined to elaborate unless she followed the instruction. With nothing else she could do, she reluctantly turned her attention inward, attempting to understand what the woman meant. At first, she found nothing but her own fragmented thoughts and the lingering awareness of her injuries. She concentrated harder, uncertain whether she was doing anything correctly, until something unfamiliar gradually emerged from the depths of her consciousness.
It was a flower.
The sight caught her completely off guard. It was stunningly beautiful, its delicate petals radiating a peculiar brilliance that seemed to draw her attention towards it. The flower possessed a quality that ordinary flowers could never hope to replicate, an inexplicable allure that made it difficult for her to look away. Its beauty was not merely a matter of colour or shape. There was something about it that seemed to transcend the limitations of ordinary perception, as though its existence carried a significance she could sense but not comprehend. Yet, as she examined it more carefully, she noticed something disturbing. A fraction of the flower was rotting, its affected portion appearing darkened and corrupted in stark contrast to the rest of its immaculate appearance. The decay seemed unnatural, as though something dangerous had touched it and left behind a trace of its presence. Furthermore, the flower had yet to bloom. Its petals remained partially closed, concealing whatever lay within.
She stared at it, her attention caught between fascination and unease. Why was there a flower inside her consciousness? Was this what the voice had been referring to? And what did it mean to open it? She tried to examine it more closely, hoping that its appearance might offer some clue, but the longer she looked, the less certain she became of what she was seeing. It was beautiful, yet the corruption suggested that it was not entirely safe. The fact that it had not bloomed only added to the mystery. She could not determine whether the flower was something she possessed, something that had been placed inside her, or something that had been waiting for her to discover it.
"Do you see it?" the figure asked.
Yes, she attempted to reply, directing the thought towards the woman with whatever strength she had left. She could not tell whether her response had reached its intended recipient, but the figure's expression remained unchanged.
"Worry not, you do not need to speak. I can read your thoughts just fine. Well, at least the ones you deliberately direct towards me."
Her attention immediately returned to the woman. You can read my thoughts? The realisation should have alarmed her more than it did, yet she was too exhausted to properly react. The figure's explanation was unsettling, but it also answered one of her more immediate questions. If she could communicate through thought, then perhaps she could finally understand what was happening. Still, the qualification at the end of the woman's statement was difficult to ignore. At least the ones I deliberately direct towards her? What did that mean? Could the woman hear her other thoughts as well, or was there some limitation to this ability? Before she could explore the question further, the figure spoke again.
"Well then, open it. Touch it, and it will bloom."
The instruction was simple, but the implications were not. She looked back at the flower, her gaze lingering on the rotting portion. Something about it made her hesitate. Although she could not explain why, she had the distinct impression that touching it would not be an inconsequential action. It was one thing to observe something strange within her consciousness, but it was another to deliberately interact with it when she did not understand what it was. She was already gravely injured, and her body was rapidly losing its strength. If this flower was dangerous, then she had little reason to believe she would survive whatever consequences might follow.
Yet what choice did she have?
Her circumstances were dire enough that doing nothing would almost certainly result in her death. Even if she refused to touch the flower, she had no guarantee that she would survive long enough to find another solution. The woman had appeared without explanation, possessed the ability to communicate with her mind, and seemed to understand the flower better than she did. It was entirely possible that this was some kind of hallucination brought about by her injuries, but the figure's presence felt too distinct for her to dismiss so easily. She needed answers, and the flower appeared to be the only way of obtaining them.
"Nothing will happen to you," the figure said, apparently recognising her hesitation. "Only that it will end your present suffering. By opening the flower, you will awaken and allow yourself to heal and regenerate."
Her explanation did little to clarify the situation. If anything, it raised even more questions. What exactly was the flower? Why did it take the form of a flower, and how could opening it possibly allow her body to heal? Regeneration was not something she had ever considered a realistic possibility, much less something that could be achieved by touching an unusual object inside her own consciousness. Such an explanation belonged to the realm of the supernatural, something she would ordinarily have dismissed without a second thought. Yet here she was, communicating with a mysterious woman who could read her thoughts whilst she lay dying in an unfamiliar place. Her current circumstances had already exceeded the limits of what she considered possible.
