The chilly air crept passed the open windows, the red curtains pulling out of their metallic confines. Ada scanned the room again, distracting herself from the burden on her heart. The floors were dark brown, the familiar wooden smell mixing with that of the ocean. Two stools were pushed to the side, in front of a similar low wooden table. Two empty mugs were laid on it, the remnants of its contents staining the wooden surface with light pink foam.

  A mirror stood at the opposite side, next to the door in which a wardrobe also sat to it's right. The red wood had scuff marks, the knob almost collapsing on itself. Ada sat on the bed, venturing to the mirror again. Her hair was long and straight tied up in a bun, her dark brown eyes were slightly curved up, different from her own droopy eyes. Her straight nose then sloped down to her strawberry pink lips, all housed in a round face. So unlike her own.

  Her heart ached, pain shifting within her, jolting at how much she missed the other girls and her former life. Dark spots ringed her vision again. She didn't even know how many days would have passed in her own world. Her blood curdled as she looked down at her hands, they were small but scarred. Calloused unlike her former hostage's, she could almost see the blood stains of the past few days. Red marks that stained her hands in jagged patterns.

  Her breath quickened as screams from the people she had left for dead resurrected. Her world spun. Her turmoil arose, her body quaking. She had trained all her life for this, trained to know how to weather the portal side effects, effeciently be able to use the hostage's memories and skills, put the conscious of the hostage to sleep and so much more. But she had never trained to kill, guilt sizzled within her as she groped her hair.

Those people's lives were a fantasy.

She tried to console herself. Her eyes stung, her throat clogging. Even she had a problem with believing that. With each reality she stepped in, each person seemed more real than the last. People allowed to die because of her cowardice. The princesses whom had only sought out to help their friend had their lives cut short. Snow White would still have to suffer in the hands of the pedophile.

  She bit down on her lip, forcing down the tremble that shook her. While learning the basics, she had been told that when transversing they would always change and alter the life of the body they transversed into through the decisions they made. She could imagine Cinderella wake up now, terrified and confused by the prospect of all that would happen. She even doubted that Philip would take care of her.

Although most of the memories she had known when she had transversed into her body where now groggy, she still could feel the hatred that threaded through her when all the other royals including Philip was mentioned.  What had she done? She held her head in her hands, feeling her stomach curdle. The salty air slithered into her nostrils.

  The door jerked open, creaking loudly in the room. She jolted up, her back straight. A woman with a lanky stature came in with a wooden bowl in hand. The smell of fish made her mouth water but the disgust she had for herself made her turn away. Her auburn hair was packed up in a bun, her lanky stature clothed in a loose tunic with black tights and boots. Her round monolid eyes widened slightly, her thin lips tapering downwards.

    "Su, why look so glum?" Kae asked, walking into the room briskly. From the hostage's memory, she recalled Kae to be a very good friend of hers. The most trust worthy crew mate on this vessel, one that held all Su's secrets, well she and her now dead father. The bed dipped under her weight, the smell of fish soup supernaturally strong now. She looked at it slightly, the slightly greyish waters suddenly took an overtone of red. She gasped, jumping away.

  Kae watched in confusion, looking between the bowl and the gasping girl. She set it down hurriedly, wanting nothing to cause a blotch on the red covers. She turned to her, a bushy eyebrow raised.

"Care to explain." Her mouth trembled, her body bubbled with so much hatred. Now she understood, many had come back from transversing with a pained outlook on life, broken beyond repair. Now she knew it was not that they were weak but that they were guilty of destroying other's lives and then hated the idea of transversing in which the others in the womanhood had revolted at.

  The gift was a curse. Kae snapped her pale fingers in her face, watching her worriedly.

"Tell me Su." Ada breathed in, looking past her to look at the pictures and paintings coating the wall. She looked back to her again, feeling empty inside.

"Kae, tell me. What would you do if you have blood on your hands?" She said plainly, Kae's expression turned understandly as she drew close to her.

"It's about your parents, isn't it?" Kae whispered, then the memory pulsed within her, unlocking itself from a vault and piercing into her conscious.  She nodded, happy to have this cover story.

"I can't tell you how it does feel neither can I tell you what I would do." She deflated, the burden suddenly heavier. Although they were pirates their crew was one of the few that never sought out to kill any. But individually, they'd shed blood except Kae. The purest of them all, Ada could detect some envy that the hostage had for Kae. To be able to sleep at night peacefully and not have a clasp of guilt. Ada felt the slightest pint of jealousy too.

"But, I remember you offering to join my father on his merry mission through the seven seas because you wanted out of your old life, you wanted to leave your village because the pain and fear each villager had for you was too much to bear. You joined us to get away from the death you had led you led your parents into." She remembered a young girl, the daughter to the chief of the village. She remembered how by going against father's wish by going into the temple all for a dare. That day she had inflicted the curse of the undead upon her.

  Green splotches on her skin, thinning hair, black eyes. They had consulted with the priest whom had talked to the god that had inflicted the curse upon her. They had been told that only someone from her lineage could take the curse instead, thereby saving her but killing themselves. Her parents had chosen to share the yoke but unfortunately they had failed to realize the gravity of the curse which had not been inflicted on the villagers since they had followed the god's customs and rules to a fault. They died soon after.

"What did my father say when you joined us?" Ada felt a memory shudder to her conscious, she read through the memory as if she were reading through secret files. She had always felt happy that she could do this so easily while some others found it very difficult, now she felt so disgusted by it.

"He said that he would allow me not to allow me run but show me that there is a new life in the core of the sea." She stopped, wondering what that was supposed to mean. She raised an eyebrow in question. Kae rolled her eyes with a soft smile.

"He was saying you would still have to face your demons because you can't ever hide away from your past. But he was also saying if you look past the waters to the very core of the sea, you will find a new beginning." Confusion wove around her, binding her. It felt as though the conscious had heard it before, realization ringing in one of the distant memories. She didn't pick it, she wanted to find this for herself.

"I fail to understand?"

"Drop blood on the sea, yes the rest of the waters may be bloodied but the core is still intact, it's heart still remains."

"Your parabolic use of terms is heart warming." Ada said drily while Kae just smiled softly. She continued,

"Look past your mistakes, look past the blood. If you don't you will be like a lost soul, a dead man walking. If you do then you can find a new life no matter where you are." The lost resonated within her, going back to the isle of the lost. A dark throb that stood just afar off from the plains of Kratos where eternal darkness and screaming lay. What did it truly mean to be lost? Does someone deem you to be or you deem yourself?

"What if it's too thick to look past?" Ada cried bitterly, her lips closing over. She remembered how in the first reality she had been mean to Mei's friends. In the second, she had aided Luna, a dark magic user and a notorious villain to kill thousands with her comrades. Then in the third she had betrayed all the princesses and destroyed Cinderella's life.

"Then start by shining a light in form of a good deed." Kae said, a shout of her name from outside the door told her their time was up. She smiled at her reassuringly before she ran off leaving Ada much to ponder.

   


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