The thorns pierced and tore at Beatrix's fragile skin as she stumbled through them. At this point her eyes were spewing tears as her throat ached and scratched from its uncontrollable coughing of the cold air. Her body was weak, shaky. She hadn't the foggiest idea why she was trying to make it through the tunnel, but all the same her body pushed itself through the pain and agony. It was the message she found. The message, which most likely was never meant for her. But if that was the case, why would the moon lead her all the way to it?
"Stupid," Beatrix muttered through her coughs, "The moon doesn't make bloody paths, it doesn't lead anything or call anyone"
Beatrix had feared insanity all her life, and yet here she was, slipping away into it that very moment. These were her thoughts, but her body kept on moving. She didn't truly believe she was going insane. She didn't truly believe that the moon had called her and that the message was written to her. It was utter nonsense.
She hoped.
Before long all Beatrix saw was pitch blackness as the silver speck of light vanished behind her. She stretched out her arms and moved them along the mossy wall of branches, leaves and thorns. It was cold and silent. Damp ebony surrounded the girl and grasped her from all directions. Beatrix's breaths and coughs echoed throughout the void. Bruised and bleeding, head pulsating, lost and, quite frankly, on the verge of collapse. Still, she had nowhere to go. The blackness consumed her entirety and for all she knew, she might as well have been going back towards the outside. Left, right, up, down, it was all the same here. There was nowhere to look, much less run.
A scream. A flash. Beatrix felt herself spiralling into innumerable lights and images. She saw her face. Pale, black haired, screaming, crying for help. She heard herself wailing in anguish. She saw her body wrapped in a tight ball, arms firmly around her legs and chest. She saw the moon, shining, flashing, whispering. Then she saw a woman planting a seed. An old woman, a sick woman praying under the moonlight. And the spiralling tunnel. It grew. Screams and sobs echoed from all directions. A creek. A fog. Blood and rotting flesh.
And as suddenly as it began, it stopped.
YOU ARE READING
Wonderland End
FantasyIn the summer of 1916, 20-year old Beatrix Linkworth is a brittle girl suffering from tuberculosis, of which her mother had died two years prior, and grieving the recent death of her father in the First World War. Filled with anguish and remorse yet...