She looked at the flower once more. The corruption along its petals remained, an unsettling reminder that something about it was not entirely right. The figure had assured her that nothing would happen to her, but the woman could not help wondering whether the spirit truly understood the risks involved. Alternatively, perhaps she did understand them and simply considered the outcome worth the danger. She had no way of knowing. Nevertheless, she could feel her remaining strength diminishing, and she doubted that she had much time left to deliberate.
After one final moment of hesitation, she extended her hands towards the flower. The movement felt strangely difficult, even though she was not certain whether she was moving her physical hands or merely directing her consciousness towards it. Her fingers approached the delicate petals, and for an instant she wondered whether she should withdraw them. She still did not understand what the tangent factor was, nor could she predict what would happen when she touched it. The possibility that she might be making an irreversible mistake lingered at the back of her mind. But with her life already slipping away, she could not afford to remain indecisive forever.
She closed her eyes and touched the flower.
The consequences were immediate.
An immense surge of chaos entered her the instant her fingers made contact with the petals. It was unlike anything she had ever experienced, a violent and overwhelming force that seemed to emerge from nowhere and everywhere at once. The power surged into her consciousness before spreading throughout her body, and the suddenness of the intrusion left her incapable of reacting. Pain, far more intense than anything she had suffered from her physical injuries, erupted through her mind. It was not simply a matter of feeling hurt. Her entire sense of existence seemed to be overwhelmed by something that refused to acknowledge the limits of her mortal body. She tried to withdraw her hand, but the action came too late. The flower had already begun to open, and the chaos released from within it continued to pour into her with seemingly no regard for whether she could withstand it.
Her thoughts shattered beneath the pressure. Whatever understanding she had possessed moments earlier was swept away, leaving behind only fragments of awareness struggling to survive the onslaught. The power spread through her body like an explosive pulse, disrupting her ability to think and move as though her normal functions were no longer sufficient to sustain her. She could not determine where the pain originated, because every part of her seemed to be affected simultaneously. Her consciousness strained beneath the sheer magnitude of what had entered it, and for the first time since the encounter began, she wondered whether she had made a fatal mistake.
What is this?
The question barely formed before something else seized her attention.
Despite her eyes remaining closed, she could sense that she was no longer alone. Multiple presences had appeared around her, each one carrying a quality so foreign that her mind struggled to recognise them as individual beings. They did not announce themselves through ordinary sounds or movements. Instead, their arrival was accompanied by an inexplicable change in her awareness, as though the space in which her consciousness existed had suddenly become occupied by things that had no need to announce their presence in any recognisable manner. She could not tell how many there were. Whenever she attempted to distinguish one from another, her perception seemed to slip away from the effort, unable to establish anything resembling a coherent understanding of what she was sensing.
Then came the whispers.
They were faint at first, barely distinguishable from the disarray of her thoughts, but they gradually became impossible to ignore. The sounds seemed to come from every direction and none at all, overlapping in a manner that made it impossible for her to isolate a single voice. Their language was incomprehensible, composed of sounds and patterns that her mind could not properly interpret. She could not even determine whether they were speaking to one another or communicating in a manner that only resembled speech to her limited perception. The whispers seemed ancient, carrying a quality that made the passage of ordinary time feel insignificant by comparison. Yet the longer she tried to listen, the more she realised that understanding them was not something she could accomplish through concentration alone. Their presence exceeded the boundaries of what her mind could reasonably process.
She attempted to open her eyes, desperate to establish some kind of connection with her surroundings, but the effort produced nothing. Her physical senses offered no reliable explanation for what was happening. She could feel the chaos coursing through her, yet the entities seemed to exist beyond the reach of ordinary sensation. It was as though they occupied a reality that her consciousness had briefly touched without possessing the capacity to comprehend. The distinction between herself and the space around her began to feel disturbingly uncertain, and she could no longer determine whether she was merely sensing the entities or whether they had somehow entered the very foundation of her awareness.
Then she felt their attention turn towards her.
The realisation struck with such sudden clarity that she instinctively tried to retreat. Until that moment, she had been overwhelmed by their presence without fully understanding what it meant. Now, however, she became aware that they were not simply surrounding her. They were examining her. Their attention settled upon her existence with an intensity that made her feel as though every boundary protecting her consciousness had become meaningless. She tried to understand what they wanted, but even the attempt to formulate the question seemed to expose more of her thoughts to their scrutiny. It was a deeply unsettling sensation, as though something had begun searching through the most private parts of her identity without requiring her permission.
