After Elizabeth pleaded, it was as if the entire world listened to her and went utterly silent. It was an eerie feeling, like everything around her ceased to exist after that moment. The fear inside her festered and grew when it felt that her sense vanished without a trace. She couldn't feel the floor she was sitting on, or the terrible smell of sweat from whoever was in the gymnasium before her.
Along with the absence of her senses, as if a blessing given to her out of pity, the brutal headache and accompanying nausea were completely flushed out of her body. Although she was relieved by her pain fading away, her heart was still racing furiously and waged an emotional war with this feeling of emptiness she had.
Elizabeth gripped her hand and tried to scrape the floor a little to get some sense of anything. The first time, nothing. The second time, also nothing. After the third attempt she could feel something, but it wasn't the smooth wooden floor she had been sitting on. It was rough, grainy, and warm like desert sand.
Then her hearing returned, but she couldn't hear the ambience of the university anymore. Crows screeching disturbing caws, unearthly growls far in the distance, a faint beating like a heart, and quiet but ever-present screaming from unknown sources.
Her eyes shot wide open, a feeling of terror crawled and sunk through her being. Her surroundings had changed completely, trembling as she found herself no longer in a normal gymnasium. The floor was earthy like she had felt before, and the walls looked almost organic... red and pulsating ever so slightly. The doors were still rather normal in appearance, but they were very worn down, one of them even looking like it could fall off its hinges at any moment.
The most disturbing sight for her was when she looked up at the windows near the ceiling. It was no longer a bright, sunny morning. The sky had a bloody red hue to it, and the sun itself looked like it could die out at any minute. It was like something straight out of a horror movie for her.
Elizabeth stood up with her bag, shaking her head back and forth. “I-I'm going insane... what the hell is happening here?!” she screamed out while clutching her head tightly. “This is a nightmare right?!” She screamed again, twisting and pinching her arm to wake up from this horrific place she found herself in.
But her attempts were all for naught, as no matter how hard she tried, she was unable to ‘wake up’. Her panic and anxiety were starting to take over, the disturbingly quiet noises she heard were getting louder the more she thought about them. Refusing to linger any longer, she bolted through the doors that were behind her.
When Elizabeth came running out, she paused and looked around. This wasn't even just a hellish looking version of where she had been, the layout was completely different. Instead of a straight hall leading outside with a couple rooms along the way, there were a dozen different doors and lockers on either side of the hall. Glancing towards the end of the hallway, she could see that it just turned down into another one.
She looked at the closest door, hearing a strange squishing noise in the room on the other side of it. Her body moved without a thought, reaching out with a trembling hand as her morbid curiosity took over. She slowly cracked it open, the door creaking with age while she peeked her head inside.
Inside the room was a small 'creature', the type of thing she had only seen in fictional movies or books. A disturbing little abomination that was about the size of a monkey. It's skin was smooth with a reddish tint, having razor-sharp claws on its hands and feet. The demonic creature had no eyes, but the squishing noises she heard before was it feasting on the corpse of some other type of abomination. Whatever this thing was, it must have had a way to navigate properly.
Elizabeth held a hand over her mouth, both to keep herself silent and stop herself from throwing up after witnessing the gory scene. Without any hesitation she closed the door, as carefully as she could, her life likely depending on it. Her whole body was wracked with fear and confusion, finding herself in a state of complete denial.
She thought she was safe once the door was closed, but as she backed up, her shoe kicked the side of a locker. She froze on the spot, keeping her mouth covered and listening for a reaction. Her noise was barely audible, but apparently that was all it took. The squishing sounds stopped… but after a couple moments a hellish shriek pierced her ears from inside the classroom.
The shriek was accompanied by wild thrashing inside, but the greater concern came after that. From almost every other room in the hallway, the same shriek and thrashing sounded out in unison. It appeared that the creature she found was not alone.
Elizabeth's eyes went wide and she threw caution to the wind. As the thrashing got closer to the doors, she moved into a full sprint down the hallway, going around the corner and hearing the doors crash open once she was out of sight.
There were no signs of any other people as she moved through the building, not a single soul that could help her or even prove to her that this was a nightmare. She had never been more terrified in her life, all of her adrenaline pumped through her veins to keep her legs moving. She looked back down one of the longer hallways, screaming in fear when she saw the pack of a dozen little hellions crashing past lockers and chasing after her. She didn't know how long she had been running for, but under the current circumstances it felt like an agonizing eternity.
Elizabeth slid around the next corner and her eyes lit up with hope. The exit door was just ahead, but the creatures would catch up with her before she could reach it based on the distance. Thinking quickly, she slowed down and grabbed onto one of the lockers in the hallway. She opened it up and squeezed herself inside, placing her hand over her mouth once again to keep the noise down.
