Prologue
Everything was blurred. Her eyes struggled to adjust and all she saw were ripples. Waves that seemed to synchronize with the throbbing in her head. She struggled to move, caught between some sort of slumber and awareness. Her mind willed her body to move, but her body was held by an invisible weight. It had not yet caught up to her mind, which was roused and slowly trying to sense something… anything.
The first thing she noticed was how cold she was. Had she left the window open? Had she forgotten to turn on her heat?
Her body slowly began to cooperate with her mind, with no sense of time she didn't know if it had been seconds or minutes.
Slowly, she began to stretch her limbs and attempt to move them. She felt the skin on her arms brush against the floor, which was smooth. Turning her wrist over and sliding her still tingling hand up to her head, she felt grooves and a sandy texture along the surface of what felt like a tiled floor.
She slowly lifted her head, and a metallic scent flooded her nose and mouth.
She blinked, eyes heavy, as she tried to clear her vision. She had started to see color. The stark white of the tile floor hurt her eyes as the light bounced off of it. She began to see more as her vision adjusted.
That's when she saw it.
A deep red color.
The metallic smell permeated her senses again, this time it was stronger.
She felt herself growing cold again as her mind raced.
The metallic scent, the deep red color…
She tried to slow her breathing, feeling her heart begin to beat faster in her chest. Her eyes traveled further and froze when she noticed it was coming from something. Or rather, someone.
Pink nail polish on perfectly manicured hands. Strands of golden blonde hair catching the light, falling against creamy white skin in perfect ringlets.
Ignoring the shooting pain that traveled from her head, her upper body bolted up and stiffened.
Her eyes traveled upwards and she saw the red again, this time on a pale lavender fabric, a vest…
Her heart slammed against her chest. Before she could stop herself, her breathing became erratic, lips parted…
…she screamed.