She tried to pull away from their attention, but where could she go? She had no control over the space in which the encounter was taking place, and she could not even determine where her own consciousness ended. The more desperately she sought to withdraw, the more aware she became of the futility of the effort. There was no visible threat against which she could defend herself, no physical form she could escape, and no comprehensible intention she could anticipate. The entities remained incomprehensible, their very existence defying the assumptions upon which she had built her understanding of the world. She could not tell whether they regarded her as something interesting, something insignificant, or something that should not have existed at all.
Then their scrutiny seemed to deepen.
Something pressed against the innermost parts of her awareness, probing into the depths of her identity and searching through the fragments that constituted her sense of self. Memories surfaced in her mind without warning, only to become indistinct before she could understand why they had appeared. Thoughts that she had never intended to communicate seemed suddenly exposed to an attention she could neither see nor resist. She could not determine whether the entities were actually examining her memories or whether the overwhelming nature of their presence was causing her own consciousness to become disordered. The distinction offered little comfort. Whatever they were doing, she felt as though she had become an object of scrutiny before beings whose intentions she could not understand and whose capabilities she could not begin to measure.
Fear began to overwhelm her.
It was not merely the fear of pain, nor even the fear of dying. She had already been forced to confront the possibility of death from her injuries, and although that prospect had terrified her, it had remained something she could at least comprehend. This was different. The entities seemed to exist beyond the boundaries of her understanding, and their attention made her painfully aware of how little control she possessed over her own existence. She could not hide from them, could not reason with them, and could not protect herself from whatever they might discover. She did not even know whether they were aware of her fear, or whether such a feeling held any significance to beings of their nature.
For a terrible moment, she wondered whether touching the flower had exposed her to something that her consciousness was never meant to encounter. The tangent factor had been dangerous, she realised, but the danger had not been limited to the power entering her body. Whatever connection she had established through the flower had also brought her into contact with presences that seemed utterly indifferent to the limitations of her existence. She had wanted to survive her injuries. She had wanted to understand what was happening to her. Instead, she had reached into something she did not understand and found herself exposed to entities that might have been beyond her ability to comprehend, let alone withstand.
Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the presences began to recede.
The whispers faded, their incomprehensible sounds becoming increasingly distant until she could no longer distinguish them from the lingering disorder of her thoughts. The pressure against her consciousness gradually diminished, and the sensation of being examined by countless unseen eyes finally disappeared. Whatever connection had brought her into contact with those entities seemed to close, leaving her alone with the chaos that continued to surge through her body. She remained frightened, unable to determine whether the encounter had ended because the entities had lost interest in her or because they had found whatever they had been searching for. The uncertainty lingered, refusing to provide her with even the slightest reassurance.
For several moments, she could do nothing but struggle to recover from the experience. Her thoughts remained disorganised, and the fear left behind by the encounter continued to weigh upon her. She had no explanation for what she had witnessed, nor could she be certain that she would never encounter those presences again. Nevertheless, as the last traces of their attention disappeared, she began to notice a change within the chaos.
Something else was emerging.
A gentle sensation spread through her awareness, subtle at first but gradually becoming more distinct. It was not quite warmth, nor was it the absence of pain. Rather, it felt like a quiet presence moving against the disorder that had overwhelmed her, something that seemed to oppose the chaos without attempting to force it into submission. The violent power continued to course through her, yet its behaviour began to change. What had previously felt like an uncontrollable torrent gradually lost some of its destructive intensity, its movements becoming less erratic as though an unseen influence were guiding it towards a particular destination.
She could still feel the pain, and the sheer magnitude of the power remained frightening. However, she was beginning to recover enough awareness to recognise that the situation was no longer deteriorating in the same manner. The chaos was being gathered, directed, and gradually brought under control by something she could sense but not fully understand. She did not know whether this was a natural consequence of opening the tangent factor or whether some other mechanism had begun to operate within her. The figure had mentioned healing and regeneration, but she had never expected the process to involve anything like this.
A faint tingling spread beneath her skin.
