Prologue

'Ah... hey... it's cold...'

My body felt as if it was floating upon a freezing cold lake. It was a deep lake, however my body wasn't truly submerging into it. It felt as though, for the first time in a long time, I had an overwhelming awareness of the senses in my body.

There was a muffled yet distant noise. I recognised it but my mind was too fuzzy to recall just what it was. There was a subtle beeping noise accompanied by a slow thudding. I couldn't move despite knowing where my limbs were, at the most my eyes could only look around frantically in the darkness.

Just where was I anyway? This area held an overwhelming sensation if familiarity as it did of ambiguity. It wasn't a normal place, I knew that... a dream...?

It was with the slight whiff of anaesthesia that I became aware of a presence that had appeared next to me, almost like a fog that had set upon this lake. My eyes glanced to the left of me, my head unable to turn to truly see what was next to me. I knew something was there, but I could not lay my eyes upon it... yet it was as I began questioning my own sanity to this matter, that the thing spoke... not through voice or words, but much rather I just knew what it was saying to me...

'Is there any final wish you have, before we go on any further?'

A wish? What was this thing talking about...? And what did it mean 'go on any further?'. Was I going somewhere? Was it somewhere away from this dark place?

Ah... I quite suddenly felt very sleepy... almost as if an repressed exhaustion had taken hold of me and finally awoken... and with it I felt myself begin to submerge slightly within the waters beneath me... despite being so cold on top, the waters were very warm, it was soothing. Enough for me to forget the fear that they were consuming me.

The thing still remained over me... it spoke again.

'This is your only chance, it is not a chance many of your kind get... but given your circumstances...'

I get it, I get it... a wish huh...? I stared into the darkness above me, my eyes straining faintly... I couldn't remember what happened before I got here... everything seemed so distant now. Though, I remember that wherever it was I came from, I felt caged... I felt as if there were shackles all over my body, slowly eating away at me. I didn't get to move or do anything like others did... in a way, it was why this sudden inability to move at all, was not so strange to me.

But I longed for it... to be able to move and be busy like other people were... I wanted to be a normal girl, if even only once...

And with that resolve in mind, I found my eyes glancing over to the figure again as the waters started to pour over me, a weak smile coming over my face as there beeping in the air merged into one abrasive noise.

"If possible... I wish I could be a normal girl... who can run around and work... even if that person doesn't do anything great, I just want to be normal..."

I told this to the thing that was lingering beside me, as water engulfed my ears, muting noise as everything drowned out into the darkness, clouding up even that of my mind, until nothing was left.

I wonder if that thing heard my wish... or why it wanted to know it. I guess I would never know...