Awakening

Dark. There was a taste of rust in her mouth, but the smell of violets and marshmallows pervaded the air. The air was scorchingly hot, similar to that of her birthplace. Sal remained for a few minutes lying on the torpid ground which under her hands seemed of an indefinite consistency, while she passed between her fingers this sand which seemed dry and damp at the same time, suddenly a memory of her as a child playing in the savannah came back to her mind. with her beloved companion, "Why? Why do I get this right now?" she put her hands to her head “I can't see. My head, my head is exploding, my legs are still numb, at least I can move my arms now. What the hell happened to me? Where am I? My horns are different, and what do I have on my face?” She felt with her fingers that a visor on her face, that bothered her immensely but she had a feeling that didn't make her remove it. Suddenly a tear rolled down her cheek. “Risa!” Even though she couldn't see anything she realized that her companion wasn't there next to her, if nothing else the thought of having lost her life companion gave her the strength to move her legs and sit down. She started to squint more as loudly as she could, after a few minutes, a big smile crossed her face, “Yes!” her eyes began to show something again. Initially it was just a very strong point of light in the midst of total darkness, little by little that point of light became bigger and bigger, to the point that Sal thought she had gone blind again, but it wasn't like that. She didn't have time to cover her eyes with her hands as a visor, before the glass that was covering them darkened, finally allowing her to observe what was around her: "what the hell - where the hell am I?" She turned first to the right and then to the left, then twisted so she could glance behind, a train of thoughts in her mind, Sal thought she could smell the sky, which had the color of a sugar lilac dawn yarn, yes she was in a desert but she had never seen or heard anything like it before. Conflicting emotions overwhelmed her, the strongest being a feeling of loneliness that gave way to moments of excitement for the mystery of the place she found herself in, fear from not knowing where she was, and anger. Anger because deep down, Sal knew that her companion Risa would never have left her side in such a situation.

“Lucidity” she thought. She knew that she would have to remain so even in such a situation if she wanted to see her mate again. So, after looking out to the horizon in every direction and seeing nothing but a pastel-colored psychedelic landscape that looked like the result of an apocalypse in the mind of a person after taking too much acid, she begun to observe near her, turned her head again, this time first to the left where she thought she saw something visible under the blue sand "it must be the Elga" referring to her weapon which she recognized from the green blade that emerged from the sand moved by the hot wind and scented with croissants. She turned to the right and immediately squinted to observe what looked like tracks a few meters away. Suddenly Sal tried to stand up, but her legs still didn't respond properly and she found herself on the ground, but she began to wriggle, pull herself with the strength of her arms and move her legs in a jumble, almost as if she wanted to swim on the surface of the sand. Somehow she managed to get to those traces that had now almost completely vanished. “She was lying here; traces of...wheels? it doesn't seem like it, but only vehicles on wheels could trace these furrows", she was referring to deep furrows on that ground with a consistency that varied with the passage of time, at one moment it seemed as hard as rock and at another as liquid as the mud. “Where are you..” again, a single tear fell from her left eye and ran down her face until it formed a drop that fell from her chin to the ground, and at that moment Sal didn't pay attention to it, but at the point where her tear fell to the ground, a bud of a flower of the same lilac color that the sky was colored with, emerged and began to shine faintly. But Sal was already retracing her steps, she was finally able to crawl, and soon she managed to stand up, she approached the point where she thought she saw her sword "is that her..?" she wasn't sure if that was really her Elga, her instincts told her it was her but her eyes told her otherwise.

The sword protruding from the sand was decidedly larger than her Elga, "I will never be able to wield this thing" she thought, but still she prepared to grab it in vain, the sand at that moment was solid and she would never have been able to get it out, a feeling of depression pervades Sal's warrior spirit, and she stood up and noticed that the sand was softening again so she was finally able to regain possession of her infamous weapon: “what the hell is happening to us? this sword is definitely mine but its appearance is definitely... different!” she thought, looking at the enormous sword that she incredibly managed to wield without any effort. “It must be thanks to some anti-gravity device encapsulated inside the blade.” Sal brandished her sword proudly again and began drawing shapes in the air to familiarize herself with her new Elga. A few minutes passed and Sal found himself on the ground again scanning the ground: "Where the hell is it" she thought, referring to the last thing she was extremely missing, this time it was her precious Uppo shield that was missing; as there was no trace near the place where she found the sword, she returned to observe the place where her heart told her that her faithful companion Risa resided, "hold on my friend, I'm coming" she gritted her teeth and gripped the handle of the sword her sword to the point of feeling pain in her hands, she took one last look to understand the direction in which the large furrow that could still be seen in the sand, and began to walk in the eternal purple dawn of this world that seemed to her halfway between a dream and a spiritual journey.

Foot note: This chapter was originally written in Italian by @da0xlab and translated with the help of automatic programs.

Entered by: 0xF35c…4474