Katelyn.
Consciousness returned slowly for the girl. Its gentle ebb and flow never managed to quite snap her wide awake as she drifted in and out of what felt like a dreamless sleep.
Then, without warning, the world coalesced before a confused and addled mind while it chuged desperately to find traction...
A cave extended upon all sides around her, its cool, somewhat wet air flitting across her skin as she tried to take a breath—and failed.
Panic bloomed in her as she was taken right to the precipice of wakefulness, her mouth opening to the laughing chorus of chattering wood as she desperately tried to suck in air for her lungs, tried to keep herself alive while scrabbling for her face but—found herself in an inexplicable situation!
Strangely, her chest did not tighten with the lack of oxygen as she flailed, nor did her vision darken at the fringes…
Moreover, her hands, which she tried to raise with the hopes she could tear whatever bindings held her mouth and nose closed—didn't respond.
Katelyn stilled for a hesitant span, mind whirling as though her heart should be beating a mile a minute, yet she couldn't—feel it…
There was no clammy sweat forming on her back or brow, no small organ in her chest threatening to burst with the hysteria of it all… Her hands and legs, which she'd initially thought were restrained, didn't respond with so much as even a faint twitch…
Slowly, very slowly, Katelyn forced herself to relax, demanding rational thought and calm to smother her in their familiar embrace. To rediscover their balance so it might work her through the gut-wrenching terror that had flowered.
"You're—still in the hospital bed…" She assured herself, closing her eyes—or trying to, yet finding them stubbornly abstinent from her commands.
Again, she tried to shift herself while purposefully ignoring the world around her, but, at the most, all she managed with her efforts was a scraping, thudding sound like that of a screeching chair being pushed across the floor.
Her visual field tilted slightly as though shifting from her slight maneuver, and though it was decidedly dull, Katelyn knew she could feel herself sort of—rock over the uneven stone beneath her.
Nothing was feeling right… Not her body, not her senses, and especially not her eyes... And while her mind was slowly trying to piece things together, collecting the shards of broken memories like they might be clues to a puzzle, a curious—need arose within her, demanding to be met.
A terriblehunger the likes she'd never known rumbled through her consciousness like the thunder rolling across a dry storm…
Her stomach didn't make a sound; there was no—physical reaction to the rabid and primal need but it nonetheless flooded her as an approaching tide. Commandeering her thoughts with daydreams of searing steaks and barbecuing sausages...
The grease as it dripped from sweltering burgers to sizzle on the grill and burners below, the gravy made from the turkey's fatty juices as it baked in the oven with all manner of accompanying delights... her every hypnotic thought making her—salivate.
It was with a monumental effort of will that Katelyn managed to tear herself from the fog of hunger, the need becoming genuinely painful to endure, even as she controlled herself to regain her faculties!
She felt like she was starving… an appetite unlike anything she'd ever known, almost pleading with her to feed herself, yet dreams and fantasy weren't how she could solve her malady, rather a hole she'd do little but sink in.
Katelyn had long since known hunger... intimately, in fact.
The truth was that she'd always loved to stuff her face as a child, and, for a brief few years, she'd even been fat before learning to master her appetites through the art of fasting...
Thus, taking a mental, shuddering breath, the young woman battled to regain her center, her brain racing to focus upon something, anything else but that desperate aching need within herself so she might simply survive its carnivorous desires.
Once more, her thoughts fixated upon her gaze, refocusing as she peered around herself, hesitant as much as she was confused.
Her mind could recall the following snippets that had been her ruined life...
Of Brandon pulling her ashore by the nape of her shirt, even as he collapsed with exhaustion...
Of the ambulances and paramedics as they'd swarmed them...
Those finite moments of episodic lucidity as she'd tilted in and out of consciousness until nothing...
Thus, as her gaze swept across the space before her, Katelyn was, rightly stated, confused...
It was a cavern… and no matter how many times she stared at a differing patch of stone, stalagmite or stalactite, the fact remained the same. There were no monitors or curtains she could readily spy on. No distant voices of nurses, no tiny television in the room's corner, no bed, window, painted walls, or white ceiling.
Just—a cave…
Moreover, when she did work up the courage to peer down at herself, Katelyn felt an odd—disconnect transpire.
Her sightline moved as though she were a spirit separated from her form, drifting forward a fraction so she might peer down upon her own body in an entirely nauseating but, quite frankly, novel manner...
Staring at the uneven, rough floor, her eyes became glassy, mind plateauing as she paused.
She'd, well, sort of expected the ground to look like that given everything else, though what waited upon it was—not to her presumptions.
Truly, though she wasn't even sure if any of this was real, her mind, ever helpful and imaginative as it was, had nevertheless compiled a short list of reasons she might be left here exposed, alone and lost as she was.