She tried to focus on the sensation, following it as it moved through her body. It was strange and unfamiliar, yet considerably less violent than the earlier surges of power. The tingling gradually concentrated around her neck, where a subtle sensation of pressure began to develop. At first, it was so faint that she almost mistook it for another lingering effect of the chaos. However, as the sensation became more pronounced, she realised that the power was converging at a specific point beneath her skin. It accumulated there, growing denser and more concentrated, until she could feel a peculiar pressure pulsing in rhythm with something deeper than her heartbeat.
She could not explain why the power was gathering in that particular location. Nor could she understand what form it was attempting to take. Yet, beneath the strangeness of the sensation, there was something that felt inexplicably familiar. The power did not seem entirely foreign to her, despite the violence with which it had first entered her existence. There was a peculiar sense of recognition buried beneath the unfamiliarity, as though something that had always belonged to her was finally stirring from a slumber she had never known it was in.
The pressure continued to build, and the fullness beneath her skin became increasingly distinct. Whatever was taking shape within her neck was no longer merely a concentration of chaotic power. It was becoming something more defined, something that her body had never experienced before but which her consciousness seemed to recognise on some inexplicable level. She could not identify it, and she had no means of determining what its eventual purpose might be. All she could do was remain aware of the transformation as the power gradually settled into its new form.
Finally, one last pulse passed through her.
The remaining chaos subsided, its violent movements fading until the power within her became completely still.
...
Her neck was still warm.
The sensation was the first thing she noticed as her awareness gradually returned to something resembling normality. The pain that had previously overwhelmed her was gone, leaving behind a peculiar warmth that seemed to linger beneath her skin. She remained motionless for a moment, uncertain whether the transformation had truly ended or whether another surge of power might follow. The memory of the ancient entities remained fresh in her mind, and she could not entirely dismiss the possibility that something else might happen if she moved too soon. Nevertheless, the silence surrounding her was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. There were no more whispers, no incomprehensible presences pressing against her consciousness, and no violent chaos threatening to overwhelm her thoughts.
Slowly, she opened her eyes.
The first thing she saw was the feminine figure sitting before her, one hand resting against her neck. The woman appeared to be examining the area where the strange pressure had accumulated, her expression remaining composed despite the extraordinary circumstances surrounding them. She stared at her, trying to reconcile the woman's presence with everything she had just experienced. Had the figure been watching her throughout the entire transformation? Had she witnessed the arrival of those entities? She wanted to ask, but her attention was suddenly caught by something far more unsettling.
The woman looked familiar.
She stared at the figure's face, examining the shape of her eyes, the contours of her features, and the long brunette hair that fell around her shoulders. The woman's light hazel eyes seemed especially familiar, and the more she looked at her, the more difficult it became to dismiss the resemblance as a coincidence. She knew that face. She was certain of it. Yet the more she attempted to identify the individual before her, the more impossible the situation became.
That was her face.
There was no mistaking it. The woman sitting across from her possessed the same facial features she remembered seeing whenever she looked at herself. A gorgeous brunette young girl with light hazel eyes and waist-length hair was staring back at her, and the realisation left her momentarily incapable of forming a coherent thought.
What?
She looked at the woman again, hoping that a more careful examination might reveal some difference she had overlooked. Perhaps the resemblance was merely superficial. Perhaps her mind was still disorientated from the transformation, causing her to perceive familiar features where none existed.
But no matter how carefully she examined the figure, the conclusion remained the same.
The woman looked exactly like her.
?
The figure tilted her head slightly, apparently noticing the confusion that had begun to overwhelm her once again. Before she could even attempt to formulate a question, the woman spoke.
"Worry not. I am not a clone. In fact, I am not a physical being."
She remained silent, trying to process the explanation. Not a physical being? The statement made little sense to her, although it did explain why the figure's appearance had seemed so unusual. She had been sitting there calmly throughout an encounter that had involved an impossible flower, incomprehensible entities, and a transformation that should not have been possible. Perhaps the woman was not bound by the same physical limitations as ordinary human beings. Yet that only raised further questions. If she was not a physical being, then what exactly was she?
"I am merely a spirit, projecting your body instead of my own."
