When Lily woke again it was a sudden and painful. She was ripped from sleeps sweet embrace right into the cruel, cold, and dark world. Her eyes shot open wide as she was bodily yanked forward into a demons face. Her immediate reaction was to scream, but it was cut short as she was backhanded by the beast. It spat words at her, but she didn't understand and of the words it spoke.
"Please don't hurt me!" she pleaded. The thing sneered and kicked her in her side. He kept a tight grip on her upper arm, turned around and spoke again in his demon tongue, seeming to call others from the dark forest. Lily whimpered, the pain in her side was too intense to get out any words, she felt like she couldn't catch her breath. Rustling came from the trees next to her and two others melted out of the darkness riding atop giant wolves. Lily choked on tears as she saw them, she knew that no good would come of this. Their sneering faces looked down at her their faces were a leathery green, pulled tight against their skulls. Lily quieted herself down as much as possible, trying not to draw any unneeded attention to herself. A rope was handed to the one holding her and he quickly looped it around her neck. He yanked it tight, she was unable to breath. She thrashed around like a fish out of water, she could hear them laughing at her pain. Suddenly the tension eased, the rope was still tight against her throat but she could breath. She had no time to recover as she was yanked up.
They tied her up to their wolves and were dragging her behind them as they travelled. If she slowed down for even a moment she was yanked forward by her neck, either forcing her to speed up or be dragged behind them. What felt like hours passed by, her clothes were tattered and dirty from falling to the ground so many times during her journey. Her lungs were screaming at her, but she trudged forwards regardless. She didn't have much else to do but to think about her situation, where was she? This obviously didn't feel like heaven, but it didn't all seem like hell either. There was too much green for it to be hell, wasn't it supposed to be fire and brimstone? And why the hell was she stuck in this child's body? Many questions came up, but there were no real answers. Her capturers seemed to find amusement in her pain, laughing when she fell and even throwing objects at her to hear her cry out in pain. She tried to think of a way to escape, but she was flanked on both sides, it didn't seem likely. And honestly, she wasn't some story book hero, she wasn't brave or cunning. She was almost resigned now, but what purpose did they have for her. Were they going to kill her, eat her, or some other such horror? Did she care? After all it was only yesterday she was prepared to end her own life. Thinking on it though, she wasn't sure she wanted to die, at least not in this manner. Her heart beat even louder in her chest, what the fuck was she going to do? Probably nothing, die a cowards death, fitting for her.
Eventually her body could take no more and it toppled to the ground. Her chest was wheezing, her arms and legs shaking, and her vision blurring. Her capturers didn't stop, and she was dragged along the ground, her knees and elbows scraping along the ground. Her hands grasped weekly at the rope around her neck, preventing it from blocking her airflow completely. Fiery pain lanced through her extremities as layers of skin were scraped away, but she could not get up.
Not much time had passed before they finally stopped. Daylight had broken and they moved into the dark canopied forest to escape it. She was dragged one final time by her neck over to a tree which she was tied to. They mostly left her alone by then, bickering between themselves, though of what, she had no clue. She sat silently and assessed herself, she was bleeding or bruised almost everywhere on her body. She didn't even think she'd be able to lift her own arm if she wanted to. That meant there was no possible way she'd be able to get out of this situation. She was well and truly done for.
Lily slowly forced her tears to stop dribbling down her face. Her breathing calmed, and her face evened out into a blank mask. What did it matter? There was no possible way she'd be able to escape. She had already tried to off herself once, she rationalized to herself. What's some extra pain matter? It was obvious to her that she was going to die at some point soon. They hadn't given her water, blood was slowly pouring from her body, and she was already collapsing from exhaustion. Even if they themselves didn't kill her, the situation she was in would. It would all be okay, she silently soothed herself, this couldn't last for too much longer, it would all be over soon.
She couldn't fall asleep, the pain kept her awake. She kept her bleary eyes on her guards. Two were lightly snoozing, and the third was on watch. She didn't like the hungry look in his eyes when he stared at her. Time was passing by slowly for her when suddenly the wolves jumped up, their hackles raised. She looked around in fright, what was happening? Her capturers began yelling to each other and grabbing weapons. Suddenly she heard a faint thumping sound coming from some ways away. One of the monsters came running at her, its mouth twisted in an ugly snarl. Just as its clawed hands were about to grab her around the neck, an arrow protruded from right between his eyes. He stiffly fell forward onto her. Her weak attempts at pushing him off proved ineffective. She could hear the fight going on around her, but she could see nothing. Eventually all noise cut off. Her breathing was heavy.
Light footsteps approached, and the body on top of her was being peeled away. Lily was frozen in terror. The sight that met her eyes was almost unbelievable. There, in front of her, was a real person! A person who had saved her from the monsters, a beautiful….thought slowly faded from her as her eyesight blurred and began to blacken. The last thing she heard has the strangers bell like voice yelling out in a worried tone, then no more.