Chapter 0002

“Ahhh,” Athena cried out when pain lanced through her body as she tried to move.

Slowly, as to not aggravate her injuries, Athena laid down on the ledge and assess her injuries. Both her legs were broken, her wrist and right ankle was sprained and her right shoulder was dislocated along with numerous bruises on her body.

Athena examined her hands, the only uninjured part of her body. The pair of hands were hers. When she wanted to move her hands left, they move left, when she wanted to move her hands to the right, they moved to the right. The pair of hands move to her will, yet it was not her hands.

These hands were not the hands of someone sitting behind a computer all day, electronically stealing money from offshore accounts of drug dealers. Those nails were not beautifully manicured, gelled and painted. Instead, the nails were chewed on and broken, probably from the original owners of the body, with callous here and there.

A plain metal ring glinted brightly in the sunlight. Athena like the style of the ring, however she never had a chance to wear a ring on the fourth finger of her left hand before. There was never a man good enough for her to make those commitments.

“Who am I?” Athena pondered. She knew she would never receive an answer, nevertheless, the question must be asked.

Athena looked at her surroundings again. “Where am I? Just what is going on?”

Athena wanted to continue pursuing the questions in her mind, but her stomach brought up another more pertinent point, hunger.

There has to be food around here. Athena was not brought to this new world only to die. She refuses to believe it.

Athena sat up, quickly searching the ledge for any food the original owner might have brought with her. All she was rocks, rocks and more rocks.

The injured little girl eyed the forest below. A forest is a veritable ecosystem of food. One just has to kill for it.

As injured as she is, Athena doubt she can kill a rabbit, much less descend an almost vertical drop, land safely on the bottom without further injuring her broken legs, then hobble on said broken legs to hunt down some defenseless prey.

The little girl eyed the sky. “The wind has been behaving quite unusual around here. Maybe, just maybe, the wind will gust at an unexpected angle, slamming many birds in the vicinity against the cliff wall, thereby killing the birds and miracles of miracles, the corpse landed right on the ledge I am staying on.”

The hungry girl patiently waited for the wind to deliver food to her. After waiting for a while without any reaction, Athena glared at the wind surge.

Athena sighed. She had no one else to blame but herself. She set the expectation too high. How could she expect the wind to conveniently deliver food to her like the pizza delivery man? With one last longing glance towards the flying fried chicken, Athena pat her stomach, trying to ease the hunger pains.

Without warning, a gust of wind knocked her up against the rock wall. The little girl’s body hit the boulder at an unexpected angle, popping her dislocated shoulder back into place.

“Thanks.”

One of Athena’s injuries has been fixed. However the matter isn’t as pressing as her need for food.

Athena never likes feeling hunger pains. When she was younger, there were days when she went without food. Her mother wasn’t actually the Hollywood stereotypical portrayal of a crack addict whore, spending her government assistance money on drugs. She was feeding her children. There were just too many of them and too little food.

A gentle, persistent tug touched her left hand. Specifically, the ring on her left hand.

Athena examines the ring again, this time paying special attention to the minute details. Nothing. There was nothing special about the ring aside from the mysterious material it was made of.

Blood.

The whisper of the wind was still present in this world. Athena was glad she can still hear the wind. As much trouble it caused her back on Earth, it was comforting to feel a familiar presence in this crazy new world.

Athena did as the wind bade, rubbing her fingers against the blood slowly trickling on her wounded legs. Suddenly a sense of vertigo assailed Athena, knocking the little girl unconscious.