First and foremost was that she was still dreaming, and only now, upon death's very door, had her mental faculties seen fit to grace her with a proper fever dream...
Obviously, the notion had its issues in its own right… Chief among them being that Katelyn did remember her time drifting in and out of the darkness.
So much so that she could have even said it was but an earlier part of her day… And though ignoring the fact that the world around her did not carry the same—levity and disconnection from her senses that it normally did within a dream, she was pretty sure she was, in fact, awake…
Second to that, zombies…
Though, if joining the ranks of the undead felt this lucid, then she wasn't sure how the movies really came into play… Not to mention they weren't exactly—real…
Still, waking up in a cavern with all your limbs feeling sluggish and nonexistent after being quite certain you were going to die had a—thematic reach… that was just workable if she tried at it...
Especially given the whole, overwhelming desire for meat…
Nevertheless, Katelyn appeared to be dealing with a notably concerning issue...
Before herself, resting on the ground at her feet, lay a box.
More of a chest, really… and further still, of a specifically medieval and fantasy sort, replete with the barrel-like lid, iron-banded reinforcements, and small, unlocked latch.
It was of an unassuming style, basic and nondescript, looking like what one might envision an adventurer to stumble upon at the earliest stages of their journey…
Completely underwhelming
Carrying with it the expectation that what lay within would unquestionably be—mundane.
The sight filled her with bemused apprehension, her gaze swiveling away from the thing as though she actually stood before it. Turning on a pivot to re-examine her surroundings.
A cave.
One way in, one way out.
In the distance, the occasional flicker of red-orange light offered thoughts of genuine flames burning in some unseen chamber, the darkness that surrounded her inky and cast in shadow, though curiously, it did not hinder her visual acuity.
The occasional drip of water itched at her senses like a nagging fly, the stale, unmoving air thick with a musty miasma that brought with it mental images of her father's old stinking shoes in the closet.
It was—not a pleasant comparison, and she did her best to shift her attention again but, honestly, found little of interest.
The space wasn't tight per se, but more than four people standing abreast would find the circular chamber somewhat snug.
Beside her, two other chests of a similar, uninteresting variety waited, their states of security much like the one behind her.
Above, the ceiling was just a ceiling, the floor, simply a floor…
Truly, there was earnestly nothing that was sparking any semblance of memory or—explanation as to why she was here save for what she could recall of her own and presumed self-inflicted demise.
It did not help that things were decidedly… queer feeling in regards to her body… which was notably absent.
Still, she tried shifting herself again, spiritual epiphany as she may very well be undergoing or not… and what she managed for the attempt was little more than a bump that manifested from behind her.
She—turned, frowning deeply as she did so.
Katelyn stared at the box and replicated her little wiggle, and horribly, the chest scraped in turn, its wooden form actually twisting a fraction like it was made of stiff jello, one corner lurching to manage a tiny, pitiful squirm.
"Noo…" She whispered to herself, spiritual eyes narrowing with disbelief. A singular word rising from the quagmire of depressive reality…
Reincarnation.
She tried it again, watching as the chest moved, feeling the scrape of its exterior planks as though they were her flesh, sensing the pulling tug upon the form's lower half as it distorted from its shape and squirmed before snapping back into place.
"A fucking box?" She demanded, incredulous as much as she was horrified… "How is a box even alive?"
She had thoughts after all, so, didn't that mean she had to have a brain? N-no, that was such a stupid way of looking at things... And besides, how was she already at the stage of relating herself to a freaking crate of wood?
Immediately, the correlation between her apparent separation of new self and spirit bred the notion that she was some—poltergeist haunting an inanimate object… A ghost of sorts that could—interact with its linked anchor to the world.
But that didn't quite follow as the hunger that was presently eating away at the fringe of her sanity reminded her of more—life-like concerns…
She forced herself to move again, this time, really concentrating on the sensations and finding them not only to be—instinctual in a manner of speaking but decidedly tactile…
Glaring, Katelyn tried to step away from the strange—thing she was connected to. Able, for the first few moments, to manage a near meter before a concerning straining occurred.
It wasn't exactly a wall in the conventional sense, but a physical incapability… a tether that refused, no matter how hard she tried, to allow her even a modicum further of distance...
This wasn't a matter of simply walking up a particularly stiff hill when speaking of the resistance she encountered, but, more like her body was leashed to a damned post!
Returning, she tried again, this time in a different direction, refusing to accept her situation for what it was, even as she rapidly exhausted every possible angle she could manage. Going so far as to—float and try escaping upwards, only to discover the same eventuality she had before.
Trapped.
She was trapped…
Her soul—bound to this—existence…
It only took her a handful more seconds to begin to realize a glaring number of growing deviations that, with her continued experiments, became painfully clear.
