"He told me I shouldn't go wandering off." She mutters to herself. "God, I should have listened." The area around her was a confusing, twisting maze of hallways, the carpet she was standing on twisted further ahead with the hallway so much that it ended up on the ceiling. She would have continued down the twisting hallway, but not two feet from where the carpet twisted to the ceiling, the hallway ends in an a rather unwelcoming fashion, like it had been erased from reality.
Sighing, more annoyed than frightened as the girl was fairly fearless-though she just considered herself logical-she instead turns to the doors lining the hallway. While Strange will find her, who knows how long it'll take, considering she didn't even know if he knew that she was missing yet. So instead, she'll continue to move and try and find a way out.
It can't get much worse than what she's already seen.
Looking between a few of the only usable doors-some too far and others too small-she picks on at random, a green country looking door, and opens it, glancing inside. Though the door opens, there doesn't seem to be a floor on the other side, just a void with visuals reminiscent of a kaleidoscopic drug trip.
"That won't work." She mutters as she starts to close the door, but before she can, a long, sickly, hand reaches out and grabs her arm, pulling her inside. She lets out a shriek but can't react before she's cleared the doorway; the door slamming shut behind her.
She wretches her arm free of the cold hand and takes a swipe at it, making it retreat with a disembodied hiss. The sound was inhuman and she wonders what the hell just touched her.
Glancing down, she sees that her feet touch nothing. Gravity still exists, as she can feel the pull on her body telling her she's upright, but she doesn't feel as though she's falling. Glancing around, her stomach turns a little as her brain tries to tell her body what's up or down; trying to ground her in some sort of logic. But the disconnect between her visual perception and her body was making her ill, much like normal motion sickness.
As she looks around, her eyes widen as she suddenly realizes what else she's not seeing.
"Shit! Where's the door?!" She spins around in place frantically, looking for the door she'd just come in, but sees nothing.
Quiet, inhuman, laughter fills the room and makes her jump. She sees nothing as she looks around for the source, but a wave of emotions washes over her.
"Wh-what?" Her heart starts to race at the feeling; the emotions that don't belong to her. Again, the voice echoes through the room, a chilling laugh followed by a flood of foreign emotions.
"Stay~ Be with us~ We can make you feel happy!" A wave of happiness washes over the woman; an emotion so powerful it would probably sway most others. However, this woman reacted in a completely different way as her own feeling of dread at feeling such strong emotion, which she rarely did, drowns out the false feeling.
"We can make you feel sad to leave." Again, the foreign feeling washes over her but her heart just throbs with the strain of such a strong emotion. She grips her chest where her heart lies beneath and shuts her eyes tightly.
"Stop!" She calls into the void, but the voice just giggles and she feels something touch her lower back. She jerks away as an even stronger emotion floods her from the touch; a mixture of happiness, pleasure and vicious loathing.
Again, her heart throbs.
She was one of the few people she knew who did not feel the same highs and lows of emotions, the same range and intensity, that her friend did. This wasn't persuasive as it might be for others, for some friends she had, those that felt these emotions in such intensity and refused to control them. For her, this was foreign and painful.
Another touch and another painful flood of emotions, this time all negative. She cries out in pain and clenches her heart harder. She wants to tear it out, to rip it from her chest to alleviate the pain, and she honestly doesn't know if these are her feelings or if they're the feels being forced upon her.
"Let go. Come with us. Be one of us. Feel everything." It hisses the last word right beside her ear as several hands, more than she can count under her stress, touch her at the same time, grasping at every part of her and filling her with a cacophony of foreign emotion.
Pleasure, lust, desire, happiness, anger, sadness, loathing, jealousy, ect... The list could go on forever and included feelings she has no name for. Her nails dig into the flesh of her chest above her heart so hard, they start to draw blood as she screams out her agony, her only true emotion.
As the pain worsens, her survival instincts kick in and take over. She lets out a shout and the hands are suddenly repulsed by a wave of powerful energy from her very core.
