Scorched

35

"Open your eyes Cleo. Come on, aye just like that."

Her throat burned like it got washed with acid liquid. She tries opening her eyelids to follow the source of the voice, but hell she couldn't, she is completely worn out. Fatigued.

She couldn't comply with the rules, but her several blinking only gave way to more darkness. It's like thinking you're awake, but you're still dreaming it, and what was happening wasnt actually real. That's what she she thought was happening.

She tries again and again but fails. She just couldn't open her damn eyes.

She pays attention to her body, since she couldn't see anything. She feels still, no pains on her body like what she has felt before and earlier. Did that mean she was still alive? What exactly has happened then.

She spins her mind around what she remembered last. It was the pool. Letting go of smoke. There was no way she made it out alive without choking to death on her own smoke. So she had to be in the underworld and the voice had to belong to Kaleb. She is almost certain he died as well.

She opens her eyes again definitely in her dream, but only sees darkness, then clouds formed in her head again and she felt a lazy pulling on her lids to close to get lost in a deep slumber and she allowed it.

Her thoughts disappeared. She was dead.

She hears a curse and more shouts to stay awake but she was already gone to acknowledge more.

                                                             °°°

She couldn't feel anything. She was only in a dark room, running towards something or away from something she couldn't tell; but she only knew that she was running for her life. She wore her normal gear, new shirt and tough boots making it easier to try and escape this labyrinth; which told her that this was before the Demon Tower, or after in the afterlife.

She was getting nowhere. After each turn there was more blackness. She was afraid that she would be knocking into objects or just simply slipping on the floor— but there was nothing. No floor. No objects. It was like she was running in an endless black hole with no end and no beginning just running. And she never looked back.

The fear was inside of her. Strong fear of getting caught around her ankles and dragged into a pit of hell. That's why she had to run and run.

She breathed hard and fast, speeding her arms and legs to sprint faster and away. The adrenaline coursed through her veins, exhilarating herself to move faster. The fear causing her to pump her legs and arms even more so.

She never got tired. Never even stopped to take a bout of clean fresh air or to rest; she only knew that she had to move or else this thing would catch up to her.

So she moved and moved. For days. Weeks. Years. It felt like it, she couldn't stop. She became more and more frustrated as well, without having the satisfaction of seeing anything before her, nor even glimpsing a silhouette in the darkness; she already knew that she was getting nowhere in this endless loop.

She really hopes she wasn't passing the same section and going in circles. Her main objective was to get out of here and to find an exit from this deranged place. But where the hell was it?

She hears her name being called suddenly.

That made her stall immediately, she stops and closes her mouth to hear over her loud breathing. Her eyes scans left and right, but not behind. Never behind. But there was nothing. Nobody.

She is about to call back to that rich voice, the voice allowing her to keep running to follow the sound and leave this hole; but she could no longer feel her legs.