MALUM

Chapter 1

On a desolate dark concrete road, two bare feet could be seen stumbling in the darkness. Nothing but silence could be heard in the air. A thick kind of silence that could make anyone's ears ring in discomfort. The type of loud silence that swells and starts to echo through a person's skull, nearly driving them mad. Only the sound of skin walking on an old concrete road could be heard. Walking in the darkness towards a lit street lamp, the distant eerie orange street light began to reveal that the figure walking was that of a young woman. Tears running down her face, she looked as if she were dazed and confused. It almost resembled that of a wild animal in an environment with which it was not all too familiar. Holding her arms crossed and near her stomach in an attempt to warm her limbs up and console herself, she sheepishly made her way towards the light as she silently sobbed to herself. Halfway to the light, the street lamp had fully illuminated her, so she was in full sight. Her chestnut brown hair was sloppily in a messy bun. Brown eyes stained red from crying,  filled with tears pouring like two broken faucets. She had been wearing what appeared to be a sleep shirt and sleep shorts. Perhaps even looking closer to boyshorts. Both were a faint, worn sky blue that looked semi-faded. Whether by time or style, that was beyond anyone. But none could argue that what she was wearing was indeed pajamas. The question that remained was why, though.

She could not recollect how she had ended up there, which was half of the reason she was crying in the first place. The strange surroundings and abnormally thick darkness around her didn't help either. It wasn't a darkness one could go outside late at night and experience. No, it was an abnormal kind of darkness. A dense darkness that consumed everything around it. She had never seen a darkness so intense like that before. As fascinated as she had always been about space and the like, she couldn't even compare it to the galaxy above her. There had been no stars or moon to even speak of. There was nothing but the faintly dimmed light she was walking towards and the road that revealed itself beneath. A faint nostalgic smell could be recognized. Almost like the smell one could experience on a late summer night. Except that it had been cold. Bone chilling cold. Like a late-night autumn at the tail end of October. She could faintly see her breath like a car exhaust as she tried to calm her erratic breathing. Not only could she not remember how she had gotten there in the first place, but she couldn't even recall her name or what she had been doing. On the brink of being completely overwhelmed, she tried composing herself as she slowly walked towards the light. Feeling in the small pockets of her pants, she was hoping by sheer luck that her phone would have been in there. No such luck, however. This had made her panic even more as she choked out the words "Goddamn it!" as she tried to walk faster towards the light. She didn't know what she would accomplish being in the orange-tinted street lamp light, nor did she know what she would even do once she got there in the first place. But being in the light was a better alternative than the damp, cold darkness behind her. Her feet, bare and numb from the cold concrete cold, felt a lightning of pain shoot up her foot and into her leg as she yelped in pain, almost falling entirely over onto the ground. Looking while balancing on one foot, she could see dark crimson fluid pour from the wound with a large green glass shard sticking out of it. She had known better to pull it out and cause even more blood to pour out, but there had been an indescribably primal urge to do so. She wanted nothing more than to grip the glass shard and pull it out of her body. But she couldn't. She could do nothing but limp her way into the light. That's when she noticed the whole ground below her had been covered in what looked like various broken alcohol bottles of different shapes and sizes. She knew with certainty that she had not seen them before. There was no mistaking it. Trying to limp past the bottles, she passed by them as best as she could when suddenly, another shard found its way into the bottom of her other foot. She fell to the ground that time, causing various nearby shards to find their way into random chucks of her soft flesh. Digging deep and making her body their new home. At that point, she couldn't help but scream out in not only pain but fear. She couldn't explain what was going on or what was happening to her.

Crying from pain, she screamed, "Hello?! I don't know how I got here, but I need help!" followed by an eerie silence. Almost in the round cone of light that flooded from the street lamp's bulb, she felt a creepy feeling of being watched. A feeling she had not felt up until that point, to be exact. She felt it as it pierced her inner being. As if something or someone would run out of the darkness. Quickly shifting her small framed body from her left side to a sitting position, she stared into the darkness, almost half expecting something to be starting back at her. But there was nothing. She could feel new shards pushing themself into her bottom half and legs as she began to shuffle backward into the light. "Please, I need help! Is anyone there?" she screamed out loud. But that time, she heard a response she was not expecting. A faint giggle could be heard coming from the darkness. Eyes opening wide open from shock, a shot of adrenaline kicked in as she began to shove her body backward and partially to her feet viciously. At that moment, she had been fully submersed into the orange glow as she could hear various giggles and snickers coming from what sounded like all sides of her. She started to cry even harder as she picked up a large shard to defend herself. "I don't even know how I got here! I want to go home! P-please..." She said, barely containing herself. Suddenly, the eerie orange street light began to shift colors. Going from the typical orange hue, one would see driving any familiar road at night to a cold white tint. Not only that, but it began to grow brighter. Much brighter than the orange light had ever been. The light bulb itself almost gave a buzzing sound. The kind of sound old fluorescent lightbulbs would provide. But the buzzing was getting intense, nearly as if the bulb would burst from the power pumped through it. She could no longer see anything around her. The cold white light had consumed her and everything around her.

"Try to remember..." a random bellowing voice said that echoed through the sky above her. 

The buzzing became almost deafening when, from the white street lamp, hundreds if not thousands of white moths started to fly from the blinding lights. Small little dark shadows danced around her and in her eyes as she could no longer see the blinding white light. She could feel the tiny, soft white wings fluttering around her and touching her blood-soaked skin as they flowed around her like water. Thousands and thousands of them clouding around her and flying into the darkness.

"3:47 am"