The Woman from Nowhere 

The first thing she recalled was pain. She was blind and being moved, not of her own accord. She was being moved by someone. 

She could hear a terrible, distant moaning wail, and sympathized with the sorrow and agony that it carried. Like instruments in an orchestra, each point of pain contributed to the overwhelming symphony. Surprisingly, the sorrowful cry she heard originated from her own throat. 

Trying to move her arm, she felt a grinding crunch and a solid barrier that halted its movement. The pain, a bone-deep ache was all-encompassing. A wave of sensations crashed over her; one moment, she was falling into a void, and the next, a searing pain ripped a silent scream from her.

When she awoke, a wave of agony crashed over her, stealing her sanity. The jolting of the cart, a cruel inevitability, threw her back and forth with each start and stop. 

The cart stopped, and she heard a man’s hushed voice say, “I found it near the great fire… I believe it lives.” 

“We should end its pain,” another voice suggested, its tone filled with a chilling calmness.

Although she tried to yell, “No!”, the sound was strange and unclear, even to herself. 

“Friend,” the first voice said, with a nervous tremor, “it was pulling itself along with that one arm and pushing with those stubs. I think it wants to live more than you do.”

“Impossible. It might move, but actually trying to get somewhere? No, no, we should kill it. Alive in this state means being under a spell.”

With a gasp, the woman’s eyes flew open as she jumped, her heart pounding in her chest. “That bloody dream again!” Except it wasn’t a dream, and she knew that too.

When she rolled over in her bed, it was still dark outside. Low storm clouds hung over the sea to the west of her ocean view home in Portugal. She sharply ordered, “Shades open!” The translucent curtain covering the expansive windows then silently glided to the side. These modern conveniences still amazed her. She recalled times when the sight of water filling a font, gushing from a pipe in a wall, felt like magic. Now, people took its convenience for granted and could even control the temperature… “madness”. “The shades could draw themselves,” she mused. With a single word, she could turn on all the lights in this home, or adjust the temperature just by issuing the proper command. 

The multiple lifetimes… since the day she woke up in the village of her “saviors”. Yeah. So maybe that didn’t go as well as she hoped.

Waking up and walking outside of the hut they had placed her in caused quite a frenzy.

The dim light of the hut filled her vision, and as she opened her eyes, she saw the sunlight illuminating the dust particles in the air. The room smelled horrible. It smelled of death. It smelled of decay. The skin of her left arm felt soft and utterly smooth, like a baby’s bottom. A soft, wet and spongy coating covered her right arm, and she pulled it off like a sleeve. With a wet thwack, it landed on the floor, splattering slightly. The same substance clung to her, coating her torso, head, and legs. As she wiped away the rubbery stuff, her fingers brushed against hard, crusty bits; a freshly dank and overwhelming odor confirmed that this was the origin of the smell. 

She removed the slimy gunk, forming a foul-smelling heap, to reveal skin that appeared soiled but vibrant. The new skin looked pink in some of the cleaner spots, like a newborn. A bowl of water sat by the door, cool to the touch, so she splashed the water on her face and hands. Beneath the pile she had made, a terrible blanket offered the only covering for her naked body. With a heave, she lifted the blanket, the stench of the pile hitting her nostrils as she dumped it on the floor.

She was incredibly thirsty; her throat felt parched. “Why didn’t I drink some of the water before washing my face and hands?” She blew out air in frustration as she felt and heard her stomach grumble with hunger, alerting her to her next dilemma.  

She wrapped herself in the foul blanket, then pushed open the hut door, ready to exit. She walked outside onto the cold rocky soil. Sharp stones seemed to litter the ground as she picked her way. Though the air was frigid, she pressed on, her breath visible in the cold as she sought a stream or pond to cleanse herself and then hopefully find something to eat. 

The screams of a woman and then her child shattered the silence, ending the search. The situation rapidly turned sour, and as she fled, her “saviors” threatening with spears, she clutched the cold, damp blanket for warmth. 

Now, thousands of years later, those people had become mere dust, scattered by the wind. Even the husband and her daughter she had chanced only once. The man, who promised nothing could come between them, grew frightened as he aged and she did not. She left, but would return unseen as she watched them grow old, estranged because of her curious condition. They too were now dust. 

The agony of that estrangement had been so painful, she had never put herself in the position to love someone like them, ever again. 

She made friends with thousands of people over the centuries, but never got so close that she couldn’t walk away from them when the time came to do so. 

Now here she was, surrounded by more wealth and opulence than any ancient king could have imagined. She knew there had to be something before the pain that first day, and she even had dreams of a different life. The feeling of déjà vu haunted her when she volunteered in hospitals. There had to be more.  

The sun climbed higher in the sky, chasing away the morning clouds as day arrived. As the day warmed, she sat with a friend, enjoying a casual lunch. As the sun dipped behind the hills at her back, she sat on her porch and gazed at the ocean. Then, a premonition of sorts washed over her. Something was coming… something… familiar. She reached her hand out, palm up, and a green crystal appeared in her hand like a magic trick.

Clarity.