Darkness.
I was drowning in it.
One moment, I was in my bed, the sting of my bruises still raw, and my body barely holding itself together. The next, I was here—standing in the middle of an endless forest, surrounded by towering trees with twisted branches that clawed at the sky like skeletal fingers.
The air was humid, and smelled of damp earth and something else. Something old.
I blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the sudden shift. My heart pounded hard and my mind was a haze of questions I had no answer to.
Where was I?
Had I died? Was this Hell?
Dios mío… I tried to move, but my feet felt like they had been swallowed by the ground. I looked down. My dress was torn and bloodied and was still the same one I had fallen asleep in.
The bruises on my arms were still there, the pain still humming beneath my skin. So this wasn't a dream.
Was it?
