When she woke she heard someone pounding on a door.
The vibrating sound slivered through the room all the way back to her.
Pounding and pounding and pounding…
Why didn't they just open the door?
Slowly, as if worried something monstrous would attack her once she looked, she lifted her eyes and looked around. There was no door.
She was sprawled out on a dusty floor in a large empty boxed room with no windows and no doors. She only heard the frantic thump of her heart. But why was she so exhausted? It felt as if she had run a mile non-stop.
She suddenly gasped surprising herself; she had been so frightened that she didn't realize she was holding her breath.
Something didn't seem right; not the room, even though it wasn't familiar, but she could not remember anything. She turned her head and pain shot through the length of her body and her vision swam out of focus. When her vision cleared again she saw the same dull dusty room with the lone candle in the middle.
Closing her eyes she tried to remember how she got here before she woke. But…she couldn't remember anything. Why couldn't she? Did she fall, hit her head, was she… abducted? The thought wasn't comforting but she needed to know. Maybe they drugged me. But why would they take me? She realized…she didn't really want to know what they wanted with her. That is, if she was abducted. But she could think of no other explanation.
She felt no contusions or fresh or dried blood of any sort. No signs of a physical reason as to the loss of her memory. Then it could have been…
She had close to insufficient strength to sit up which, after a struggle, she leaned herself against a nearby damp wall. The smell of mold reached her nostrils and the smell was very nearly intolerable.
Next to her was a small handmade black bag with a thin strap. The contents were scattered around it: brush, small coin purse, book, and leather bound journal. Seeing the contents she remembered, but wasn't able to see where, that she had packed all of these up for a trip. But she could remember no more.
But where, if there was anything else, were the rest of her things?
She strained against the black wall in her mind, attempting to knock it down and free the memories on the other side, but something was keeping her from doing so.
Amnesia.
The dreaded word came to mind as to why she wasn't able to recollect anything. It was something many people, especially her, feared of happening to them. The very thought had her right on the edge of passing out into the deep dark abyss of fear. But, she knew succumbing herself to that would mean destruction. Complete annihilation of her mind.
Abruptly, a thought came to her. The journal, it could have clues to this great mystery.
She reached out but the journal suddenly seemed a mile away, the journal went into a time warp being pulled farther and farther away, like it didn't want her to know its' secrets. The bindings were touching her finger tips but it didn't fully reach her brain.
Just as suddenly it was thrown back and she flinched thinking it would come and smack her upside the head. With the speed of lightning she swiped the journal into her hand and, for a moment, held onto it with a death grip.
When she was certain it wasn't going to be jerked away she flipped open to the inside cover.
Lara Maria Craft.
She had no doubts that this was her name. She also had no uncertainties that she was 17. But she could remember no more. She once again put up a struggle with the unrelenting darkness that plagued her mind not willing to give up any information.
Amnesia.
Ok, first baby steps. I need to try and block it out, and then maybe I can get somewhere. She told herself this with newfound courage and strength but the fear was crouching, hiding, not too far away, ready to strike once her defenses were down.
Lara decided it best to try and find a way out before they, if there is someone out there, get back, to wherever she is exactly.
Lara, with the speed of a 90 year old, placed the contents back into the little black bag. Her arms were cramping painfully, almost agonizingly. She used the wall for support while she clambered up into a standing position. Looking around she realized something that would deter her escape. There were no doors. There was only plain, uncolored walls with no widows either.
If there's no way to get out, then how did I get in? Lara used this question and built on it. If I came in somehow, then there has to be a way to get out. It just may not be visible.
Slinging the black bag over her shoulder she shuffled around slowly and felt along the moist wall.
Lara had no watch or she would have known she had been searching for a full fifty minuets now. To her it seemed much longer than that, the time crept slowly by. By then she felt again that same tiredness but now her legs were cramping along with it.
Just a little rest wouldn't hurt. She had looked at each one of the small walls and she was back to where she had been when she first started. Not planning on sitting, she knew she wouldn't be able to get back up, Lara leaned back and closed her eyes attempting to rest up for a moment.