First, her sight.
While her focus could generally be said to be a directed thing, the realization that she possessed a sort of—spherical sense, a kind of multidirectional peripheral sight, was—dizzying once brought into the light.
She could stare at her box, while not only sure that the flickering light outside was present but empirically certain as its dancing clung to the rim of her perception.
Likewise, if she turned, her—well, body, what was immediately around it was ever omnipresent in her mind, regardless of which way the chest actually faced.
Naturally, the understanding that she wasn't breathing made itself known again as she began comparing the strange and alien signals to what she was, in point of fact, used to.
Her sense of touch was muted, present but, only so as if she were wearing thick mittens. The feeling akin to what she'd lived with her entire life in the most vague of examples.
She possessed no arms, no legs, fingers, toes or even a head, her form, in its entirety, was rectangular save for the rounded top.
Thankfully, absent a handful of noteworthy reasons, Katelyn was actually a rather rational, inquisitive and cooly calculating individual. And as soon as she came to the determination there was to be no escape, her mind allowed the notion to drop by the wayside...
Curious now that the insanity of it all was losing its shock value, Katelyn twitched something that felt like a mouth to her, watching as the chest's lid bounced with her tentative exploration, then exploded open as she pushed further, giving caution to the wind.
She stared at the odd scene, the next natural step aided by the confidence of new instincts—clear, however, for the briefest of moments, her mind was truly baffled by the reality that was an empty interior.
No guts, no gold. Not even so much as an errant spec of dust…
Then she let go… watching and feeling as gleaming razors sprang from the open perimeter like switched blades, the vile fang-like protrusions shooting into reality from hidden places while a void swirled in its depths…
A long, coiling appendage manifested from a swirl of darkness, emerging like some horrid pink worm, the undulating and thick appendage continuing to slither through the air until it lazily flopped over the lid, pulsing like it possessed a genuine heartbeat while it—salivated.
Katelyn could only watch in dread as it all took place, standing or possibly floating before a waking nightmare like she hadn't ever experienced before.
She wasn't a fool. She could feel the cool crispness of the air on this latest addition to her world, could taste the gritty mineral of stone as what felt like an arm to her wiggled itself about in all its gag-inducing glory…
God had pimp-slapped her right into another dimension and made sure she was to suffer for whatever slights she'd offered.
Reincarnated… her soul jammed into a genuine monster, which, given the ambiance of it all, resided where a team of plucky do-gooders would undoubtedly stumble upon her and—end her wretched existence once and for all...
"Bitch!"
Was all a young woman could manage as the implications and unapologetic reality of it all hit her like a speeding train.
"They fucked me! Not just a little, and not gently either… This is—bull shit!"
Glowering now, she glared at herself, not bothering with denial at this point, given all the clear conjecture. Wishing she could go full Karen on the likes of whatever angels acted as their lord busy bees… yet deflated as she chuckled to herself darkly.
A punishment…
Her just deserts for being—herself…
Well, shit, if she'd known the dickhead was actually real, then maybe she'd have given it all a touch more interest! Yeah, she had attended church on a regular basis since being a small girl, but that was only so she could keep her hands on daddy's money...
Idly, she wondered what heaven was really like, assuming that if this fantasy-knockoff horse-feces could exist, then certainly it had to as well.
Honestly, she hated it.
She'd never liked video games and certainly hadn't ever enjoyed reading with any approximation of enthusiasm... That had all been Brandon's thing... And while she'd tolerated his asinine escapism fetishes, she did so only when it benefited her interests...
There was, of course, an extra consideration in that, possibly, she fell into a third sort of category...
One not good enough for the old palace in the clouds, but not evil or vile enough for hell, or perhaps evil and vile enough for hell, but in the end, her prayers had at least won her some form of brownie points...
Heck, she might very well just have been yeeted out of her own reality for not fitting in with the whole grand design, tossed out the proverbial window of the universe like a doll whose owner had lost interest and was already onto bigger and greater things. That didn't exactly lessen the sting that was her situation but…
Voices suddenly emerged from the gloom, sounds that, while distant and muddled, stood out like sirens in her ear.
Panic flooded Katelyn again as she willingly fell upon instinct to guide her, allowing her—inner self to slither back into its hole, her teeth to reset, and her lid to ever so gently close as to make not a sound...
She looked around herself, suddenly nervous and perhaps just a little afraid, trying to think of a way to communicate, to explain that she was a victim here! And, haha, that they didn't need to kill her!
Katelyn working up a storm of possible ideas and solutions—bribes that would get her out of this mess... R-right, of course, until the moment she knew she was out of time…
Her entire body froze over, her mind stuttering to a dreadful halt as she watched several figures manifest from the corridor.