The explanation caused another realisation to emerge, although she was still too disorientated to understand its full implications. A spirit. She had heard the word before, of course, but never in a context that would have made her take it literally. The idea of a non-physical entity capable of communicating with her consciousness belonged to the realm of supernatural fiction, something she would never have expected to encounter in reality. Yet the woman seemed entirely serious, and the circumstances offered little reason to dismiss her explanation outright.
"Well then, why don't you take a look at yourself first?"
The spirit's suggestion interrupted her thoughts. She lowered her gaze, attempting to examine her own body, and only then did she begin to notice how different her present condition was from what she remembered. Her body was still warm, particularly around her neck, where the peculiar sensation continued to linger beneath her skin. She cautiously moved her fingers, then her arms, testing whether she could control them properly. The movements were slow at first, but they responded to her intentions. She could move. More importantly, the pain that had previously overwhelmed her was gone.
She pressed a hand against her chest, half expecting to encounter the terrible wound that had nearly cost her life. Instead, she felt intact skin beneath her fingers. She examined the area more carefully, searching for any indication that the injury had been real, but there was nothing resembling the gaping hole she remembered. Her breathing had also become considerably easier, and the weakness that had threatened to drag her into unconsciousness was no longer as overwhelming as before. She shifted slightly, then paused as the realisation settled in.
Her wounds had truly regenerated.
She stared at her chest, unable to understand how such a thing could have happened. She distinctly remembered the pain, the blood, and the terrible certainty that she would die without immediate medical assistance. Those memories were not vague impressions that could easily be dismissed as a dream. She remembered the way the blood had spread beneath her, the way her strength had gradually diminished, and the way she had struggled to remain conscious despite the severity of her injuries. Yet her body was now intact, as though none of those injuries had ever existed.
There was another detail she could no longer ignore.
The gunshots had ceased.
The sounds that had accompanied her fading consciousness were no longer audible, and the silence that followed made the situation feel even more unfamiliar. She could not determine how much time had passed, nor did she know whether the danger outside had ended. Nevertheless, the absence of gunfire, combined with her inexplicable recovery, only deepened her confusion. What exactly had happened to her? And where was she now?
"There are pieces of a mirror that were shattered. Find one."
The spirit's instruction brought her attention back to the present. She looked around, trying to identify the objects scattered across the unfamiliar surroundings. It took her a moment to locate the broken pieces, but eventually she noticed fragments of glass lying nearby. She carefully moved towards them, still unsteady from the experience, and began searching for a piece large enough to provide a clear reflection. As she did so, her thoughts became increasingly restless.
The surroundings were wrong.
She was certain that she had been inside a car with her aunt before the collision. She remembered the general circumstances leading up to the incident, although the moments immediately afterwards remained fragmented. Yet the place in which she currently found herself did not resemble the interior of a car. It was a carriage. The distinction was unmistakable once she paid attention to the surrounding structure, and the realisation only made the situation more difficult to understand.
Why was she in a carriage? She had no memory of entering one, nor could she recall anything that would explain how she had come to be inside it. She attempted to reconstruct the sequence of events once again, but her memories offered no satisfactory explanation. The collision should have left her inside the damaged vehicle, assuming she had survived it at all. Instead, she was in an unfamiliar carriage, and there were no obvious signs of the kind of collision she remembered. The interior did not appear to have suffered the kind of structural damage she would have expected from such an impact.
There were, however, signs of another kind of violence.
Bullets were scattered throughout the carriage, and their presence was difficult to reconcile with her memories of the collision. She examined the surroundings more carefully, trying to determine whether the damage could have been caused by the gunfire she had heard earlier. The possibility seemed considerably more plausible than the idea that the carriage had somehow been involved in the accident she remembered. Yet that only raised another question: why had she been shot?
Her attention returned to the injuries she had sustained. The wounds had been large, and the one in her chest had been particularly severe. She remembered the sensation of something having entered her body, leaving behind a wide, gaping hole that had made her certain she would not survive. Those injuries could not plausibly have been caused by an ordinary collision alone, especially one that should have left far more extensive damage if it had been severe enough to produce such wounds. Something else had happened to her, something that she had yet to understand.
Finally, she found a suitable piece of the shattered mirror.
