I peel my eyes open and the piercing light immediately slices through my consciousness like a knife. I try to clench shut my eyes again but the intensity only increases, and soon I am left with a splitting headache. I lay there motionless, feeling the luxuriously soft sheets contour to my body. The only sound of air is my struggling breaths. When I manage to loosen the shackles of the sheets with my right foot, I open my eyes one more time, blinking involuntarily in order to adjust to the changing brightness before me. I keep taking long pools off air, telling myself that everything is going to be all right and I don't need to panic. It's the breathing exercise that stuck with me since college.
I am in a dark, eerie room with gothic features that is so strange, it feels like I'm dreaming. Torches burn at the corners of the room to reveal countless artifacts, each casting an eerie glow around the room. My skin crawls with fear as I look at the walls and spot a distorted painting of a dining hall, while strange vases line the shelf to my left. A chill runs through me as I painfully realize that I'm completely naked and vulnerable in this unfamiliar room. Pulling the sheets around me as if that could protect me from some unknown danger, I tremble as my eyes search for an escape route that doesn't seem to exist. I have this strange feeling of deja-vu, like this has happened before, which is impossible because this is by far the strangest place I have ever been in. What I remember is climbing the mountain after speaking to my friend Dorothy, but everything after that is so unclear.
A chaotic flurry of thoughts races through my mind. My heart is pounding in my chest and I feel the walls pressing in on me. My throat tightens, I can hardly breathe and my vision blurs as I grapple blindly with the sheets that cling to my sweat-drenched body. Then, with a thunderous crash, I lunge from the bed in a desperate attempt to escape this anguish-filled nightmare. A sharp pain pierces through me as I hit the floor. I am weak but I know I should pull myself together, I don't even know if the door is unlocked or not.
I groan in agony as a sharp searing pain radiates from my throat. With trembling hands and shaky knees, I attempt to get off the ground, but before I can even sit up, the door to my right suddenly bursts open and I lose my balance, slamming hard onto the floor. The impact of the fall stuns me momentarily and I struggle to push myself upright. I'm barely able to comprehend what I'm seeing as three menacing, naked figures step into the room, their pair of horns, tails, and eerie eyes all trained on me. Monsters, I'm seeing the real monsters in the flesh while my mind keeps telling me that this should be impossible.
I scream in fear as I take in their bizarre appearance; the intensity of their stares penetrates my skin like a hot needle is being driven into my flesh. They are hideous and small but largely built at the same time, but what shocks me the most is the fact that none of them seems to be wearing any clothes.
"Stay back! Stay away!" I shout, pushing myself away to the corner of the room. Terror coursed through my veins as I plaster myself into the wall, hoping to stay as far away as I can from the three monsters. My breathing becomes shallow and my skin feels hypersensitive as the panic starts coursing through me. I scream out in fear, brandishing my fist at the three strange creatures in front of me. They are small, their skin is a sickly grey color, and their eyes are like black pools. Their faces were expressionless, their arms hung loosely by their sides, and they simply stood there as if waiting for something. My limbs quivered with exhaustion as I finally stopped, my arm still held out protectively in front of me.
"Jane, what's wrong?" one of them questions with a voice filled with apprehension.
"Who the hell are you?! How do you know my name?" I shriek in a trembling and broken voice. I know how to defend myself.
"It's me," one of the monster's replies, taking one step closer toward me.
In reaction, I quickly scuttle back until my head slams against the shelf and I clutch one of the vases tightly in my hand. "Don't come any closer!"
