My eyes open to darkness. I swear it is death. I begin to outstretch my arms, but they ram into a wood-feeling piece of something. I continue to kick and thrash within the wood, coming to the realization this is box. That doesn't put the thought of death out of my mind. For this could be my coffin, my thoughts are consumed and confined within this box. This box is a coffin and it is death. I refuse to accept my death here, I thrash my appendages around the box in a sour attempt to break myself free. I kick until the lid pops off. The removal of the lid wasn't my strength, but the human power of someone on the other side removing the top from my coffin. The human peers into the box. Soft strawberry hair flows into the box; it smells like smoke. One eye blinks, the other stays glued shut. The shut eye is not even an eye. A flap of skin covering the hole where the eye was; it seems someone has removed the eye beneath the eyelid.
"Celestia!" The human cries out in happiness; I'm lifted from the box and embraced by a familiar figure. Dominique. She lets go, but still firmly grasping my shoulder. Her one eye looks at me and the other is nothing. She smiles and embraces me once more. "You're okay, I thought Leah killed you."
"Where am I?" I whisper.
"Listen, Kenneth and I both know you're here. Just follow my lead and what we tell you; you'll be out of here in no time," Dominique tells me. I step out from the box and Dominique leads up a dimly lit staircase. The steps are sleek, smooth glass tiles. So white and pure, I see my reflection back into them. They feel cool against my bare feet, like a lagoon.
The hallway above the stairs is no brighter. It still is absent of color. The walls are painted a dull blue, it is almost grey. Dominique holds my forearm tight as we hear a clicking of footsteps. Round about the corner, Kenneth and a fair woman with short black hair and bloody lips painted purple. The woman has on a red trench coat and pinstriped black and white slacks. In her breast pocket is a small flask.
"Ahh! Miss Vandenberg, I see you have awakened," the woman says and shakes my hand, "Thank you, Dominique. Please, thank Leah for bringing her here for me." Dominique nods and runs the other direction. She leaves me alone with the mysterious woman and Kenneth. I stand silently ill, afraid of the unfamiliar and hostile aura in the environment. It feels like a dark cloud preparing to storm, but I can't pin point the second the sky will erupt.
"Oh, how rude of me!" the woman laughs, "I forgot to introduce myself. I am Raven," she tells me. A bomb explodes within my chest. I want to scream and claw open her face. I want blood to trickle from her wounds and I want her to die. She is the cause of suffering of the people I care so deeply about.
"Kenneth, take Celestia to her room. I'll be there shorty to converse. I have some business to attend to at the moment," she excuses herself, leaves, Kenneth grabs my hand. To my dismay, his hands are rough and jagged. Since he is so handsome, I simply assumed that he would have soft and delicate hands. I feel rough patches of dry and flaky skin that I wouldn't have expected. His hand is warm; he leads me to a cold place. A door swings open into a bedroom, the walls dark pink and decorated with large wooden furniture. The huge bed takes up most of the space. A dim chandelier hangs in the center of the ceiling, the crystals are opaque and black. Nothing shines and glitters off of them, but simply goes through it and absorbs itself into a state of lonely darkness. Kenneth wanders to the window and widens it out as far out as it can go.
"Can you get me out?" I whisper to Kenneth.
He nods.
"How?" I ask. He looks around the room searching for something. He furrows his brows because he cannot find it. "C'mon! How?" I repeat. He does not answer and continues to search. "Okay! I'll help you look for whatever. What is it?" I offer and begin to scout the room.