Alright, that's been too long. They could come here any moment. Lara grudgingly began to push off the wall when she heard a low grinding sound and moments later felt the wall come from beneath her.
She fell to the ground with a deep thud and her head spun for a moment fogging up her vision before the only light that she had evaporated as the wall closed.
Around her…well she couldn't really see but she felt a strange feeling that couldn't be explained with words. Lara gasped when a shadow moved ahead or she thought she had seen one. It's my mind playing games with me. Still, with one hand on the wall to lead the way, Lara went in the other direction away from the shadow, to the right.
Lara has now been walking for a full hour around tenebrous corridors that, surprisingly, have many, many traps. She's come close to deaths door a few times by almost falling through a trap door, poison arrows that were triggered by a pressure plate, and once when she found another hidden door it led her to a room full of mirrors that showed her millions of herself.
There has been no sign of any living thing, except rats, no people and no way out. It's like walking in circles, endless, and continues circles. The air was freezing, too cold to be anywhere above ground. If she remembers correctly it was summer, the beginning actually.
Finding a way out was more important than questioning the temperature. It was shocking she was even able to move around, she couldn't even see her hand that was only a foot away from her face. The only light was an ominous illumination that was seeping through tiny fissures in the ceiling, to her it was like rays of sunshine. It gave her hopes on finding a way of escape. All she had to do was find the stairs that led up.
The feeling hadn't gone away. No shadows though, but she realized it was just her head. Or at least she hoped it was.
Ok, it won't be long now jus- Lara's thought was cut short when she fell face forward tripping over something. She shot her hand out in the nick of time grabbing onto a rail of some sort. For a moment she was frozen in that pose realizing she could have gotten a concussion or bled to death.
Slowly she stood straight and raised an uncertain foot to see if her assumption of what it was was true. Thank the Lord. Lara had to stop herself from shouting this as she found out it was the stairs. Hopefully it was the one she needed.
One long winding staircase later, which was very uneventful save for the numerous times she almost fell, Lara saw light gleaming up ahead. She would have run but she was too…uncoordinated to try knowing she would fall, even if there was light.
Once she was at the top, however, though she still watched her feet, she jogged at a faster, close to running pace. She came to a hall with golden, and strangely lit, candelabras. Farther down she could see something that appeared to be a door.
Again she began the fasted paced trot and when she got five feet away her jaw dropped. It was…it was a…mirror? No, it was a see thru mirror. Lara had never seen anything like it before but what lay beyond it interested her more.
She took a careful step and seconds after her foot touched down the lights went out. The feeling became stronger and now it felt like a presence was with it, a dark presence that she could basically feel the anger radiating off of, wherever it was.
Instead of pondering over it she ran the rest of the way to the escape way and began feeling for ridges on the edge. But a thought came to her, perhaps she could open the mirror the same way she fell through the wall.
Not too long after she put this thought in action the mirror disappeared. Sliding through before it could close she gave a sigh of relief once through and out of that dark hall.
The abhorrence presence completely dispersed when the mirror closed and she sat down on a chair close by. Her whole body was aching, her legs especially. When she sat she heard a crumpling sound and pulled a paper from under her.
From the moonlight that seeped through the window she saw it was a picture of two girls. On the left was a beautiful girl with golden locks and unreal blue eyes that seemed to pierce through her soul. The other girl had murky brown hair and deep green eyes; her skin was ivory white that was probably too pale. They both had M shaped lips but that was the only thing that they shared in common.
Thunder cut through the sky outside and for a while Lara sat there listening to it's rythmic beats. Soon rain began to pound on the window bringing her out of her reverie and she rose but froze when she felt the presence and this time, she knew it wouldn't go away.
Alright, I'm continuing this story and rewriting it in third person. I hope that anyone who was reading this will like the change and please tell me what you think, I want to improve anything that needs it. I must admit that I did quit this story from lack of reviews but I decided to try and revise this to make it more interesting and this time I'm not going to quit. Chapter 2 should be up in a few days, might be less considering when I can finish the chapter for my other story.
I want to give special thanks to SammiRichGurl for being my first reviewer.