Chapter 1

Taylor woke up slowly with a hazy mind and it took her long moments to even realize fully that she was indeed waking up.

The first thought rushing through her mind before paralyzing fear flooded her system was "Fuck! I have failed!"

The thought let tears burn behind her closed eyelids. She was honestly afraid of opening her eyes now. She had no idea who could have found her in time to save her, it should have been impossible and her mind cannot process how she could have failed. The plan had been utterly fail-proof after all.

She tried to focus on her breathing, trying her hardest to get her frantically beating heart to beat slower. She knew that she would only work herself into a panic attack if she didn't.

Next, she tried to focus on the surface beneath her and what she felt under her palms made her pause. She expected to be residing in some form of hospital, maybe even fastened to a bed, but she was most definitely not even lying on a bed. The surface felt all wrong for that.

"Is that grass?" she wondered with a frown as her panic slowly diffused giving way to puzzlement. She took a deep breath, eyes still closed, focusing on the smells around her and her frown only deepened. There was no stench of antiseptics in the air, the smell she immediately associated with a hospital, instead she was surrounded by a weirdly earthy smell. Taylor could not remember a single room in the hospital in which she worked, which had this specific smell.

"Am I in hell?" she wondered, finally gathering the courage to blink her eyes open. She had to close them again immediately for a second as bright sunlight blinded her momentarily. Taylor distinctly wondered if she may just be under some form of anaesthesia which was muddling with her mind.

When she opened her eyes again, she could finally manage to take in the scenery around her. She recognized that she was in an extremely dense forest and indeed lying on a patch of grass in a small clearing. She had absolutely no clue where she was though. She tried to remember how the forest in her city looked like, but she shook her head in growing frustration. It did not make a single bit of sense that she somehow would have found her way here. Taylor had never actually spent any time in the forest of her city, not having enough free time.

She slowly noticed that she was not dressed in her bikini any longer either, instead she was dressed in the outfit she had worn the day before. Dark skinny jeans with the sweater and her dark sneakers. Cautiously, she reached out towards her right arm, shoving the sleeve of the sweater upwards.

Taylor blinked dumbly at her own arm for long moments. She could clearly remember that she had cut deeply into this arm, but all that was left now of the undoubtedly large wound was a faint scar, as if that had happened months ago instead of only hours. She knew that from a logical view that the arm impossibly could have healed so quickly, it should still be bleeding profusely and not having faded into a thin reminder of a scar.

Something about this forest made her pause. Taylor was pretty sure that she had never been here. She had never been into hiking or such. She had always been the typical beach holiday type of a person. Although she was certain that she had never set foot into this forest, something about it rang weirdly familiar, which only confused her more deeply. How can a place be familiar although I am sure to never have been there?

Taylor suddenly remembered the film "The lovely bones" and immediately wondered "Am I in some form of heaven?"

She had never really payed what happened after death too much mind. Every time she had wondered about it, Taylor usually just feared that death would indeed not be the absolution she had been hoping for and right now, she was unsure of what to think might have happened.

Taylor wondered if calling out would make any sense, but she was unsure if she was alone or not and something clogged her throat, making it impossible to speak up for now.

Slowly, she got to her feet, deciding that just staying in this place made little sense. No matter where she was currently, she could just look around and do some exploring.

Taylor moved through the forest at a slow pace. She was not exactly talented in hiking and usually managed to trip on a perfectly flat surface, so, she was careful now not to stumble and get hurt. She somehow highly doubted that she would find medical equipment in the vicinity in case she would manage to break a bone with her typical clumsiness.

Although she had never been the biggest fan of nature, even she now had to acknowledge how beautiful this forest around her looked like. Its wildness immediately fascinated her, it appeared almost untouched by civilization and Taylor had not been aware that such a place still existed on earth. She still had no idea of where she was or how she could have gotten here.

No matter how careful she was, Taylor of course still managed to get a foot caught on a root she had overlooked and immediately tripped to the ground with a startled yelp. She barely managed to shoot her hands out in time to catch herself at least partly before she would crash to the ground face first.

Taylor could already feel that both her wrists smarted uncomfortably from catching her whole weight and that she had scraped her knees, but she immediately forgot the sensation of pain when her eyes fell onto what must be a skull directly in front of her on the ground.

With a slight grimace she reached out towards the skull and her eyes widened in fright when Taylor recognized from anatomy class that the shape of the skull did most definitely not match the anatomy of a human skull.

"What the fuck…" she muttered under my breath in astonishment as her mind tried to process what it had just seen. The forest around her did suddenly appear like a dangerous jungle to her. Taylor had never been in a jungle before, but even she knew that the climate was different and although she was no expert in botany, she recognized how the trees looked all wrong for that too.

Taylor tried to remember if the form of the skull allowed the conclusion that it belonged to some form of ape. But she discarded that idea as well, remembering the first semester of biology. Apes with this long skull had grown extinct a long time ago and she could definitely not think of a logical explanation of how it could have gotten here.

