Olivia didn't open her eyes at first. Rather, she didn't realize she could. She vaguely remembered the oppressive heat that snuffed her breathing, the cheers and screams of the onlookers, and most importantly, the overpowering flame of hatred that burned hotter than anything that she could register on her charring skin. As her vision faded to black, she remembered fixing her gaze with searing, insane vengence against the faces that she once thought she knew.

Like a dream-fog clearing after slumber, Olivia's senses slowly awakened. The gentle breeze, the faint filtered light through her eyelids, and the weight of her own body pressing down against her legs. She was confused. Was she not tied to the stake and roasted by hateful fire and humans alike? Where was the heat, the screams, the pain? Was this a delusion, a desperate attempt by her own heat-suffered mind? Olivia hesitated on her next question. Or was she really a witch, somehow awakened a power, an instinctual grasp at life?

Olivia was afraid to answer her questions...but she did not have to. A foreign tongue spoke out, and without thinking Olivia opened her eyes. She was in a field, surrounded by strangers. Olivia didn't recognize their dress nor their make, but they looked similar to her age, apart from a tiny boy who looked British. The field was wide and open, without a hint of townsfolk or livelihood. It was much like what she had seen in the picture books, but something told Olivia this was far more foreign than Boston.

Olivia was in her nightgown, the one she was wearing when she was... but it didn't look burned or torn. She ran her fingers down her arm, a sensation as real as ever. And apart from her wrists and ankles feeling raw from rope burn, she otherwise felt fine. None of her original questions had tidied answers - and it only drew more and more questions. Where was she? Who were these people?

[quote]"Translator Level 1 Acquired!"[/quote]

Olivia tensed, ready to react to the owner of the voice. All the others started to speak the common tongue, as if on cue with the voice. But before Olivia could question the voice, it spoke again.

[quote]"Welcome to Kairelith. Your new life begins here. Please accept the goddess Kaireth's blessing as a commemoration of your arrival. Decide your path. A second chance was given to you by the merciful goddess, use it wisely."[/quote]

God? Goddess? Olivia could understand the language, but not the message. A new life? What did this all mean? Had she somehow been transported to heaven - Olivia caught herself. Heaven. She thought bitterly. What a foul minded joke. If anything, she had landed in the deepest recesses of hell, where God and Demon was one.

With a bright light, strangers in old-fashioned armour surrounded her and the other kids. Olivia hardly heard the question over her shock of dread, her instincts screaming at her to run. Witch hunters! They were here! Wherever she was, Olivia needed to run, run run...! Olivia breathed out shakily, forcing down waves of desperation with loud logic and steady feet. Swords and antique armour. They weren't Puritan, that was for sure. If anything, they looked like the Inquisition she was told of during her...she didn't know. Previous life? Either way, she couldn't just stand there dumb-struck.

As Olivia opened her mouth to respond, foul creatures emerged as if from no-where. Lupine heads and savage snarls; if Olivia wasn't already stunned by the sheer exoticness of her situation, she would have hollered that the Devil was upon them. But all Olivia could do was creep backwards away from the fighting and try desperately to find a weapon. The world was flying past in a patchwork of haywire cacaphony, but if one thing was clear, the only person on her side was herself. 

Olivia searched for an opening where she could grab a dropped weapon. She knew she couldn't fend off the rapid dog-humans, the armoured humans, or the other kids - but she had to do something, if anything but to fend off her own sense of helplessness. A boy beside her muttered strangely under his breath, something about "stats". Perhaps he had gone insane from sheer confusion, and she was about to be too. But steady. Her only weapon right now was calm.