Pandora’s eyes opened. Her soul, her brain, her thoughts whizzed through her head, but her body was not her own. These eyes were foreign, an electric purple only possessed by a sacred animal. Her normal azure ones had been traded for this pair.
She felt disembodied, her mind was fuzzy and she felt as if she was living in ecstasy, her entire being was floating through a fluid haze. She opened her mouth to scream, but only a rasping animal call escaped her lips. Her sight was amazing, what she could not normally see was now reveled to her. Her smell was acute too, as if she could sense every other living thing and where they had been with a single sniff.
She looked down at her hands, but they had been replaced with claws, and sheltering them, scales. She desperately wanted to scream now, but she could only give a roar of despair. She ran, desperately trying to find a way out of this horrible place, but there was no way. She tried to turn her head, and she found her neck was elongated and snakelike. She was on the verge of going crazy, she was not herself and she could not even call out for help.
She tried to scream once more, a pursuit she knew was impossible, this time she threw her head back and a monstrous jet of flame flew out of her mouth.
Pandora awoke suddenly, in a cold sweat. The sheets were plastered to her skin and her duvet had been thrown off, onto the floor. She rose into a sitting position and rocked herself back and forth, telling herself everything was alright. Her nightmare was over, and she was out of that mutating parallel dream world. Her mind, as well as her once clean room was in pandemonium. She was terrified of the night terrified of sleep, lest she be dragged back to the abnormal world. She dreaded the end of the day, as she had been plagued by the same scenario every night. Returning to the world of nightmares and every night it was the same. She needed slumber. She reassured herself and she eventually laid down and convinced herself to sleep.
The next day, Pandora found herself at a magic show, her mother had gotten them tickets. She had always found magic intriguing, it was all an illusion, all a trick, but the act of deceit was amazing to her. How one crafty flick of the wrist would fool an entire audience, how the mage had such power was miraculous. She craned her neck as the magician got to the prestige of the trick, and she was as amazed as always. The magician asked for a volunteer from the audience next. Pandora had always been shy, but now she cast that aside and stood up on her chair, raising her hands above her head and wishing to be picked out of the hundreds in the crowd.
The magician saw her instantly and called her up to the stage; Pandora’s eyes alighted with his smile. He began to speak, the introduction to his trick.
“This girl has volunteered, volunteered to enter the other side.”
There were gasps from the crowd
“Have any of you heard of the parallel? Stories of how each of us has an animal spirit inside of us. Only a few have the means to find their true spirit. Inside this world which she will enter, she will transform into her parallel.”
Pandora’s brow furrowed, this was sounding awfully like…
“Now a parallel is nothing to be laughed about, many believe that it is the purest part of your soul. Many consider ones animal spirit ones paragon, and this girl will be able to experience the awesome power of her, shall we say, better half. I will put her through the world, and she will transform, when she comes out again she will be an animal, but do not despair, it will still be the essence of her in a parallel body.”
The mages eyes grew dark, what Pandora was sure had been a bright green now had turned a navy blue so deep it was almost black. He looked evil, all the mirth in his gaze replaced by malice and was that…hunger? She was terrified, he had described a universe exactly like her dreams, a petrifying place that now she had to enter voluntarily!
“Now step into this box miss”
He ushered her into an enormous box on the stage floor, she stepped inside and she heard the click of a lock. She began to feel claustrophobic, the silence and the warmth were suffocating and the began to scratch on the box’s door, fighting for a way out. She blinked and the suffocation was gone. She opened them and she was in a cool glade. A waterfall gushed into a small pool where water lilies floated on the surface.
She gazed into the water and where she was expecting her normal freckled face, she saw the angular and spiny profile of a dragon, and again she wanted to scream. This was exactly as her nightmares had conjured it, and where her normally blue eyes resided, a deep violet pupil stared back. All the peace had gone from this glade in a heartbeat. Pandora now looked around to find that the plant had wilted and the water had turned icy. The land was covered in frost and no buds could penetrate the frozen ground. She was full of hate and full of panic and then:
“Pandora, great Paragon, you have found us at last but so not despair.” Boomed a voice like thunder from up above the clouds. “What is wrong great paragon? Why must you weep so, and cause the land to do the same? Do not despair; it is I, Gregory, the great spirit of the raven, your friend” and suddenly a great black bird ripped through the icy clouds and landed at Pandora’s feet. His face was hard to read, but far from phlegmatic. There was sorrow in his eyes, but also a great excitement and a look of finally finding someone you love. “What is wrong great Pandora, creator and ruler of us all; Great Spirit of the dragon, for what troubles you troubles us all.”