Chapter 1
A young woman with green hair and brown eyes wakes in a damp, dark cave. Her surroundings are unfamiliar, the air thick with moisture. She cannot remember how she got here or why she's so disoriented, but she knows one thing: the cold grip of fear and of the unknown is all too real.
As she moved around, a rustling of leaves could be heard and a scent of floral note filled her head.
She wears an 'antique' pajama gown, torn and soiled. A leather strap holds an empty purse against her back. Her feet are bare, her limbs scratched and bleeding from sharp rocks, but she doesn't know how it happened.
Thirst, hunger, exhaustion—they gnaw at her, but she's unaware of their weight. Her mind is foggy, her senses distant. She moves forward, unsteady and disoriented, hands brushing against jagged walls as she searches for something familiar, something to anchor her in the sea of confusion.
The sound of water dripping echoes faintly in the distance. She follows the sound, hoping it will lead her somewhere. A drop of water lands on her. With terror, she jolted and fell on her behind however, without fully understanding why, she finds herself gazing upward, longing for more. As it dripped in, her parched throat feels as if it's been liberated.
Desperate for the same sensation, she moves around for more until she finds a crevice in the cave floor touching her toe. A pool of water nestled in its depths. Without hesitation, she kneels and drinks. The cold liquid soothes her dry throat, chasing away the dizziness that clouds her mind.
But the ache in her stomach, the gnawing emptiness, remains. Not knowing what it is, she moves forward, her eyes still adjusting to the dark.
The cave stretches on endlessly. Eventually, she notices an unfamiliar familiarity ahead, a faint warmth that stands in stark contrast to the coldness around her and the spots of cold inside the warmth itself further proves her instinct. As she draws closer, she rounds a corner and is struck by a sharp pain in her eyes. The light feels as though it's searing her vision, burning every inch of her. She squealed and dropped down to the floor on her sides and simultaneously, a guttural shriek could be heard from the direction of warmth.
Instinctively, she shields her face, her hands trembling against the unbearable horror. But still, the warmth cuts through as though pulling her attention. She peers cautiously through cracked eyelids and sees them.
Dark figures, short and twisted, with long noses and ears, all kneeling around something. There were six of them, their faces obscured by the flickering flames of their torches but two of them were looking at her direction. The cold inside the warmth shift unnaturally as the creatures move, their bodies hunched over something what could only be described as a grotesque, broken form of something larger and more refined than any of them.
The figures stood up and ran toward her, all the while making the same noise but now more terrifying accompanied by hissing and clicking of their throats. The 'water' on their faces is thick, unnatural—like something too wrong to comprehend. It stains their mouths, their long noses, and, to her horror, it's the colour of the 'water' which stains her own skin.
An intense fear claws at her insides, though she doesn't understand why. She scrambles back, trying to escape, but one of the figures catches her by the heels and drags her across the rough stone floor. Her clothes tear as she's pulled, the burning pain of skin scraping against jagged rock overwhelming her. The sickening 'water' coats her, and the agony is unbearable.
She screams and cries, but the sound was swallowed by the cold. The creatures toss her into the center of the warm space, next to something that feels achingly familiar, but broken, its form unrecognizable. The 'thing'—a broken shell of something once living—lies discarded like refuse, bathed in the same thick 'water' that stains her and those monsters' body.
The creatures kicked and threw away that broken 'thing' with it's head detaching and rolling away from impact, letting out a deranged maniacal raspy laughter. Witnessing that, she tries to move, to scream, but no sound escapes her lips. She's too lost, too broken—her eyes were as though they were hollow. One of the creatures grabs her by the hair, lifting her by force, while others restrain her limbs. She's suspended in midair, helpless, as the horrifying realization takes hold: what they did to that other thing—they're going to do to her next.
The terror finally overwhelms her, and she blacks out as they begin to bite into her body.
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Time passes.
The last flickers of flame from the torches die out but one, plunging the cave into a cold, eerie silence. The walls, the floor, and the ceiling are coated in dark, crimson and green liquids—some thick, some thin, but all of it carrying a weight that presses down on the air. With the abominations' carcasses scattered throughout, all torn and slashed.. some parts missing—the grotesque imagery is too much to bear for anyone with sanity intact, but it's inescapable for her.
She lies still, abandoned in the center of it all uncovered in the filth but her own staining 'water', as though the very world has decided to save her. But then, slowly, her eyes flutter open.
She finds herself lying on a bed of rustling evergreen leaves, their scent faint in the cool, humid air. Cup-shaped white flowers, with golden yellow stamens, dot the leaves around her. Above, vines of maroonish purple snake through holes in the ceiling, their leaves intertwined with the same white flowers.
For a moment, she wonders if she is dead, recalling what had happened against the muddied surroundings of her current situation
.
That's when she saw it—the monsters are in the same state of that 'thing' they defiled.
Her body aches, but the pain feels muted, like her consciousness was protecting her. Then, emptiness in her stomach claws at her again, and her torture becomes unbearable then, as if summoned by her need, she notices it.
A blackened one of the flowers—their petals darker, as though corrupted, floating from the ceiling and the flower rest atop one of the creatures' bodies, their thick, grotesque form still spilling that strange, dark 'water'.
The emptiness gnaws, as thought it's alive and telling her—Commanding her to do what they did to that 'thing'. She knew not either she's being forced or willingly doing it, all she knows is that there's no other way to fill the emptiness.
She crawls toward the fallen abomination, her hands pressing into the thick, disgusting 'water' that stains the cave floor. It smells sour, like death itself, but she doesn't hesitate. As though she was digging for treasure, she dug and dug inside it's carcass until her fingers finds the heart within the creature's chest while pulling it out with a sickening squelch.
Without even thinking, she sinks her teeth into the heart. The taste is vile—bitter and foul—but something inside her stirs. The same thick, red 'water' flowed from her eyes. The emptiness that consumed her fades, and the pain in her body begins to heal, her torn flesh knitting itself together as she continues to feed.
The emptiness vanishes, replaced by something new, something raw. She longed for more.
As she finishes, the last flickering torch flickers out completely, leaving the cave shrouded in darkness once more.
She stood up.
The vines above her twist, their evergreen leaves and darkened flowers trailing behind her from above as they follow her further into the cold.