Chapter 2

Mariya shut her eyes the hard way, the sudden pain all over her head is overwhelming. She groaned weakly; breathe in, breathe out, continuously. Sweat form in her forehead as she try pull herself together and risen from the mud. When she finally do that, she scan the surrounding, and her eyes widen. “Where am I?”

Before the question consume her, she wipe the sticky dirt in one go. Dirt is a common sight all over her casual clothe and it takes awhile to successfully wipe it out. And then she groaned, she have no recollection to what happened and what sort of thing happens that lead her to her current state. What left in her is determination to remain standing, and for what kind of place she is at as of this moment, she has the feeling that she knew it very well.

“So this the place...?” she murmured. As she scanned around, a highest heaven materialist in front of her, even the tallest mountain near to where she standing. It tallest that even when she realist that she is on top of a nearby mountain, she grasp to see that the surface below is endless. Mist cover the body of the mountain. From afar it looks exactly like a flowing blood, however, Mariya see through the reality, the bloodiest sight was infact was a mist that akin for something that blows in a winter.

She feel light as she head the trail goes down, trying to see the deep of the surface. She don't bother question how she is ends up at the top of nowhere anymore. The more she thought about the bizzareness of surrounding, memories flows that stab her heart a million pieces. Though even if she does question and learn an answer for something, she have the slightest feeling that it do nothing to change and block her way.

As she goes down and down to the surface of the ground, the fog that envelop the mountain she is currently trap with, heaviness of surrounding scream curse all over her body, freezing her blood and shiver the slightest hope that she barely feel as of this moment. It makes her feeling like suffocating. Adding the fact that she couldn't see through the path she's walking because of the fog; as the time passsed, the surrounding becoming dim. Though she is determined to not waste a golden time, she have not rash things out. If she don't want to experience the same thing like waking up in somewhere unknown and at the top of nowhere again, then she has to takes extra care over and over again.

“What should I do?” she asked as she close her eyes to feel the hardness of the earth. She have to calm her breathing first, then think and plan things out.

What she is certain though despite the confussion is that she has the destination. And that makes her more determined, much more as a familiar image of someone she know flash before her eyes. Those time where she couldn't have to think much about life and only thought about the day; moment that everything feels so good and free. Were she to comb the hair of that someone that seen much of what life can offer and experience about in her age. Those precious hair that suddenly drench in blood one of the cruel night in this lifetime.

“Grandma, I,” she whisper as her heart throbbing deeply like being stab a million times, tears flows smoothly to the ground, “I'll make them pay.” At the distance, she saw her, her grandma smiling at her, smiling as if she guiding her all the way. “Mariya promise... Grandma, you don't have to feel sad anymore.”

She don't rash thing but neither wasting the golden time. She wouldn't wait for the fog to vanish on its own. She have to continue and strive whatever block in her way; the fog is one of those blockness that she has to scattered whatever it takes. Now that she only has her own, she has to survive without the assitance of others. Not that she want a help coming from anyone, on all of her life, she only have her grandma, the only one person she let to assist her and remind her that she is enough and she can battle tge ferocity of the world of unknown that contain a ferocious and vicious being.

Time passed. However patience she put, the fog challenge her to spit curses to it. “Fudge! What an endless, hard-fudging stream of fog!” It as if this fog cemented and put all its heaviness through her existence, as if a new kind of rainfall that has no way to pour gently but an ocean that poured on her one and for all. Even the air couldn't be trusted, it undeniably creepy and blows from above with intensity that as the time passed, becoming a ferocious beast. And she has been holding her breathe for a pretty long time now.

She has to survive the danger of this mountain!

And the only thing that came up in her mind is to let the blows of a harshful air to be at her advantage. She notice earlier that the ground almost endlessly. If she let herself fall, she can plan how to land safely. And doing so enable her to get out to the ravaging fog that as the time passed she realized it after her breathing heart. It as if it trying to possess her heart and then stop it from breathing once and for all.

“I have to go broke...”

As she close her eyes, she feel the lightness that she feeling at the top of the moutain, when she feel like the ravaging fog poured aside, she viciously jump as if seeing a cliff of hope for fthe first time. Before she knew it, the vicious wind blows in an unbelievable speed. The air makes it more easy to breathe now as if the inside of the vicious wind is a gentle place to find release.

Doing so maybe a crazy stand, but this a chance to find hope. If she continued endlessly to find the path of the surface of the ground with the presence of the fog, then she is not Mariya who knows foresight. She has the bit of instinct that enable her to feel that the fog is a curse place that incircled her and bound her to it eternally. By the help of the vicious wind the attacking the fog on the outside, but inside gently rob it aside. To reach the ground and get out from the mountain; one has to take advantage of hopelessness to be brave and risk for a chance to survive. And to have a safe trip to reach the ground, she calm herself and plan a safest fall.

It is not the first time she fell from the highest part to reach a surface of the ground safely. Since she practice something strange like exercersing the fall and feel the essence of the world around, she have been her guess tge reason to do so. And as of this moment, she smiled thinking about her grandma. “I finally understand...” she thought. Then she feel confuse arising. “Grandma, you... Did you foresight that I need to survive the mountain like this?”

Her eyes widen. Her guess couldn't be more true. Is her grandma knows that she is ended up like she is doing right now? The different though is that she has to do it alone, without the guidance of someone that dear to her, her grandma. Despite the suspicious, she did it anyway, because whatever the reason and purpose, she has not to waste those training and assistance of someone dear to her. Especially not to make her death to be in vain.