A wet sensation permeated her subconscious; she had not wet the bed had she? It was cold all around forcing her body to shiver and become painfully aware of aches, fully formed bruises and various objects stabbing her. Opening her eyes in increasingly widening blinks, Kari groaned and sneezed as the scene before her welcomed with its strangeness. What was this place? Mist, rock and water all around.
Carefully, she pushed herself up, hissing at the stiffness of her limbs and crawled forward out of the pool of water she half lay within. This was a rock pool, salt water caked across her lips making her thirst for something fresher. A beach? It was difficult to see, the world caught in a perpetual twilight and blurred with great billowing swirls of fog. Hands forced under armpits to keep warm, she righted herself and bit her lip in additional concentration as she traversed the rocks down towards what she hoped to be sand. This was definitely not Jotunheim, unless some strange variation of the typically snow covered world never seen before.
Movement caught her attention, shapes and shadows shifting further along the beach out of all recognisable sight. Whatever these things were, they appeared humanoid enough from their outline alone. With brow furrowed and the hair rising cautiously across her skin, Kari wandered into the mist with but a sliver of hope.
"Hello?" She called out to the people around her. "Is anyone, uh, nice and friendly around?"
Stumbling on further rocks prodding out of the sand she came to a halt in front of a muttering shadow mere feet away. Its words seemed confused, a man perhaps by the deep tone of his voice. The way he shuffled made her instinctually step back only to knock against another silhouette in the mist now known to be the shape of a tall woman in rags. She could not help it, it was instinctual to scream at the sight of milky eyes staring down at her bringing further attention through the mist to her person.
"I cannot die." The walking corpse of the woman spoke like gravely air. "Do not let me die."
"Oh my god! Oh my god!" Kari was delirious, wide eyed and shaking with added vehement as she twirled around finding herself surrounded on all sides by corpses begging and pleading her to live again. "Don't touch me! Leave me alone!"
"Take me with you?"
"Let me live again, I will be a better man this time."
"This cannot be the end."
"Do not let me die!"
"No! No!" She screamed, trying to push past the crowd only finding her self latched onto by rotting hands. "Get off! Please?" Tears dampened her face as she continued to struggle, zombies on all sides pushing, tugging and covering her in slime her mind refused to process as any possible substance. "NOOO!"
Caught off balanced by the shuffling tug of war, she collapsed under her own feet as bodies piled on top of her clawing at her flesh. Screaming was becoming difficult, finding oxygen was becoming tricky and trying not to vomit at the stench of her new friends was almost impossible. Thrashing did little good, kicking even less so as she resigned herself to making high pitched squealing sounds and pinching her eyes tightly closed to pretend this was not real; this was not the end.
A new noise filtered through, muffled and powerful in its tone. She paid it no mind even as weight began to lift from her chest; chittering, hissing, gnarly tearing and snapping of bones only caused the now foetal woman to bury her head in her forearms and blubber profusely into her soiled shirt. If she had not wet herself before, she definitely had now but it was a worry beyond her minds current capabilities.
As silence fell around her, except for the rush of waves in the distance, Kari panted as she gulped oxygen enough for her lungs between shivering sobs. Something gentle, soft but wiry in nature, glanced across her bare arms. She was dimly aware of a shadow above her, large and protective in its nature but it still took several minutes for the haze in her mind to clear enough to allow courage to seep back in.
"Y-you?" Kari lay perfectly still as she stared up in mixed relief and awe at the giant spider from so many years ago.
The spider chattered excitedly, several large orbs all focused intently on the girl beneath it. Drawn by the intensity, Kari sat up brushing the back of her hand across the length of a hairy leg initiating an overly sensitive motion from the creature as it pulled back reflectively. There were torn bodies all around them, flesh, bone and heads separated from their once whole self now littering the sand. She stood indifferent of the carcasses, though pausing to retrieve a rusted sword left lying amongst the debris.
"Good spider." She praised her old friend making to follow her protector across the beach and deeper into the land of mist.
It felt as if they had been walking for hours as the spider drew her further away from the shore and into a rocky valley. The occasional tree sat amongst the crags; half dead in appearance but clinging ever so tenderly to life. Great strands of webbing appeared as if out of nowhere around her, see through but lubricated with great bobbles of water droplets that caught the light in magnificent fashion. She stared bewildered at the artistic nature of the spiders home, the creature in question disappearing with all dainty tread into its nest checking on acquired prey. It was better if she did not touch the webbing, least she get caught in the fly trap and so instead skirted the maze looking further into the valley reasonably sure of her safety.
The fog grew deeper as she neared a point to her right; a cave formation making its presence known as she felt along its sides aware of the warmer moisture in the air. Deeper still the cave turned out into a larger domed structure worn away by time and tide of old. There was a light cascading the walls in brilliant green and blue, her fascination intrigued further as she discovered the source to be a bubbling pool within. Warily she reached forward, her fingers grazing the surface of water only to recoil with a yearning surprise.
A hot spring? A very inviting hot spring, she realised as she looked down at her soiled figure with a moment's disgust. Oh this was a perfect distraction to find in such a horrid realm.