My Life is a Working Title

Running fast through the woods, breathing short, my lungs constricting as a powerful stitch takes hold of my left side. I bite back a scream of agony as I trip and slide face first down a ravine filled with plenty of sharp stones and thorn bushes, reaching out with my hands to somehow stop my slide towards the gods know bow long of a drop at the bottom, clutching fingers searching for purchase among the dried leaves, bracken, rocks, thorns... anything as long as it stops me from free falling into the rapidly approaching abyss beyond. A sudden jerk, and a slithering stop as I am suddenly upended, with my head now facing towards the cusp of the ravine, wincing and whimpering in agony as I feel blood start to trickle down my arm from the newly opened wounds in my hand. In my desperation I've managed to grasp a particularly gruesome-looking thorny vine, the sharp spikes perhaps half an inch long and digging into my hand. Then again, they're probably the reason why I stopped at all; my flesh is now well and truly caught on this demonic plant, and it's refusing to let go. My feet feel for toeholds in the rocks below, and I manage to find them by kicking away layers of dead foliage from the tops of the stones. Well, I think to myself, that explains why I slid so far on sharp, pointy objects. Then again, it could just be because I'm almost dug into a cliff face. As indeed I was; looking up, the rocky side of the ravine above me was quite a bit more than a forty-five degree angle. Not straight enough to be considered a cliff, but then again, steep enough that I might as well have brought some climbing gear to get myself back out.

The sky was just beginning to lighten; dawn was approaching. I finally freed my hand from the vine, reaching down and ripping a strip off the bottom of my shift. Shift? I could have sworn I fell asleep still dressed last night. As a matter of fact, I don't remember going to bed at all. The last thing... wait... what was the last thing I did? Think... hmm... Library. No, study. I was in... someone's... study... what was I doing? Reading? Yes, that sounds about right. What was I reading? Umm... what do they call those things? They're big, and dusty... old book... tome. That's it. Tome of spells. Spells? What am I talking about? A strange neon green flare rocketing over my head startles me out of my reverie. I finish tying off the bandage around my wounded hand, not even bothering to catalog my other injuries yet. I can feel scratches, bruises, welts, bumps, and other assorted painful things over my body, and a slow trickle down my cheek tells me that my face hasn't escaped the notice of the decidedly rough ride I took to get down here. I can feel my ankle throbbing as well; I hope it isn't sprained or broken. I still need it to run for just a little while longer. Then I can curl up in a ball and cry myself silly.

The green flare, or that I thought was a flare, is behaving strangely. It's floating. It seems to be examining the ravine, looking for something. It flutters back and forth madly, like a butterfly searching for nectar. As curious as this makes me, I instinctively shrink down to make myself smaller, less noticeable. Something deep inside says I should be very, very afraid of this strange green thing. Just then, one of the rocks I'm standing on gives way, allowing plenty of other rocks around it to loosen as well. Suddenly my stomach is up somewhere in my throat as I let out a scream of terror and plummet into the crack at the bottom of the ravine, my hands still groping uselessly for a hold, even when I've ceased to be in reach of anything. My heart, beating fit to explode out of my chest, suddenly stops altogether as I drop like a stone, my eyes wide as the darkness envelops me. I fall forever, it seems, and I've a feeling that I've read about this somewhere before. A girl and a rabbit hole, or something like that? Well, that information is useless to me now... It appears that I'm going to fall until the Apocalypse.

I shoot up in bed, breathing hard, my body covered in sweat, hair sticking to my forehead and cheeks, nightgown plastered to my body. I grip the soft covers around me until my knuckles turn white. I can't see anything. I scream and scream and scream, my mind unable to process what's happening around me. All I can do is scream agonizingly because of some not-quite-remembered fear, some dark, malevolent force that seems to be pressing in around me, stealing the very air from my lungs as I gasp for breath and beg it for mercy, my body beginning to seizure, eyes wide as those of a frightened horse and rolling back in my head.

"Shit! Someone grab her arms, grab her arms! You have to hold her still if I'm going to get any of this crap into her! Ready, and... now!" Suddenly there's a pair of strong arms pressing my shoulders back into the soft mattress, and another pair holding down my legs as a large hand pinches open my jaw and pours a foul smelling liquid into my mouth, holding it closed until I swallow, repeating the process until I've taken the entire disgusting concoction into my body. Funnily enough, even though it's the most heinous thing I've ever tasted, my muscles relax, and my mind quiets, the fear that previously gripped me retreating to the shadows, lurking now only in the back of my mind, where I can see it only if I don't look at it too hard.

"What... where... hole, falling. Not hole. Crack. Darkness... swallowed..." I mutter brokenly, unable to get a full, coherent sentence in before I'm off to a blissful unconsciousness again, my sore, throbbing aches forgotten again as I drift on a wave of manufactured restfulness. I try to pry my eyes open, to take in my surroundings, but all I get before I'm taken back to my own personal dreamland is the sight of two sets of black booted feet exiting the door, and the impression of a rather large someone settling itself in the chair next to the bed that I'm only now aware of. Strangely enough, even though it was only for an instant, the eyes of the person haunt my forced dreams. Such a pretty, piercing blue-grey...