She picked it up carefully, turning the fragment until its reflective surface caught the light. For a moment, she hesitated before bringing it towards her face. She had already discovered that the woman before her resembled her own appearance, but she had not yet properly examined herself. If the spirit's explanation was correct, then the reflection would reveal whether she was seeing her actual body or merely experiencing another strange illusion.
"Confused?" the spirit asked.
She looked up from the mirror fragment and nodded.
"You were with me in the spirit realm. You grabbed the flower, forcing me to be dragged along against my will as you descended into the physical world to possess a person's body, one that you are currently using."
The explanation struck her with a force that left her momentarily speechless.
The spirit realm.
The flower.
The physical world.
Possess the body she was currently using.
Each phrase introduced a new implication, and together they suggested something that she had never considered possible. She had not merely survived the collision and somehow been transported to an unfamiliar location. According to the spirit, she had crossed from one realm into another, bringing the woman with her in the process. More disturbingly, the spirit claimed that she had come to possess the body she now inhabited.
Her body.
Was it truly hers?
The question lingered as she stared at the mirror fragment. She had assumed that her appearance would provide some measure of reassurance, yet the explanation had made the prospect of seeing her reflection considerably more unsettling. If she had entered another body, then the face she was about to see might not be the one she remembered. The spirit had already projected that face before her, but she still needed to understand what it meant to possess a body that had not originally been her(accounting that the spirit looks exactly the same.)
A realisation began to take shape.
"You have been..."
The spirit paused, seemingly allowing her to follow the explanation herself.
I have been...
The word came to her almost instinctively, although she could not determine whether it accurately described what had happened.
"Rebirthed."
Transmigrated.
The two words emerged almost simultaneously, each offering a different interpretation of the same extraordinary event. The spirit's choice of terminology suggested that she had been given another existence, whilst her own thought reflected the possibility that she had crossed into a different world. Neither explanation made the situation any easier to accept. If anything, the realisation only deepened the sense of unreality that had accompanied her since awakening.
What world is this?
The question surfaced before she could stop it. She had once considered the idea of being transported into an entirely different world to be incomprehensible, something that belonged solely to fiction. Yet she was now occupying a body she did not recognise, inside a carriage she had never entered, surrounded by evidence of violence she could not remember experiencing. Her wounds had regenerated through a process she could not explain, and a spirit was calmly informing her that she had crossed between realms. The circumstances left little room for her former assumptions about what was possible.
Nevertheless, the moment she accepted transmigration as a possibility, the details she had previously struggled to reconcile began to fall into place. Not perfectly, but enough to suggest that there might be a connection between them.
She had been in a car with her aunt. There had been a collision, and although her memories of the precise moment remained unclear, she had been gravely injured. She remembered the pain, the blood, and the gradual loss of consciousness. Given the severity of her injuries, it was entirely possible that she had died in that accident.
And if she had died, then perhaps the body she now inhabited had suffered the same fate.
Her gaze shifted towards the bullet-ridden interior of the carriage. Unlike the familiar car she remembered, this vehicle possessed an unmistakably different character. Even in its present condition, with shattered glass and bullet holes scattered throughout it, there was a certain prestige to its construction. The materials, the furnishings, and the general workmanship made for pure comfort and accommodation suggested that it had not been made for an ordinary traveller. Although she could not determine the exact status of its owner from appearances alone, she doubted that such a carriage would have belonged to someone of particularly modest means.
The original owner might have been someone of considerable standing.
That possibility immediately changed how she interpreted the evidence around her. The bullets were not merely signs of violence. Combined with the gunshots she had heard, the apparent prestige of the carriage, and the severe wounds she remembered sustaining, they suggested that something more deliberate might have occurred. If the original owner had been a person of high standing, then an attack against them would not have been entirely implausible. Perhaps the carriage had been travelling somewhere when it came under fire. Perhaps the shooting had been intended to kill its occupant.
An assassination.
The word came to mind, and she paused to consider it.
It was a reasonable hypothesis, at least given what she currently knew. The carriage had been riddled with bullets, she had sustained injuries that seemed more consistent with gunshot wounds than with the collision she remembered, and the gunfire had continued long enough for her to hear it whilst losing consciousness. If the original owner had been a person of importance, an intentional attack might explain the circumstances better than an ordinary accident. A possible connection between the two deaths was beginning to emerge.
