Dark Hunt

~Chapter one~ Five years ago

    I was captured and utterly bewildered.

        There was a shadow of darkness sheilding my eyes, retaining me from outbreaking.

         Murmurs covered every inch of the clearance around me. They were vacant whispers of distant voices, not the near, humble tone of a human, surely.

    Slowly, my senses returned, and I allowed them to overrule my mind, letting them observe.

     My arms were fastened together in front of me, gently placed below my collarbone, trembling with fear.

      An antagonizing shriek coursed through me, escaping in a short burst, but instantly I paused, allowing fresh air to pass through my lips, following to my mouth, chasing out the remainder of ice running through my veins.

        Palms sweaty and heart hammering in my chest, I inched a quivering arm up to my face, trailing my fingertips across my cheek, up to my left my eye. Steadying my shaking arm, I cautiously moved it to the opposite eye, and let my fingertips brush my eyelids.

        They were closed, secured from the world.

     Realizing this, I let my eyelids flutter open to detect more dispersed darkness. Briskly, I sat up, drawing my knees to my chin, latching my fingers around them.

       I honestly didn't bother looking around. I knew where I was, where I should be, to say the least, so I concentrated on listening.

        The misshappen voices that traveled in the air momentarily had halted, leaving no sound piping from any direction.

          Arms still latched around my knees, I enabled my mind to let my nails sink into the roughness of my palms, leaving small, crescent shapes in their place.

       I was infuriated.

     For one, I had not one sense to where in the hell I was now, after inspecting the place and processing it, and two, I had a throbbing headache.

         Those thoughts distilled from my mind in a second. If this was not what I anticipated it to be, and was a dream, I wouldn't be able to feel any unusual pain.

         Would I? I didn't think so, taking in mind, the source of the pain didn't exist, all being conjured up by the outline of my mind.

    Pulling me from my thoughts promptly, a gleam of light burned through the edges of the extended gloom, centimeters at a time, simmering the shadow of black away, leaving a radiant atmosphere of colors in it's place.

        Though, instantly, that was replaced by barriers of never-ending, imitating mirrors. Astounded, I sat there beneath the icy glass for what seemed like hours, stretched into only a few minutes, until I reached my arm out to stretch and caught movement out of the side of my vision.

        I stood up almost instantly, reflexes heightened, heedful of the duplicate following every move I made, reproducing it exactly.

     In a short, fluid stride, I closed the gap between us, leaving her and me face to face.

      I observed the girl in the mirror, the one with the disconcerting look etched into her face. Her thick auburn curls intertwined in with each other, spilling slightly past her ribcage.

      My ribcage.

    She let her wide, round eyes penetrate mine, like I wasn't there, letting them boar right through to the empty space where my soul should be. But ironically, it didn't feel as if I had one, like it was consumed by grief.