No, cold isn't a strong enough word. The chill that fills... this place... seems to seep through my skin into the very marrow of my bones and touch the end of each nerve. I've never felt this cold. I'm not wearing anything. I don't know what I'm lying on, but it is harsh against my wasted skin. My hair is limp and dirty. My mouth is filled with a familiar taste of foul acids and bacteria.
Black.
It's all I see. In every direction. Little rainbows of color spot the black. I close my eyes, open them again and find the same thing. Just black. Seems too ironic that this should be my fate. Somewhere in the black, laughter sounds. It stops. The silence rings deafeningly. I stop my uneven breathing to listen... Nothing moves. I hear no more noises. I let my breath out loudly.
Maybe it was my imagination.
My ears are humming a dull roar of a tune that slowly, very slowly, grows louder. My breathing is the only thing I hear. I imagine I can hear my heart beating, I can hear the blood rushing through my delicate veins, sustaining me for now. But that's only my imagination.
I push against whatever it is I am lying on, attempting to stand. The shadows force me back to the ground. Invisible hands force me to stay where I am.
The laughter sounds again. It mocks me. Mocks my attempt to escape. For now I'll let it have its way. For now I will be the prisoner. The prisoner in this place full of unnamed shadows.
That's when I look up, too far up for me to measure. That's when I see the tattered cloth against a small white light. The white light in the shape of an arch. The humming in my ears is getting louder. I know that arch means something, I just don't know what.
Something important to me lies past that arch.
I know I must get out of here. I must reach that arch. It's what will keep me sane in my newest prison. In the first, it was my innocence. In the second, it was my duty to those I love. In this one, it will be that arch. Why it matters, I don't know.
But no matter what horrors are keeping me here, I will reach that lighted arch.
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:-:silver-sunn101:-: