Tabula Rasa

The suffocating heat immediately engulfed her, spinning her head momentarily. In a vulnerable state of confusion, she allowed a wayward throng of strangers to steer her out of the station, barely allowing a moment to pause or take in these strange new surroundings. Eventually the crowd dispersed as the narrow streets opened onto a vast piazza, where a sudden flash of light made her squint against the sun. Gentle gusts of a distant wind caught her tousled hair, forcing her to set down the tattered leather bag she’d been painfully clutching to her chest for the past three days. With this savaged companion resting at her feet, a familiar sound rang through the empty space before her. A distant memory, a voice, filled the space between her temples, which until this point had been violently overflowing with anguished hopes of freedom. Immediately she moved, snatching the bag from her feet, lurching onward, away from the fury that was tearing its way towards her. Picking up speed, trying to avoid the increasing number of eyes fixating themselves upon her, she slipped. He ran towards her, looming over her fallen body with the venom she had so desperately been trying to escape.