Without thinking, she mutters an incantation and waves her hand in a long, circular, sweeping motion. A tinted bubble starts to form as she 'sits' on the nonexistent ground and pulls her legs to her chest, still grasping her chest, her heart pounding under her palm. The bubble forms around her and suddenly, everything outside is muffled. She closes her eyes and presses her forehead against her knees as she continues to grasp at her chest, now bleeding beneath her hand.
Small waves of continued foreign emotion fill her, lighter but still a strain on her sensitive heart. She wasn't well equipped to experience emotions she, herself, never had in such intensity. Perhaps theses were just aftershocks, but the entire thing left her exhausted and her world quickly went black under the strain.
Arriving at a green country door, behind which he felt the energy of his pupil, Strange opened the door without hesitation or worry for his own safety. He slipped inside and looked around, ignoring the door closing behind him.
In the middle of the room was a grey tinted bubble, currently being clawed at by the multiple hands of the abomination that was trapped in the room.
"Leave." Strange commands as he waves his hand and forces the creature away, pinning its true form-a sickly grey mass of twisted limbs and mutated flesh-to a corner of the room.
He moves to the bubble and places a hand on it, examining it. It was sturdy but it was clear a lot of magic was going into maintaining the protection, more magic than even he had assumed his pupil naturally possessed.
It was difficult to see inside but he managed to make out his pupil, currently curled up.
"Odd." He mutters to himself. Untrained as she is currently, the fact that she had not succumbed to the will of the abomination was impressive but curious. Particularly with the raw and unprotected magic she possessed, she should have been easy prey for the abomination. And it likely would have gotten to her before she thought to put up the bubble.
Perhaps he underestimated her reaction time.
With a swift swipe of his hand he dissolves the bubble and reveals the girl.
"You not only got to her, you touched her." He mutters absently to the creature, which now squirmed violently in an attempt to free itself and claim its victim once again. Of course it would want such raw power, but naturally, Strange would not allow it to take his pupil.
He tightens his magical hold on the creature without so much as a conscious though and approaches the girl, lowering himself to her height and looking her over.
"How did you resist this much?" He mutters, looking over every mark the creature had left with its touch. Though also visible to normal eyes as deep red welts, there was a toxic purple magic lingering at each wound that indicated a lasting poison. Based on this and the twitching and shivering of his clearly unconscious pupil, she was still feeling the effects of the creature's attack.
"Let's get you out and fixed up." Strange mutters as he reaches out to pick her up. He pauses when he gets close and sees the red he hadn't earlier. Placing one arm around her back, he presses against her shoulder with the other and her limp body tilts back easily, leaning against his arm, her head now on his shoulder.
From this position he can now see the self-inflicted damage over her heart, deep wounds clearly-at least to the doctor-self-inflicted. Seeing this, it makes more sense.
"Now that's rare. That'll be both advantageous and disastrous...we'll have to work with that." He knew how she worked now, in terms of how she felt, subdued and peaceful, as well as the level of control she had over her emotions.
Strange felt the tug on his magic as the creature started to squirm again, like how a spider feels a fly caught in its web, and tightens his grip on it yet again as it thrashes and struggles to get to its exposed prey.
"This one's mine." He says simply as he picks up the exhausted girl. "She is under my protection, you foolish thing." He tightens his grip till it cries out before loosening is and making his way to the hidden door, opening it and slipping out before releasing the creature.
The door shuts in time to keep the creature locked inside, though it continues to slam against the door in its attempt at retrieving its prey.
Strange simply ignores it, as well as the struggles and screeched of the other creatures, now roused by the high concentration of new, raw magic, as he heads out of the labyrinth. He noticed a full hand print on the girl's arm, one still covered in the blood from her chest, and oozing that toxic magic. Still holding her, he grasps that part of her arm with his hand, covering the slim hand print easily in his larger palm, and releases the curse.
The moment he does, even despite all of the other toxic marks on her body, the girl's face eases with relief and her breathing becomes easier.
"You'll be okay." He chuckles. Clearly his pupil was hearty and full of potential. Despite his feelings earlier, he made a good choice.