More otherworldly shrieks echoed through the building as she heard the little hellions slow down. Her scattered brain had at least made a good hypothesis, she seemed correct in thinking they acted on senses besides sight. Several members of the pack split off and broke into different rooms, a couple even going back the way they came from.
The few that remained nearby were sniffing around, knowing that Elizabeth's scent was close but they couldn't pinpoint her without sound. Her heart was trying to escape from her body due to the stress, it hurt so much to breathe that she had to hold it to regain moments of relief.
One of the hellions brushed by her locker, stopping and climbing its way up to the small slits near the top of the door. It growled hungrily, it's absurdly long tongue falling out of its crooked toothed mouth when Elizabeth's scent became more noticeable.
Her eyes were wide with fear, tearing up almost as she stared the monstrosity down without it even knowing. Beads of sweat dripped down her forehead as she waited. She kept her other hand down on the edge of the door to make sure it wouldn't try to open it, at least she hoped.
Too many minutes passed with the creature lingering around, exuding a terrifying pressure on the poor woman. After not hearing any changes in the area though, it hopped back down onto the floor and scurried off. Elizabeth couldn't wait any longer with the exit nearby. She silently opened the locker and left the door open, knowing there were still a few of the hellions left in the rooms nearby.
She began to silently walk to the front doors, but without realizing it her body was moving quicker and quicker to get out of the building. By the time she was a few feet away from the doors to freedom, she instinctively made a leap for them to reach safety.
Elizabeth crashed through the front doors, shouting in pain as she tumbled down and fell onto her knees outside the building. She looked back with wide eyes as the doors closed themselves behind her. A few moments of relative silence passed, it appeared that she was free. The hellions weren't shrieking and causing a ruckus inside from what she could hear, meaning her nightmare adventure was over.
Her haggard breathing made her chest burn in pain, but she noticed something changed now that she had left the building. It felt cold outside, and she could clearly see her breath as if it was the middle of winter. When she turned back around and stood up, she found that a lot of the yard around the building was obscured. Giant pillars of ice were scattered all over the destroyed yard, and an icy mist was beginning to roll into the area.
“I found you...” the voice of a young woman spoke out in a breathy tone. It was elegant, soft, and almost calming in a way simply to listen to.
Elizabeth wasn't sure if it was the sound of the voice, or the cold taking over her body, but either way she felt less frantic than she had mere moments ago. She gripped her hands tightly. “Who said that?!” she called out with a terrible attempt at being intimidating.
There was silence for a minute after she posed her question. However this silence was eventually broken by the sound of ice cracking and shattering against the ground. She looked over nearby, seeing the icy mist swirling around in a small area, slowly forming a pure ice crystal that took on a cocoon-like shape. Once it was fully formed, the ice exploded into tiny sprinkles of snow that rained down over the yard.
The source of the voice emerged from the ice, and just as the voice indicated, it was indeed a young woman. Unlike everything else she had seen in this place, she was anything but monstrous. Her skin was pale and smooth like a porcelain doll, with markings formed of frost decorating various parts of her body. Her long icy blue hair flowed down to her back and danced in the cool wind.
Elizabeth took a step away from the woman, feeling both fear and calmness in a state of emotional conflict when staring into her icy grey eyes. “Y-You didn’t answer my question!”
The woman took a gentle step towards her, the ground beneath her bare feet becoming frosted by her touch. “My Master has been waiting a long time for you...” she whispered. Her voice was carried along by the wind as it blew past Elizabeth's ears.
“I... I don't understand what you mean.” Elizabeth replied with a heavy stutter, her fear mixing with the cold was making it difficult to think and speak properly.
The icy woman was lifted softly off the ground by a breeze beneath her feet. Having her hover only a couple inches off the ground, it carried her over to the confused girl. She leaned in close to Elizabeth's face, gently placing her hand upon her cheek. Her hand was extremely cold, but somehow the feeling wasn't unpleasant in the slightest. “My Master can explain everything once you come along with me,” she told her with a cool breath.
She gently pushed the woman away and shook her head. “I don't know who you are or who this 'Master' is that you're talking about, or where I even am!. If this is real... I just want to get back home. Please leave me alone!” she shouted with a stressful crack in her voice.
The elegant woman shook her head in response and grabbed Elizabeth's arm firmly. “I am sorry, but even though I did ask you, this is not a choice. You will be coming with me now,” she demanded coldly.
“Get away from her!” a familiar voice in the distance called out.
Before either women could respond, a searing ball of bright red flames flew at them and struck the icy woman. The surprise attack hit her with enough force that she was sent flying away from Elizabeth. She cried out in pain as she flew and skid hard across the ground, finally coming to a halt when she crashed into the side of a nearby building.
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