I awoke. The screams of the people, the thunderous sound, the storm of chaos, the platinum tears. They all obliterated my brain and my ears, twisting about to pierce.

They all felt real. Too real.

And something heavy presses against my lungs, an indication I was losing breath.

White light fades with colors, streaking my vision with a multitude of shades.

A hand rests upon my shoulder, nails short as ever, skin wrinkled with age. And came with it a slender shoulder, crawling up the sweet face of Aunt Josena.

In her other hand was a lamp, its electricity fizzing and buzzing against the metal makeshift of an arch inside the dome glass structure.

She turns a notch around the lamp, clicking once and twice as I watch with great satisfaction the electricity retreat and slink back to its case. However, I do not know how that works.

The machinery always amazed me and never fails to do so since aunt brought it from the market.

Darkness blankets the room. That's when I knew the curtains were closed. I had fallen asleep on the wooden, wobbly table. A bunch of foolscap and notes scattered everywhere, ink dotting the majority of my arms in bitter black.

Although I couldn't see, I could make out the shapes of ink on my skin.

The curtain pushes open, a wide array of dust particles floating about the air until they zoom down with the gentlest movement; sophisticated and classy.

Aunt Josena leans against the frame of the wooden window, brushing along the lines of her hazel dress, wincing at the stark change of lighting in the room.

I was too busy attending to the dried flakes of black against my skin, flicking them off one by one as if the dissipated things resting behind my arm were goals to target.

It wasn't until I hear the clearing of her throat and the gentle scoff against the wind did I realize I wasn't the only one in the room.

Her back is straight as ever. Boots under layers and layers of fabric stomping on the wooden floor. The dull hazel of her eyes glinting with knowing.

"Well, what are you doing?" She gestures to the mess on the table. I watch with careful realization that her skin is sagging much more, eyes sunken so they were too big - too frail, and I knew under those layers of clothing were bony structures of her anatomy.

Yet she stayed sharp and caring in a manner I do not quite understand. There's a certain coldness to her that makes me cling to her other than stay away from. I didn't quite understand why but I loved it.

She made me feel secure. Yeah, that.

Her lips had been thinning and her cheeks had slowly sunk into their hallows.

She raises a brow, anticipating my answer. I knew I'd get an earful after this, whatever my answer will be, I will never know why her pronouncements were like this.

"I just wrote things," I bow my head, covering the smile of mischief stretching my skin up to my eyes. If she saw, I'd get another dose of earful, but never the beatings - she never beata me. Add that to the list of my questions.

She sighs, taps her foot once, silence seeps through, and then taps her foot once again. Reverberating under the ground. She goes to open the windows and the walls creak, as if to break down on us.

And then, reality comes hitting with the sound of birds chirping, the sighs of the wind on the bell chime so that they hit each other with precarious yet soothing notes - and the brushing of the trees against each other, stroking and sweeping the wind to a tease.

"I told you to stop writing," a scowled face wrenches me from the heaven I just experienced, cutting it short with that melodious voice of hers. She's much nearer now, yet still at the frame of the open window.

She was blinding from that position of hers.

"Writing is a curse," she continues, I could hear fear rolling off her words, but covered up by that plastered authoritative face of a woman.

I didn't listen an inch to her next words, but I watched the new sun - red and orange, hot and high - rise in the dawn behind her. It sits upon the bony frame of her shoulders, as if to soothe the angered gazelle.

"Did you hear me?" She snaps her finger real close to my eyes I thought she was about to poke them. "Get dressed."

"Where are we going?" I ask, scampering to get up. The wobbly table creaks with begrudging sounds. If it was real it would've thrown me off already from my remiss.

I got my sleepy foot out the space under the table, and I try hard not to wince at the prickles against my skin. I limp forward but I find my aunt gone from the room. Leaving nothing but the calmness of reality.

I take the time to rake through my dishevelled hair, put on my grey coat paired with a mask the same color.

Mirrors weren't allowed here, so I had no time to ponder about my reflection. I hadn't seen mine since the day I realized I had one. We were blind about it, so we chose to use our sense of touch to feel any disarrangements in our features, or we used each other to tell where we would put the kohl and the powder.

