Tale of Death

Chapter 17 - Touching The Orb

As Shi's hand reached out and touched the transparent orb, her fingers softly caressing the black and white hue it released, she was instantly hit with a wave of emotions out of the blue. Anger, hatred, sadness, disappointment, loss, fear, happiness, joy, love, longing, contempt, approval, and satisfaction. Negative and positive emotions alike assaulted her mind and body in waves, like a boat lost at sea during a storm.

Shi was startled by this sudden onslaught of feelings, allowing her mind to temporarily snap out of the daze she was previously caught in. She tried to resist them, but when she tried to resist them, they only grew stronger. She couldn't help but let out a soft moan as she struggled against the powerful emotions that seemed to be trying to pull her down into their depths, she tried moving her hand away from the orb, but it seemed as if it was stuck to the orb.

The orb latching onto her very skin. The power within the orb seemed to be connected to her very blood and bone. As she fought back, the negative aspects of the emotions began to push forward, and when she gave in, the positive aspects of the emotions became more prominent. Shi didn't even know why she was feeling these emotions, she assumed it was because of the orb, it was pretty obvious, but she didn't know why the orb was doing it.

As the emotions became more overwhelming with her continued resistance, her mind started to feel weaker internally and emotionally. Her body followed soon after, weakening under the force of her own emotions. Unable to bear resisting it any longer, she fell to her knees, tears flowing down her cheeks and onto the floor in droves. Her body was visible shaking out of both fear, anger, and sadness, towards herself, towards others, towards Kami, and just generally towards everyone.

She didn't want to resist anymore, she couldn't, she didn't want to feel like this anymore.

So she didn't. She simply gave into the orb, and allowed the positive feelings to rush at her, happiness, contentment, love, they came to her just as fast as the others had, but this time she didn't resist them, she welcomed them. Her mind relaxed as she finally felt good, darkness entered her view, as she drifted away. The only thing she could hear as she faded, was a faint voice to the back of her head, she couldn't quite make out what it was saying.

"Wake up?" Why would she wake up, she was just fine as she was now, no, she was better than fine, she was great. She didn't pay attention to the voice any further, her mind gave into itself, and she fell unconscious.

==========

Her eyes fluttered open languidly, her mind still hazy from the overwhelming influx of emotions she previously felt. It took a few seconds for her to regain composure and look around to see what was going on. It was then she realized something quite unusual, she was no longer in the white room, in fact, it didn't even look like she was anywhere near it. The first thing she noticed was the walls, wooden, which would be unlikely to find in the desert, then came the realization that she was laying down on a bed of hay, a comfortable and familiar one at that.

"Wait, this can't be." She muttered out loud to herself unconsciously, her mind racing at the possibility that this could be what she thought it was.

Jumping off the bed of hay, she stood up and looked around the room. A small room made from wood, a bed made from hay in a corner next to a small window to see outside, a desk at another end of the room, on which was a bunch of mess haphazardly thrown around. No wonder it was so familiar, this was her room. Her very room when she was at the tender age of 10, it hadn't changed much as she got older, but she assumed 10 because at 11 she got a small bookshelf, and at 9 she didn't have a room of her own yet.

"This, this isn't possible. How is this going on, where am I?" She was not only confused but also worried. How could she possibly be in a room that existed over six years ago? This shouldn't be possible, Shi had heard about talks about magic related to time, but such magic was said to be near impossible to cast, let alone cast on her for no reason.