Jackalopes

The long fall

Jane fumbled in the darkness and found a wooden door. Opening it Jane found herself standing in a long dark hallway which curved into a sidewalk at an impossible angle. The corridor was mostly empty but Jane could not help noticing rusty beams and chains smeared with dried blood. These things were always located near some sort of window but they were bolted down and impossible to open. How had Jane arrived at this strange place!? No matter how hard she thought about it she could not remember anything except practicing for the high-jump contest and then walking in the nearby park...

"Hello, is there anybody there!?" she called out.

"I was wondering...if anybody...could...maybe..."

Jane was not only becoming afraid but also close to panicking. There was no natural explanation for her to be here or indeed for the corridor to bend that way. Jane tried to go back to where she had come from but the corridor ended with a brick wall. The wooden door she had previously come through simply lead into some kind of dark labyrinth with dark an terrifying shadows. They seemed to be moving and whatever was inside was chanting ominously with a tiny oppressive voice. On the wall was painted a giant mask with a unnaturally wide grin, which Jane was afraid to get close to. When the mask began to cackle Jane turned and ran the other way. Near the corner where the corridor began to curve Jane saw several weird things.

This was her first memories of being dead...

First and foremost, there was a crack in the ceiling, exposing the outside of the corridor.

Jane tried to get a good look but all she could she was a vast expense of white which blinded her in the dark corridor in which she was trapped. There was also a mirror closed to the crack but a red piece of cloth was obscuring Jane's vision. Just outside the crack was a great red eye under which rested a single white tooth. Recoiling in fear when Jane realized what she saw she took some time to understand what this being was telling her. It was speaking...

"Are you going to linger here forever?" it said to her.

The voice was harsh and shrieking, without pity or mercy. Jane trembled, her heart beating faster and faster and filling up to the brim with a great dread. Finally she managed to ask where she was.

"This is nowhere, quite simply and literally." the being said with a soft melodic voice.

"And I am no one and nothing."

"No one and nothing..." Jane repeated for lack of anything better to do.

"No one and nothing..."

Jane did not understand. However, the cloth fell of the mirror and Jane immediately saw why the corridor had appeared so crooked to her. Her neck was bent to the side, hanging limply of the side of her head.

This totally destroyed Jane, who broke down on the ground and began to cry fiercely.

All the while the being on the other side of the corridor tried to gnaw through the crack with its single tooth. Jane got on her feet and ran as the wall crumbled and the corridor was filled with light. There were nowhere to run, and the tooth gnawed at her neck...

Jane awoke with a great pain in her neck. An old woman wearing a cloak was bent over her cradling her head in her hands. Jane's head seemed to be on all right no, but it still hurt a lot.

"Stop turning your head; it needs time to heal!" the woman said sternly.

"Thank you" Jane said, relieved at seeing another living (?) person in this strange place.

"Where am I?"

"You are in the borderworld of Xibalba between the world of the living and the dead. This is the dream cave where all dreams are made. It is here that shamans and prophets journey to find out more about their deities and their realms...It is here they meet."