Chapter Two - First world

Aria resurfaces blindly in a flurry of movement, with a lurching in her gut, waves of nausea pulsating beneath her skin, she is shaking deeply to her core until gravity gives away, and she tumbles awkwardly to spill her guts on the fluffy, snow-white carpet. Aria rolls away from the stench, somehow under the bed. She hits her head and elbow, curses as another wave curls just beneath her throat. She staunches the worst of it with her palm.

She's been so long without a body, wandering the void merely as a non – corporeal soul that now the tangibility of her mass throws her off balance – it feels like she is a fawn. Aria can barely manage to control her limbs, each movement slow and requiring the kind of focus that makes her dizzy.

Arianna Erwin may be alive again, but she would certainly not follow anyone's orders. She'd be thrice dammed before she followed through.

"Are you quite done playing hide and seek?"

Aria screams, rears her head, and promptly smacks it into the wooden beam for the second time. She rolls out, staring around the room. Empty. A bell – like tinkling laugh echoes. In her head. It feels strange to have that kind of difference, where her head is her head and the voices outside filter through her ears.

Well, except the stupid star.

"You did that on purpose," she says, baring her teeth at the empty air.

God damn, did it feel like she was talking to herself – she wasn't crazy.

Not yet.

"This system does not understand."

It's voice booms in her head, cheery and high pitched.

Aria scoffs.

The thudding headache bangs behind her eyes. She rubs her temple, but it does nothing to ease the pain as it should have, it used to anyway. She groans, knocks her head on the floor and regrets it. The stupid star and it's stupid mission. Aria is no one's guinea pig.

The nausea builds up, swirling like a tornado in her gut.

Aria thinks it's the perfect time to go for a run.

She stumbles about the large room, pristine and organized. It eases her searching as she finds headphones, a phone (no password, this girl must have been naïve to a fault), drawers so well put together she finds the running joggers and a tank top without messing up the immaculate clothes.

Opening the first door she sees, Aria finds the bathroom, which is luxurious and wide and so, so beautiful. Aria will gladly spend the rest of her life in here, just for the bloody tub. The towels are fluffy, the slippers soft, the shower simply godly.

Aria pauses.

"If you peek, I will claw your eyes out. With my nails"

The silly star hums.

"Do not fret host, my aesthetics do not include you."

"Close your eyes or something."

"I can't close my eyes, I am a star, an immortal being as old as – "

"Close your eyes. Whatever they are."

The star huffs, but Aria can feel the burden on her mind ease as if her head had been heavy from a hay fever and now it was gone, she could breathe. The star was monitoring her, then. Aria guessed as much; it still chafes. Sighing, she relaxes into the luxury mindlessly.

The rest of the house is much like the bathroom, decadently luxurious. However, there is a distant coldness to it, bare minimum decoration, the furniture in grey, black, and white. Monotone. A picturesque kind of image you would find on the front-page cover of a magazine. It's silent too. In this house, no washing machine hums in the background, or tv playing on low volume, no dogs barking – the ambient noises of a homely house are missing from this lonely space.

Aria shakes her head and sharply turns away for the front door. She nearly trips over the stupid threshold. There's a long driveway and a high fence outside. She groans.

A run does sound perfect. Empty her head, get her limbs working.

Just as she turns the corner a bird squawks, swoops down and bowls her over. Aria glances at the raven flapping its wings. It gives a final war cry before it flies away.

What the heck.