Confusion was the only thing that made sense the moment she opened her eyes. The back of her head ached with such a sharp pain, she knew it had to be the worst feeling she's ever had, even though she really didn't know if she had ever felt anything before. For one very long moment, she lay still, only the pain in her skull and the bewilderment in her mind accompanying her. Everything was black, and she wasn't quite sure why. She knew she wasn't closing her eyes; they felt like they were open, but for some reason, she figured she should have been able to see something. Though the very concept of seeing was something nearly unheard of, she thought she should have been performing that task. Why weren't her eyes working?

The color black quickly changed into something. She could recognize it. How, she wasn't so sure, but she knew it was green. A dark, hazy green that almost seemed to calm what pain she was feeling. After a while of staring at the fog-like green color, it began to brighten--something began to grow and become more and more luminous, lighting up the darkness and almost hurting her eyes. She felt her eyelids squeeze shut as the brightness continued to strengthen, and then, in surprise, they opened back up. When her eyes closed, instead of seeing green like they did when they were open, they saw red. How intriguing.

The overwhelming brightness stopped; it took a second for her eyes to fully adjust, and she found herself staring at pavement stretching out before her. That was when her senses came back to her, so not only could she feel the pain that had been inflicted in the back of her cranium, she could feel her cheek pressed against the hard, rough ground. She could feel a stinging pain in the palms of her hands and both her knees. Was she going to move? Apparently she was lying face down on black cement, and that seemed to be a rather awkward position for her. Slowly, her elbows rose and she placed her palms flat on the pavement, much to her surprise. It was appalling how she could actually control her own movements like that. In that state of awed wonder, she froze where she was and simply stared at her right hand, the only one she could see. She thought about moving her fingers, and they moved, just like that. They could drum against the ground, they could slide to and fro. Yet another intriguing notion.

Using strength she wasn't even sure if she had or not, she pushed herself from the ground with her hands, the stinging sensation in her palms only worsening. She took her time despite the pain, careful not to lose balance and fall. Slowly, she brought her feet underneath her and let them push her upward so she was standing straight, and then stole a look from her hands to see what was causing the stings.

The sight wasn't exactly appealing. Some of her skin was scraped off, dirt and other black stuff was smudged in crevices out of which oozed thick, red liquid, smeared over each of her hands, mixed with the dirt. Immediately something inside her told her spilling the red stuff couldn't have been a good thing at all, and she began to look around for something with which to clean up the mess. That was when she noticed her surroundings.

At the moment she was standing in the middle of a road, in the dead center of a vacant plaza. Empty stores with windows revealing the darkened inside lined evenly along the street, signs that looked like they were supposed to glow but lost power long ago hung from doors, windows and roofs. Words were plastered on the glass, warped into semi-circles and surrounded by pictures and designs of bright colors to capture a pedestrian's attention. The paint on some of the buildings was peeling, the bricks that supported half of the shops were beginning to chip and weaken. The whole place just looked old, like no one cared to pass through it for years and years, maybe before she was even born.

She waited a moment to approach one of the small buildings, waited until she knew her legs could carry her and walk at the same time, and then took a step.

She couldn't go any farther. Pain suddenly seemed to yank at her already-stinging knees, and she winced from the abrupt and discomforting sensation. Looking down at whatever had caused the pain, she was surprised to find her knees were in the same condition as her palms. Scraped, bruised and smeared all red, she took a second to wonder to herself how in the world this happened to her. She had to find a way to clean it up.

The only way to keep walking was to put up with the stinging and pretend it wasn't there, so that was what she did. Wandering toward the closest shop, she stood before the glass window, staring intently at the semi-circled words in front of her. The characters that made the words made sense to her, and she could feel her mind try to put all the letters together, sounding out one syllable at a time.

Barber shop.

She could read. It took a long time, but she could read. Since when?

Hardly paying attention to the questions in her head, she moved toward the door and walked through, her eyes immediately falling on a rack of folded white towels. Those would dry her hands and knees.

Gently pressing a towel, dusty and partially unraveled from years of usage and then neglect, over the scrapes around her legs and hands, she looked around the building in which she was. She didn't really know what a barber shop was, but there were big, black chairs lined up single file along the left side of the place, all built into the black-and-white tiled floor, all facing the wall. Silvery windows were placed in front of each of the chairs, and in one, she could see the dark hair of the top of someone's head. Rather curious, she stood up straight to see who it was, and found the face of a little girl staring back at her.

Before she considered approaching the other girl, she casted a quick glance at her hands and knees. They were clean enough for now, even though the aching still lingered. Her eyes shot back toward the window and her feet carried her closer to the girl she was watching as the stranger walked toward her, too. The whole time their eyes never left each other, and the closer she came to whoever was on the other side, the more anxious she became. She wasn't completely sure why, but she felt like all her insides were being stirred up and mixed together like some sort of stew. It had to have been because the other girl was staring at her with such intensity, she didn't know how to handle it. She didn't know if she wanted anything to do with this girl at all. So why was she still approaching her?

And then both of them stopped their tracks. She looked carefully over the window and realized this was no window at all. The girl she was looking at followed her every move as she approached the false window and placed her hand on it. The anxiety was quickly replaced with disappointment. The girl wasn't only a stranger; the girl was herself. Dark hair chopped at her cheeks and green eyes, she wondered why she didn't know who her own self was. She wondered why she was so disappointed when she found out it wasn't somebody else, that it had been her all along. She wondered if there were any other people outside besides her.

Turning toward the door, she made her way back out of the barber shop onto the street, looking around the vacant area. Something small hit her face from above and, startled a little bit, she looked up to see what it was. Clouds were beginning to roll in fast, quickly covering the green sky; the brightness of the sun. Water was started to fall from the sky. Rain.

Thunder wasn't hesitant to let her know there was going to be a storm. It boomed noisily from a ways away, and in the clamor, she thought she could hear two words:

"Kelth. Ahlia."