Chapter 1

She woke up with a start, her eyes fluttering open. Everything was blinding. She tried to shield her eyes to no avail and closed them again.

There was no ground beneath her. She was weightless. She sucked in a panicked breath and tried to move around.

Her foot hit something cold and hard, making her gasp in pain. She instinctively curled up, reaching to massage her stubbed toe—and promptly hit her head on something else, also cold and hard.

She stopped moving, trying to ignore the throbbing knot growing on her head and her viscerally painful toe injury; better to prevent herself from bonking body parts against things she couldn’t yet see. She slowly managed to open her eyes, adjusting to the brilliant white light all around her.

The hard objects she hit herself on were white desks. They were also floating, though unlike her, they appeared to be stationary. She twisted her head around, looking wide-eyed in all directions.

Endless rows of desks in every direction. All white. All slightly longer than the length of her own body, and just as wide. Above her, below her, to her right and her left; they were everywhere.

Where was she? She rubbed her head and curled up into a ball, reaching down to cradle her toe. More importantly, who was she? What was her name? Why was she here? Wherever “here” was…

She looked at her hands. They were a pale peach color, almost as pure as if they’d been recently scrubbed down and washed. Her feet were the same.

Moreover, she realized with a sound of dismay that the only thing she was wearing was a plain white gown that extended from her shoulders to her ankles. As soon as she saw this, she gave an involuntary shiver. It occurred to her that the air felt uncomfortably cold, and that the only thing preventing her from continuing to shiver was that the air was thick and unmoving. There were no breezes brushing against her skin, only the silky gown, which followed her movements with a graceful airy feeling. It was, in a way, an incredibly pleasant bliss, only tainted by her growing sense of unease. This other feeling, of course, was anything but pleasant, and she knew what fueled it.

She had no idea where she was, who she was, or why she was here. Everything was cold, and she only had a white gown to call herself clothed. She hugged herself, still curled up, and looked around once more, fearfully hoping that she would be able to spot some means of identifying herself and her predicament.

On every desk that her eye could see, there were three small, white pots that she could comfortably hold in one of her hands. They looked to be glass, and were perfectly polished, positively sparkling in the white light around her. Planted in the center of each one was a violet.

The desks had no drawers, and no other means of storing items. One would suppose that they were purely there to provide a place to put potted flowers on top of. This happened to be exactly what she guessed.

She tried to call out for help, but her voice caught in her throat, making her cough. She tried again, and successfully managed a timid, “Hello?”

This was, perhaps, an unfortunate decision. Her raspy voice echoed an empty echo, which sounded for miles—so far, in fact, that she could even hear it traveling. She tried again, an even worse decision; for it was becoming increasingly clear to her that she was the only person alive in this place, and the lack of response to her increasingly desperate cries was proof as clear as glass. Her rasping voice gave out mid-yell. The effect of her voice’s sound being cut short was wildly disconcerting to her, which incited her to burst into tears. And for some time, she wept, curled up in a floating ball, unable to fathom the bleakness of the seemingly peaceful place she found herself in.

One thing that was abundantly clear to her was—and also incredibly disorienting—was that there was no way of measuring time. Indeed, the minutes that her tears trickled down her face could’ve been hours, and those hours could’ve been seconds. During this time, the sound of small, strangled sobs could be heard traveling through the infinite expanse, and if one had been there to hear it, it would not have sounded out of place; the place, though a peaceful, heaven-like setting, bore a bone-chilling sense of emptiness that threatened to smother all life.

Unfortunately, there was no human there to hear her, and amidst her despairing heaves, she knew that crying would do her no good. She didn’t feel tired or hungry, but she figured that feeling wouldn’t last forever, and in a place where there was no signs of disparity amongst the endless rows of violet-adorned desks, there was no telling how long she had before she found some sort of fuel. She had to act now.

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