She might have died in a car collision in her original world, whilst the original owner of this body might have diedafter being shot inside this carriage. Both had apparently met their ends in vehicles, under circumstances that had left her gravely injured and brought her consciousness into an unfamiliar existence. Perhaps their deaths had been connected in some way. Perhaps the flower had drawn her into this body at the moment its original owner died. Or perhaps the resemblance between their circumstances was nothing more than an extraordinary coincidence.
She could not tell.
The possibility that the two deaths corresponded was compelling, but she had no proof that either death had occurred precisely as she suspected, much less that one had caused the other. She could not even be certain of the exact mechanism behind her transmigration. The spirit had explained that she had descended into the physical world and come to possess the body she now inhabited, but she had not yet explained why this particular body had been involved, or why the flower had played such a crucial role.
Still, the theory was worth keeping in mind. It offered a tentative explanation for why she had awakened in a bullet-ridden carriage rather than wherever she had been before the collision. For now, however, it would have to remain unanswered, another question to revisit when she had access to more reliable information.
She turned her attention back to the mirror fragment.
There was still something she needed to verify.
If she had truly transmigrated into another person's body, then she should expect some difference between her former appearance and her present one. That was what the explanation implied, at least. She was no longer occupying the body she had possessed in her original world; she was inhabiting a body that had belonged to someone else.
Yet the spirit had looked exactly like her.
She had initially attributed the resemblance to the woman's explanation that she was projecting the protagonist's body instead of her own. But if the spirit was merely a projection, then that did not necessarily explain the appearance of the physical body she now inhabited, which the spirit was projecting. The woman had explicitly stated that she was not a clone, and her explanation had done little to resolve the peculiar similarity.
Could it be that the original owner looked exactly like her?
The possibility seemed almost absurd. Physical resemblance between unrelated individuals was not impossible, of course, but an exact correspondence would be another matter entirely. She had not merely noticed similar hair or eyes. The figure's facial features had been identical to the ones she remembered seeing in her own reflection. If the body she currently possessed belonged to someone else, then why did it appear to be a perfect match for her former appearance?
Was it a coincidence? Or was there something deeper connecting the two bodies?
She examined her reflection more carefully, searching for some small discrepancy that might settle the question. Yet she could not identify anything that would make the resemblance less striking. The thought that she might have somehow retained her original appearance after transmigration crossed her mind. The spirit had said that she possessed another body, not that she had merely been transported into another world whilst retaining her own.
And there was another peculiar detail.
She had been able to move almost immediately after regaining consciousness.
Admittedly, she had been severely injured before the transformation, and the pain had made even the simplest movements difficult. However, once her wounds had regenerated, she had been able to move her arms, shift her body, and handle the mirror fragment without any particularly severe difficulty. She had not experienced the sort of unfamiliarity she might have expected from suddenly inhabiting a completely different body.
Shouldn't it have been more difficult to adapt?
Even if the original owner had shared her height or general build, differences in bodily proportions, muscle memory, or habitual movements ought to have caused at least some confusion. She had expected that controlling an unfamiliar body would require a period of adjustment, yet her movements had felt almost natural. It was as though the body had responded to her intentions without requiring her to learn how to use it.
Of course, she could not rule out the possibility that the circumstances of her awakening had obscured such difficulties. Her attention had been occupied by her injuries, the supernatural transformation, and the urgent need to understand where she was. It was possible that she had simply not paid enough attention to the unfamiliarity she should have experienced. Alternatively, perhaps the tangent factor had somehow facilitated the transition.
The more she examined the matter, the more questions arose.
If she had truly entered another person's body, why did it look exactly like her own? Why could she move it with such apparent familiarity? Were the similarities between herself and the original owner purely coincidental, or did they point towards a connection she did not yet understand?
She considered the possibilities for a moment longer, but none offered a satisfactory answer. Without knowing more about the flower, the spirit realm, or the circumstances surrounding the original owner's death, she could not reach a reliable conclusion. Any attempt to do so would amount to little more than speculation.
For now, she decided to set the matter aside.
There were too many uncertainties, and she had no immediate means of resolving them. The theory concerning the two deaths could wait, as could the question of why her new body appeared so similar to her former one. Neither could be answered through further speculation alone. She would need information, and obtaining it would require that she first understand her present circumstances.