I'm used to it now. Nothing new. But the questions remained.

Why were mirrors forbidden?

What happens if we see ourselves?

"Hurry up!" Her voice was distant, yet clear and understood - heavy even. I quickly rush to the wooden door, finding it half open.

The sight of me diminishes whatever dire anger she held. She stay perched on the threshold, running her fingers across the wooden handle of the stairs.

As I came up to her she frowns, studying my face and pointing at it.

"Look what sleep has gotten you, nothing but a bunch of lines and dried, flaky drool," she prods and sticks her fingers at my skin, squeezing and mending the galled spot her hand swept to.

When she finished, my hands instantly caress my cheeks and I feel the tendrils of swollen lines ebbed into my skin. I may have only gotten lines and drool but I have gotten a good sleep.

The scenes of my dream instantly infiltrate my mind and I shiver as I take my words back.

"Come on, we're gonna be late," she pulls me down, almost giddy at the thought of going outside.

This is another first of time I am about to go out and into the market, not that I was locked in but I chose to stay in - the people's eyes always sends a nerve inside me twitching.

We cross the living room, where a bunch of clothes hung on the couches and metal frames I've not seen before.

She pushes me outside and locks the door. I am greeted with the new sun I just saw outside my window, and it radiates warm heat to acknowledge the smile plastered on my face.

"Come on!" She shouts from ahead. I realized too late that she was long away from me so I break into a jog, an exercise I will never like.

I prefer hand combats not plain, boring jogs.

Fortunately, I caught up with her. And we walk side by side. The grains of sand and rocks grazing under our boots.

For a while that was the only sound I heard. I preferred the silence. The walk from our cottage to the market was long. I never knew why we were so far away from the people.

But I knew it was to safe me from prying eyes.

"How are you today?" She breaks the silence, humming a tune I've never heard before.

I roll my eyes, she only asked that when she needed something from me, otherwise lectures and sorrowful teachings are present.

"What do you want, aunt?" I ask, mind focused at the rocks moving along with us. White and grey and black. And the sand so soft like silk built up into mounds from the push of the tips of our shoes and come crashing down with the soles.

"Nothing," she says. I look up. Another point of unusual. She looked genuine now, her fingers anxiously twirling the ribbons under her cloak.

She looked like a child, an image that pings my head.

A sad feeling etches into my brain. She was so young when she cared for me, and because of that she had to give her youth away.

A small peek of it is slipping away at the edges of her wrinkled eyes and stretched smiles.

"What happens if we look into a mirror?" I ask, skipping some uneven lines of rocks. Her smile drops, replaced by that same harsh look.

"It is forbidden because we may see our true selves," she says. "And seeing our true selves is a sin, a sin to the God Pintos."

"So never look at yourself in any reflection, it is a temptation," she warns, fitting back into that snugly place of her old woman.

I hurramphed at that, wondering why it was too farfetch.

We continued on with silence until we reach the base of the town, a sign hung at a beaten pole beside the path - almost invisible from the gorgeous bloomed flowers of bushes covering its lower body. The pole is wrought with the stain of iron, and it squeaks with protestrations from the wind picking up.

"Take your hood up and cover your face," My aunt speaks with a neutral tone, eyeing the start of the prying eyes.

The bustling town and the heart of it are just meters away from us, yet people never came to this part of the town. It only belonged to us - rather, given to us. As if we carried with us the horrors of poison and the smell of death. As if we had rattled a quake from the ground, reformed, and strangled the land into an abysmal place.

It was clear. Whatever we had touched belonged to us. 

We are filth.

I pull my hood up and cover my face leaving only my eyes scanning the minefield we are about to step into.

My aunt holds my hand and squeezes.

Up there ahead, I see people milling and running, meeting in parallel sides and sometimes adjoining with a clash.

I was the premonition. The omen in the village. But they never called me a curse, not quite. I heard it in the stares and the eyes of my fellow people.

They called me the Wraith.

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UNEDITED.
How was it? Was it good or meh?