For some weird reason Taylor could not pinpoint currently, the skull did seem familiar as well somehow though. Her eyes looked around in alarm now, hoping not to spot any possibly mutated animals.

She was utterly confused now and muttered a summary under her breath of what she was certain of right now. "You are not in your home town, you are in an unknown location, surrounded by possibly mutated beasts" she muttered to herself.

"Absolutely no reason to panic" Taylor tried to calm herself, feeling the panic wanting to take hold of her mind. "Could I somehow have travelled back in time?" she suddenly wondered. As dense as the forest was, she guessed that such a forest will undoubtedly have existed in the past, but probably not anymore at least since the industrialisation. She was not familiar enough with botany to be able to identify by which trees she exactly was surrounded by at all.

Nothing was making sense right now. Taylor could quiet clearly remember how she had tried to take her own life. "So, how in hell have I come to be in a forest god knows where and when?!" she thought with rising frustration at the whole situation.

Taylor's expression darkened visibly when she noticed that it was just beginning to rain, too. She had always hated rain with a passion. She loved water itself, loved to swim, but getting wet by rain was a whole different story to her.

She of course lacked any jacket or umbrella and she had no idea where she should now search for shelter. So, she trudged through the forest with a dark look on her features, cursing her fates in her mind. "Had a peaceful death really been too much to ask for?" she wondered sarcastically.

Her expression darkened even further when she heard thunder resonating around her, as if the heaven itself had decided to answer her thoughts.

"Yeah, I get it!" Taylor spoke out loud through clenched teeth, glaring up at the sky and crossing her arms over her chest like a petulant child. She let them sink a moment later when she realized just how ridiculous she was behaving. No one was with her anyway.

Taylor continued to walk through the forest, feeling her clothes slowly getting soaked. She just noticed now that her wavy hair was fastened into a high ponytail and the strands which were too short to hold in the hair tie had fallen down and were plastered to her face now.

She could have sworn that she had worn her hair open when she had attempted to take her life, but she discarded her mussing again. It hardly mattered why her hair was styled differently. The much more pressing question was still where she was and if she was alone.

She had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do if she failed to find another human somewhere. Taylor had never been longer in a forest than for an extended walk, never even camped really in a forest. She knew that she would probably starve or die of some infection on her own in just a few days.

"Too bad that Sabrina is not with me right now" she thought and the thought of her best friend made her chest clench painfully. The girl had vast knowledge of nature because she had been a scout since early childhood. She would not be so helpless right now.

Taylor's expression turned from moody to frightened when the graveness of the situation began to truly sink in. She was alone, utterly alone in an unknown location without any kind of equipment. She was not feeling particular hungry or thirsty right now, but she knew that this would change all too quickly. She could not even be sure on which plants would be safe to eat. If she only had agreed to partake in the survival course Sabrina had wanted to do and had found no one to go with her. Taylor had immediately declined back then, telling her that she would hardly ever need survival skills out in the wild while working as a doctor in a hospital.

Although she had grown up in a really tiny village, Taylor had never been much of the nature type. She had always dreamed about making a career in some metropole. She hated getting dirty, camping and absolutely loathed all kinds of insects.

Suddenly, Taylor spotted what appeared to be a deer ahead of herself between the trees and she remained rooted to the spot. She had seen a few deer already back in her small village, where they lived on the fields surrounding it and in the tiny remainder of the forest. But she had never seen one up close. Carefully, Taylor edged closer to the animal, forgetting to watch out for her steps and she managed to trip again.

The sounds she made while trying to catch her balance before falling once again, startled the deer and the animal abruptly turned into her direction.

The breath got caught in Taylor's throat when her eyes locked with those of the deer and all she could think was "No, no, no! This has to be a fucking joke…!"

Its head was split in half and it looked horrendous.

Suddenly everything clicked within her mind as the pieces fell into place. The forest, the deformed skull, the two-headed deer and the familiar feeling she had since waking up.

Taylor could recognize everything now. And although she recognized everything, her mind refused to accept this.

"It is utterly impossible to fall into the reality of the 100!" Taylor's thoughts argue against what a part of her had already acknowledged. The first season of the 100 had been her favourite and she had watched it several times. She vividly remembered now how the 100 encountered the very same deer, spotting the very same skull.

Taylor's breath hitched as her mind raced. If she forgot the impossibility of such a thing happening for a moment, then Taylor needed to find out at which point of the series she currently was.

She had read about this concept of a jump through reality happening in probably a hundred Harry Potter fanfiction and she could not deny the proof in front of her very own eyes. "Maybe I am in fact in a coma?" Taylor wondered thoughtfully, but as she felt the pain radiating through her wrists, she concluded that it didn't matter for now. If she could hurt herself, then maybe she could also die here. What would happen then?

Had the 100 already fallen from space? Had the Mountain already fallen?