Hey guys! I know this is a bit different compared to my other writing - it's actually a fantasy-type of story! I've always loved fantasy and have always wanted to write stories like this...but for some odd reason I kind of just stuck with writing real-world type of stories. I always read stories like this though, and still do. (And for those wondering about my other story I've been working on for ages and haven't updated, I'll explain in my profile some stuff that's been going on...)

My first story I ever posted actually was a fantasy-type of story. But I took it down after a week. :P I may actually start working up on that one, though.

So anyways, this is generally a story idea I began writing back in 2012-2013, I can't remember which year, and I finally came back to it. This is a newly drafted version from what I wrote back then because...oh gosh...my writing was terrible then! Like, I should probably go through my older stories and do some major editing...'cause it's just...ewww...yeah. I didn't even want to bother to try and edit the other "chapter 1" I had written for this because it just...needs to get deleted.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy this first chapter! :D

She stared blankly at the dark, stoned floor where the cool air slithered around, trying to climb up her skin. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat, finding it hard to breathe calmly through her nose without feeling like she would choke on her own throat. Her face felt tight where her tears had streaked down her cheeks, drawing dry lines of broken pathways of what used to be small streams of salt water.

As her memory of the event flash across her mind like an old film projector speeding through its recorded images, she clamps her hand over her mouth to hold back the sobs that push to break free of her hand, and new tears began to blur her vision as her eyes heat up like they were on fire. What was going to happen next? What were they going to do to her? Her right hand that was draped across her stomach clenched tightly onto her black dress as she brought her legs closer to her chest, in hopes to make herself as small as possible. Never has she ever felt this anxious in her entire life, and the cool air that kept slipping down her back like it were a slide on a playground was only making her feel sick to her stomach.

There was so much blood…spilling out of her sister's body. And there was nothing she could do as she stood there, staring in horror, choking on her own screams as she watched a figure loom over her sister and crouch down with a jagged, sharp smile. She didn't have much time to react after that because before she knew it, something that felt like a gun had pressed harshly against the side of her neck as someone had stabilized the other side of her neck with a firm hand and shot something sharp, like a needle, into her bloodstreams. She tried to fight against whoever had grabbed her, but before she could turn around to see who had attacked her, her assailant had already wrapped a ready arm around her stomach, pinning her arms to her sides.

"Stop fiddling around with that and get the other girl!" a boy's voice had shouted from behind her—her assailant—and before she knew it, a black blur ran towards her sister's body and the other black figure with the teeth who had been crouching beside her had vanished, and time slowed to freeze with her memory as everything blacked out, falling out of reach from her vision.

As far as she knew, today was going as normal as any other day had gone, and it was supposed to end as normal as any other night had gone, with the exceptions of a little fun at the end of the day. She was out on a dinner date with her sisters—and just her sisters. It was supposed to be a fun night out at some fancy restaurant they had never tried before, and then they would all spend the night in their small living room in their apartment and have a "sleepover." Nothing harmful. Why did this happen? This wasn't supposed to happen. It wasn't supposed to end with one of her sisters, probably dead from bleeding out an ocean of blood, while the other, probably standing outside the restaurant, having already called the police, worried sick with Fear there to be the only thing that could comfort her.

And then there was herself.

Poor Brittany Miller locked away in a dark, old, musty stone cell with old, crimson-stained bars, keeping her in this dark, murky room that smelled of decaying bodies. People probably have died in this cell. She already felt like she was suffocating from the awful smell (and since her nose wasn't allowing her to breathe properly on its own, she had to breathe in the smell through her mouth and taste the bitter smell which was enough to make her want to cry even more), and her neck was sore from where her attacker had given her a shot and injected that wretched liquid into her veins. She was scared out of her mind, and she had never wished so badly for the reality around her to be a dream. Normally she liked to tough things out and just go with it—but this? This was unacceptable. Her tongue felt tingly and she hoped she wouldn't vomit herself because if she did, she truly would die from suffocation—and it would be from the smell of the contents that came from her own body. It'd be like she had killed herself, and that was not okay because she didn't want to die. And she hoped her sisters were alright. Especially Jeanette.

Although with what she saw…well…it almost seemed impossible for her sister to still be alive by now. And that thought alone was enough to make her chest tighten and start a fire within her eyes, melting them till there were no more tears to shed.

