𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐘 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐄

ᴏɴᴇ ʜᴜɴᴅʀᴇᴅ ꜱᴇᴠᴇɴᴛᴇᴇɴ

𝗔uburn and golden amber.

The colors danced between the cracks of her eyes before the pain suffocated her vision and she clenched them closed. Rayne attempted to dampen the dryness in her throat with saliva she couldn't muster in this cotton-mouthed state. Her eyebrows folded into one another as she tried to lift her hand to soothe the pounding in her head and only managed the twitch of a single finger.

Her body felt like frozen metal swaying underneath dark layers of the ocean. A soft beating lingered under the hair that was likely curtaining around whatever held her still. A breeze she couldn't understand caressed her naked arms and legs, fingering her skin so delicately, that each hair was raised to an individual, somehow practiced, stance.

The breath in her lungs felt stale as if it had been dormant inside her body for longer than the mundane time of inhaling and exhaling allowed. She kept moving her fingers until the rough calluses on her palms flattened against the surface beneath her.

Miniature balls of fabric laced the whorls on her fingertips, gracing her with a softness she couldn't wrap her head around. Rayne groaned and pinched her eyelids closer together. A sharp prick appeared in the corner of each one, indicating that whatever time had passed, it had been extended.

Rayne felt the first whisper of words leave her mouth as she pried it apart and released an anticipated moan that had everything to do with the pain in her limbs. She moved until her arms felt less like putty attached to her figure, and more like they belonged.

But it wasn't until she reached her toes that she felt stationary on purpose.

Toes encased in socks she hadn't worn to the funeral rubbed against a type of rubber she remembered from memory. The type that she'd avoided every time she purchased nice shoes for court because of the trauma embedded under her membrane.

Rayne tried again to open her eyes but found the dizziness of what she'd been drugged with overpowering her senses, capturing her in this semi-translucent spell. It was as if she were stuck between the drunk spins and a hangover delivered in the hands of the Devil himself.

Something had happened after the door shut—but what?

The last thing she could remember was the haunting face of her dead nightmare. The only thing circling the drain of her brain was the cruel things he'd whispered in her ear like lullabies, and the expression of the backstabber that no one knew was plainly hiding within their ranks.

Then—blackness.

How long had it been since the funeral?

Did anyone know she was missing?—that she'd been taken by the human version of the Grim Reaper?

Rayne's displeasure morphed into physicality. Without intending to, she whipped her body hard enough that she rolled across her post and felt the ground shift underneath her. With a thud, she landed face-first on what felt like a hardwood floor.