The door was locked. Someone was coming. The bolt wouldn't move. A scream pierced through the particles in the air. Shouting, lots of it. More screams. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, her heart jolting it round her body, pounding, pounding, faster, faster. Begging, pleading, helpless.
A bang. Blood was trickling along the floor, like a satin ribbon delicately weaving its way around her feet, warm and crimson... then darkness.
So much darkness.
It was suffocating. It pushed down on to her, she tried to hold it off but it was too strong. She couldn't see, she was blind in this place. It was bone chillingly cold. Not a sound, not a glimmer of anything, nothingness. She felt so alone. Like nothing ever before. She felt as if she was the only person who ever existed. It felt like hours were slipping by, and at the same time, that all the clocks had hung still, suspended in the air, leaving no evidence of minutes, days or months behind. The blanket of black immersed her. It crept down her throat and into her lungs, it pushed its way into her blood, freezing its path leaving her feeling hollow. She realised she was fading, crumbling away under the carbon surrounding her, she was too weak to stop it from seeping into her brain...she couldn't fight much longer.
Suddenly, a flicker. A flicker of light pierced the eclipse and it streamed down, warm and comforting. So beautiful, she suddenly felt the urge to get nearer to the beam, to feel its glow on her empty body, to feel less alone, to feel its touch. "Jennifer." A whisper echoed around her, vibrating in the emptiness...it didn't fit. She carried on towards the light, she was getting closer. "Jennifer can you hear me?" it came again, so close she could touch it but so far away at the same time. She was slowly shaking off the grip of the darkness, everything seemed clearer with this light, this was where she was supposed to go, and be, where she should have been her entire existence. The whisper sounded again more urgent then the last but the beginning was mumbled. The only audible word she grasped onto as it floated around her was "crashing". She continued forward, the light within reach, if she could just stretch out her hand...
A beeping sound was filling her ears. "Clear!" This time the whisper became a voice, it was harsh and loud, desperate. The light flickered, losing its beam. She panicked, she couldn't be left alone again, couldn't let it leave. A jolt ran through her body, snatching her away from the glimpse of light. The force crawled around her ankles and clasped onto them tightly, pulling her further from it. The beeping was filling her head, it made the darkness spin and twist and she fought back as she was being dragged away from the comfort of the celestial beam. "One more time!" the voice boomed and an electric current seized through her veins, over taking the darkness. It lit a spark within her and she stopped fighting the force to let it take her. She didn't feel afraid anymore. She knew she was ready.