Forbidden Blood (Taehyung - BTS)

Chapter 2: Wonderland

Chapter 2: Wonderland

Scarlet spluttered, her throat felt as course as sandpaper and her lungs burned with every failed breath. She battled to breath as the air around her seemed to collapse inwards, suffocating her in the process. It was cold and dry, lifeless and empty. It had been drained of everything that sustained life. She selfishly took in a deep breath, allowing whatever oxygen was left to infiltrate her lungs, to warm her body and to sustain the rhythmic drumming of her heart. She wrapped her arms around her lithe body and dug her messy nails into her sides in an attempt to convince herself that she was alive and to distract herself from the burning pain which accompanied every breath.

She turned her neck slightly, grimacing at the tingling sensation which came as the cold air brushed against the puncture on her neck (it was not a burning or stabbing pain, but an implicit pain which is barely noticeable until one turns their attention to it.) The air around her was poisonous to the human lungs but it is a natural human instinct to breathe. She shakily unwrapped her arms from around her torso and peered at the nothingness that surrounded her. It was definitely not what she would have regarded as Heaven. Perhaps it was Hell and if her limited knowledge of Life and Death had taught her anything (she liked think she knew more about Death than most since she had already had her fair share of encounters with the dead.) then she definitely did not belong in Heaven. The pain was unbearable but at least she didn't have to pretend to be a better person than she was.

Although come to think of it, if she was in Hell, surely the experience would have been much more revolting.

She scoffed, "The afterlife really isn't all that impressive after all," she thought to herself, assuming she had passed on (of course the last thing she remembered was the cold of the pavement and the feel of shattered glass). Perhaps she was stuck in Limbo, somewhere between life and death, because she had always expected the afterlife to be grander, and ironically livelier than it appeared to be.

Scarlet looked below, and found that she was lying on a floor of nothingness, a dark hollow void. Yet she was not falling (she was no Alice and this was clearly no portal to Wonderland). The surrounding cold kept her afloat, suspended in nothingness, reminding her of how meaningless her life had been. A single lantern hung suspended above her, although from what she could not tell, but it provided her with just enough light to see her hands an arms-width away. She shuddered as she remembered her last day on Earth, slightly overwhelmed that it had been her last and she had not known it at the time. All she had done was mope at home about the article she had to write and stare out the window wishing she had ambition and a Dream. If she had known it was her last day she would have been extra adventurous and had an extra glass of wine before ripping the messy articles to shreds.

"Why did I jump?" she mumbled to herself. She could not for the life of her remember anything about her mental state before she had fallen from a five storey window. She stretched her numb legs out slowly afraid that if she moved too much she would fall and gasped when another lantern lit up, revealing a magnificent double-leaf door. She ran her hands through her violet hair, annoyed by the knots which had formed but honestly the state of her hair was the least of her worries. She moved carefully in an attempt to stand. She placed one foot in front of the other, hoping that feeling would return to her numb legs.

She made her way to the door, as graciously as someone who could hardly lift their feet. The light of the lantern acted as a guide. The door towered above her, easily five times her size, it's magnificently engraved wood loomed over her condescendingly. She grabbed the silver door knob and began twisting it hesitantly but was stopped by an ear-destroying growl that sent her flying back into nothingness.