Her lungs closed in on her, she couldn’t breathe. Darkness, falling, she was falling—her eyes couldn’t see anything—only the darkness. Falling fast, she couldn’t concentrate on anything. All pain in her chest and limbs was gone, replaced with a numbing sensation. She was falling, but there was no wind, no breeze. She tried to open her eyes, but it felt as if they were stuck shut. She reached her left hand for her eyes, but couldn’t reach, something was holding her back, something wet. She forgot about her other hand, her right hand. The falling slowed, the something on her hand was forcing her back into the air, she felt slime run down her hand and onto her fingers—her gloves had disappeared. It was then she noticed her jacket was gone, off her arms. She bent her chin down and touched fabric, her jacket wasn’t gone, but rather the one arm of it was shredded off, the arm that was being held back.
Finally her eyes opened, but only slightly. They opened just enough to see a single white light, it was above her, and getting smaller as she fell further into the darkness. Nothing else was around her except the thing that was behind her, holding her up. She tried to turn around, but couldn’t, nothing on her body seemed to work right. She could feel the wet slime run down her arm, the numbness was beginning to wear off, she could feel the liquid on her hand sting.
Slowly she felt herself turning, her eyes were going away from the white light, the light she liked, she wanted to be with. She was getting pulled away from it. It was terrifying. Now she had been spun on her side. There was nothing in front of her, only darkness. Her mind started to race as her thoughts began to organize themselves for the first time. Where was she? What happened? She remembered this place, for some reason it felt familiar, and that scared her most of all. How could she remember the darkness, the light, the feeling?
The only thing that wasn’t familiar in all the darkness was the wet thing holding onto her hand and the stinging that came along with it. She wanted to see what had her, what it was. Last time she remembered, was only a voice, only threats, only mental pain. But this time it was entirely different, something was touching her, she hated it. She wanted it to let go. She wanted to fall, to plunder to her death to get it away from her.
Her body rotated a bit more, last time her eyes never left the light, she was so scared. But she felt braver this time, she felt more confident, she could look down; she had to look down. She could see something again but this time below her, light—but it wasn’t white like the one she liked, it glowed orange, it was fire. Small dots of fire in a huge circle, they surrounded something, some kind of city. A city in the darkness. She could see walls glowing in the light of the fire, and a moat—the fluid in it too dark to see.
Then she saw buildings, fire was on top of them, keeping them well lit. A castle, there was what looked like a castle in the middle of the city, and she was getting closer to it slowly. Her heart was racing, the smell of burnt flesh rushed into her nostrils—it was coming from the city. Whatever that place was in the darkness, it was evil—darker than she could ever be. It was some place she had to get away from. She tried to look back up at the light in the sky, to see if she could still find it—she had to get back to it, somehow. Her body wouldn’t turn.
The stinging in her hand turned into a burning itch, one she couldn’t halt. The itch reminded her of her hand; she realized she was in the right position to shift her eyes to look at whatever held her firm. Her eyes slowly slid down, she saw a long, wet, circular rope extending from the darkness, she followed it up towards her hand. The rope looked as if it was pulsating, as if it was alive. She saw where it made contact with her wrist, red watery liquid dropped from it and ran down her fingers, it was hard to see in the darkness but she was sure her hand was no longer pale, but rather an ugly gray, the same gray as a zombie’s skin.
The liquid running down her hand glowed in the darkness, emitting its own light. She saw her hand shaking, but she couldn’t feel it. The itching transformed into a burning sensation. She wanted to scream, it hurt, but she couldn’t find the voice to do so. She realized her mouth was stuck shut in the same fashion her eyes were. Then another thing hit her, it was silent, completely silent—she couldn’t hear anything, not even her own breathing, not even her own thoughts.
Her eyes drifted away from her hand and followed the red rope. She followed it, further and further, it was huge. As it got further away from her it grew bigger, it pulsed more, and it grew wetter. Then it started moving, she felt the red rope rotating around her wrist giving more and more slack to its open end. She ignored the burning sensation, determined to discover where the rope was coming from. It was far away now, and to her calculations, almost as big as she was, then it was gone. Gone? Her eyes wouldn’t focus to well, but she could see several white pointy objects as large as she was. The white surrounded a black hole that the red rope slid into, she stared hard and long at the white and red, slowly her eyes cleared and she was able to see better. White—teeth. Red—a tongue. It was a mouth! The rope was a tongue.
Her eyes sped up, above the mouth, a large black nose. Further up, eyes. Eyes… EYES! Her mind exploded with thoughts, her ears ripped open with a deafening roar. She could feel thick warm, humid breath blowing across her flesh. But worst of all, an incredible shock of pain seared up her arm, she let out a scream. She could suddenly move her left arm again; she flung her body outward in reaction, trying to swim through the air to get away from the pain, away from the tongue holding her down, sucking her down—closer to the city in the darkness.
“STOP!” a beastly voice roared, not out of the creature, but instead directly to her mind. Lilly’s body went limp in fear, she was afraid of what would happen if she didn’t listen to the voice. The tongue slithered further up her arm, burning the skin as it touched it.
Her eyes cleared completely, giving her a perfect picture of the thing holding her. Above the eyes were horns, black and twisted, running off into the darkness. The body was a mess of red and black, something her eyes couldn’t quite comprehend. A tail trailed off behind it, seemingly forever. White bone protruded off the mess of red and black she thought was its body, the bone transformed from a meaningless mess to a pair of large wings, covered in what looked like the most fragile, clear, yet reflective silk. The wings were slowly moving up in down, preventing it from falling back down to the city too fast.
“You made a deal with me,” the monstrous voice blew directly into her mind, “Don’t think that getting yourself killed will get you out of it.”
The tongue ran up her flesh, currently passing her elbow.
“You’re lucky I caught you. Again.” It threatened as the pain started to reach for her shoulder.
“Next time you won’t be so lucky.” The pain in her arm increased as the tongue pushed against her flesh, it rapidly pulled her down closer to it by sucking its tongue back into its mouth. But right before she hit its teeth the beast violently spun around its body, taking her with it. She was hurled around its massive body with incredible speeds. At the top of the circle the beast suddenly let go, letting Lilly fly up into the darkness. She flew up, closer and closer to the white light—it got bigger and bigger, she kept her eyes on it, not wanting to stray away from it. She wanted the light—the good.
Then she hit it.
Blink.
Blue sky. Brown sand. Blue sky. Brown sand—she slammed into the sand, sending it up into the air. She heard something in her leg crack as she flipped over in the sand and saw the sky once more. Her suddenly she was in the air again, hurled over the top of a dune. Her chest skimmed across the sand as she rolled down the dune. The hot sand burned her bare skin.
As she skidded to a halt at the bottom of the dune she heard something slicing through the air, a helicopter. Her mind was unable to focus on anything as her body grew heavy. Her eyes were having a hard time staying open.
She heard voices, but couldn’t quite figure out what words were coming out, a pair of arms grabbed the same bare arm the monster in the darkness held onto. She felt someone jump and was dropped into the sand. A voice yelled, she was picked up again, from the same arm. She felt herself being lifted into a helicopter, the cool metal rubbed against her skin. It felt good. The helicopter lifted up into the air. Then a familiar feeling appeared. Sin. He easily threatened whoever else was in the helicopter with secrecy then a body wrapped around her. She felt safe in his arms. She let her mind wonder and her eyes shut completely. She cracked a smile as she felt her body get pulled into a jump. After that there was nothing except peace.
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