More immediately, she still did not know where she was, who had attacked the carriage, or whether the people responsible were still nearby. Those questions were far more urgent than the mysteries surrounding her appearance, however intriguing the latter might be.
"Focus on what I told you to do. Look at your neck in the mirror," the spirit repeated.
The instruction interrupted her thoughts. She looked towards the woman, uncertain why the spirit seemed so intent on directing her attention to that particular part of her body. Nevertheless, the figure had demonstrated a degree of knowledge that she herself lacked, and she had little reason to ignore an instruction that might help her understand what had happened. For the time being, she decided to trust the spirit, if only because she had no better source of information.
She raised the mirror fragment and carefully adjusted its angle until she could see the reflection of her neck. At first, she noticed nothing unusual. Her skin appeared pale beneath the faint light, and the familiar contours of her jaw seemed perfectly ordinary. She tilted the fragment slightly, examining the area more closely, until something caught her attention.
A thin white line encircled her neck.
She froze.
The mark was so fine that she might easily have overlooked it had she not been specifically instructed to look for it. It formed a complete ring just beneath her jaw, its immaculate whiteness sharply contrasting against her pale skin. She moved the mirror closer, attempting to determine whether the line was merely a reflection or some kind of discolouration. Yet no matter how she adjusted the angle, the mark remained unchanged. It was perfectly continuous, without the slightest irregularity, as though an invisible blade had traced a single, precise circle around her neck.
She reached towards it with her free hand, hesitating just before her fingertips made contact. The mark felt strangely significant, although she could not explain why. It did not resemble an ordinary wound, nor did it appear to be a scar left behind by an injury. There was something unnaturally precise about its shape, something that made it seem less like a physical imperfection and more like a deliberate alteration to her body.
She looked towards the spirit, silently waiting for an explanation.
"That is the flower assimilating into your body. A stigmata."
The terminology offered an answer, but not necessarily an understanding. The tangent factor had been the flower she had touched in the spirit realm, and now the spirit was telling her that it had assimilated into her body in the form of a stigmata. She examined the white ring again, trying to connect the explanation to the transformation she had experienced. The strange pressure in her neck, the accumulation of chaotic power, and the final pulse before everything had subsided now seemed to point towards this mark as the result of the process.
Yet she still did not know what the stigmata meant, what it could do, or whether its presence carried consequences she had not yet experienced. The spirit had already warned her about the danger of opening the flower, although she had only begun to understand the extent of that danger after encountering the ancient entities. She could not help wondering whether the mark represented a successful transformation or merely the beginning of something more complicated.
Before she could direct another question towards the spirit, footsteps sounded nearby.
The noise was unmistakable.
Her attention snapped away from the mirror, and the uncertainty she had been struggling to manage was suddenly replaced by a more immediate concern. Someone was approaching. She did not know who it was, whether they were responsible for the gunfire, or what they might do if they discovered her in her present condition. The carriage, the bullets, the unfamiliar body, and the strange mark around her neck had already established that she was in a situation she could not afford to take lightly.
The spirit's composure changed just enough to slightly convey urgency.
"Quick, use something to cover your neck. Remember to never show your stigmata to anyone."
She immediately lowered the mirror and adjusted her clothing to conceal the white mark beneath her jaw. The spirit's warning lingered in her mind, though she still had no idea what made the mark so dangerous or why it had been so insistent that she keep it hidden. Nevertheless, she had little time to dwell on the matter.
She retrieved a sharp piece of a mirror intending to use it as a weapon, if ever she had to defend herself should the person be hostile(as she does not know who won the engagement.)
The footsteps outside the carriage had stopped.
She held her breath, listening. For a brief moment, there was nothing but silence. Then, a shadow fell across the carriage door, obscuring the faint light that filtered through the curtains.
Someone was standing outside.
She straightened instinctively, forcing herself to remain composed despite the unease tightening in her chest. She knew nothing about this world, nothing about the person whose body she now inhabited, and even less about the circumstances that had brought her here. The last thing she needed was to reveal that something was amiss.
The door handle began to turn.
She instinctively pressed a hand against her collar, ensuring that the mark remained concealed.
Then the carriage door creaked open.