STRANGErs In The Night

Chapter 1: Awakening (not the sexual kind)

Strange woke up noticing that her eyes were already open. This, she thought rather detachedly, made sense, because she was frozen head to toe in ice. Strange then realized that she wasn't breathing. This was strangely calming to her (no more lung problems I guess) and she decides to take stock of her situation.

After about thirty minutes she decided that her situation was even worse than she thought, because she was covered in chains and had a sword sticking out of her goddam chest. To make it even worse, about 15 minutes ago some random child snuck into the room and had been staring at her from the corner ever since, and it was starting to get on her nerves.

The kid in question was dressed in a black wool habit, and her face was a shade of grey that could only be gained by living underground your whole life. Her eyes, however, peering out of her pinched and sallow face were alive in a way that only the watery blue orbs of a repressed child could be.

It was about then that something clicked for STRANGE, and she broke the chains upon her right wrist, and the wrist broke with them. She broke the chains that were upon her left wrist, and the left wrist also; so followed the chains upon the right ankle and upon the left, until her arms and her legs and the chains were broken all as one. Then she raised herself up, shattering the lid of the coffin and the chains around her neck and torso did also break thusly, with great snapping and discomfort to her.

The girl stared at this display, eyes wide as saucers, then walkd silently across the floor of the cavern to kneel beside the moat, where she bowed her head in prayer.

STRANGE lightly vaulted over the side of the coffin, and as her broken bones healed, she entered the pool of salt water around her cold stone island. And the waters parted for her, and it became possible to walk, crunching through the bones at the bottom.

Strange looked over as the girl whisperes her prayers, and noticed that the girl was crying quietly, her tears running down her face and dripping on the floor. despite her earlier annoyment at the child, strange was not a monsters, and she felt a sort of pity for this girl.

walking over, STRANGE kneeled on the ground next to the peculiar child and tried to vonxlole her, but no sound came from her mouth. realising she couldn't talk becIse there was no air in her lungs, STRANGE manually sucked in a breath and spoke for the first time in æons (strange æons!).

"Hey," she said in a voice as harxh as the grinding of. a mill stone, " are you okay?"

the girl looked up from her prayers, tears still streaming down her face. Her eyes blazed in her face with a cold fire as she met STRANGEs gaze.

The child rose and said, O corpse of the locked tomb, I have loved thee all my life, with mine whole soul and mine whole strength, little as they be.

STRANGE processed this for a couple seconds, stared at the kid like "excuse me, what the fuck", then decided she definitely didn't have the energy for this rn, and turned away to look for a door, pulling the rapier out of her chest as she did.

Honestly, the chamber more closely rembked a cave than a room. Its walls were of dark stone, sheathed in ice and carfved in places with strange statues. The floor was rouch stone as cold as ice, withan island in a pool in the centre. The chains that had encircled her for so long extsnded deep into the bedrock.

She continued looking for an exit. Behind her, the girl's tears subsided into the (rarely seen) look of a child rezigned to their fate.

Soon STRANGE found a door. However, when she went to open it, the doorknob started to turned the other way... almost as if something was on the other side. As STRANGE hurriedly stepped back and brandished her new sword, thedoor swung open, revealing the oldest lady strange had ever laid eyes on, black eyes blazing out of her gaunt face like flames of disappointment. (she also looked slightly like she was going to have a stroke.)