Just dumping her in this awful place was basically adding a rotten cherry on top to the poisoned dessert she had to swallow and accept about the calamities with her sisters. She probably would get dehydrated from the waterfall of tears she's been shedding, and sadly there wasn't anything she could do to make herself stop—turn off the water, block it off, nothing—would help her stop crying. She felt so vulnerable and weak with how pathetic she felt and must've looked—red eyes, distraught face, one high heal broken, dress slightly crinkled…

Moreover, the fact that she had no idea what was to become of herself… How was she going to make it through all of this, again? For some odd reason, she couldn't help but feel like she knew for a fact that there was no way this would be easy, and that this wouldn't be the end of what had just happened. She wasn't exactly scared for her life, for she found it pointless for her assailant to have taken her here to this cell alive when they most likely could've easily killed her then and there when they had their hands around her neck…but then maybe whoever had taken her had different plans for her death. She's seen plenty of those FBI-police TV shows to get the idea that there are many types of killers out there with their daily rituals they follow through before they kill their victim.

And thinking about that wasn't helping her situation at all. Brittany coughed out a congested, weak, sad laugh. Great. Just when she was beginning to find a small scrap of comfort, it quickly dissolves into dust. Rubbing her arms, she then wipes at her eyes, her trapped mind turning back to think about her sisters. And that's when she realizes: Eleanor. Her youngest sister—what if she's in danger? She's heard plenty of things about what's actually out there…and they're not completely human. There's so many stories she used to hear in the halls from her high school…and they all sounded surreal. It was all fantasy-talk to her because creatures like that just don't exist.

As far as she's concerned, nothing has ever happened to anyone she knows or anyone that lives around her. If there were so many dangerous things out there, then how come nothing's ever happened? No sign of abnormal bites on the neck, or odd sightings of giant wolves, or mysterious deaths that just don't match the average murder and evidence given?

But then she remembers those gleaming sharp teeth she had seen, and the odd slump and movement of the figure that had been looming over her sister's bleeding body… As the image sinks in, filling her with a new sense of fear, she tries to resist feeling the churn of her stomach as she aggressively wipes at her eyes. She needed to get out of here. Eleanor was still out there, and there was no way she would let Fear and eventually Sorrow move in and take hers and Jeanette's places. And what if Eleanor was in danger? She had to do something.

As Brittany struggles to get to her feet, her neck still sore and her veins still buzzing with whatever had been injected into her, she finally stands up, her head swaying a little as she staggers over to the bars. Scrunching her nose at the sight of the rusting bars, not wanting to touch them, she heaves out a sigh as a disgusted frown etches across her face and a hesitant hand reaches out to gently push against the cell door. It moves a little, and she pushes a little more on the heavy bars as they heavily swing open for her.

Steadying her breathing the best she can, she slips her heels off and steps out of her prison, slowly walking along the cold stone floor. The place appears like it's been abandoned for centuries, and it almost seems ancient. There are broken large chains in some cells, and the smell seems to get worse as she ventures further along the pathway. She can hardly breathe the thick air, and just as she's thinking about what could've possibly been going on in this prison place, she freezes up.

The air around her had suddenly gotten cooler, and she can't shake this eerie feeling that she's being watched. Swallowing, she slowly looks behind her, her heart skipping a beat at the sight: Nothing. Sighing with relief, she begins to pace herself forward while still looking behind her, beginning to break out in a run—

"Oof—" she gasps, as she suddenly collides with something hard—something warm. She felt like she had just touched a pan that had come out of the oven and was beginning to cool down.

Jumping back, Brittany looks up to lock eyes with a pair of sky blue eyes—however there's something strange with these eyes. Just around the pupil, there's a hint of gold threatening to spill out and fill in the blue. The gold keeps pumping out yet retracting, almost as if they were fighting to fill the blue in his eyes, yet at the same something was fighting to keep the gold at bay. The boy suddenly shakes his head abruptly and steps away from her, muttering something about how someone needed to give her the shot now…

Wait, what?! She quickly steps away from the boy with a look of horror when she feels a needle on the side of her neck.

"Get her feet," the voice behind her grunts as she feels her body suddenly become limp.

As her eyes get immensely heavy, feeling much like heavy weights were attached to them, she fights to keep her eyes open and on the boy in front of her as he steps away, back within the shadows and before she knows it, her world has become pitch black.

Her head is pulsing and throbbing with pain. It's like her mind is fighting something off, but she doesn't quite know why—it feels like she's under a lot of stress and her head is about to explode. Contorting her face, she slowly opens her eyes to find the familiar ceiling of her bedroom. Exhaling deeply, she frowns in confusion and sits up quickly, her head spinning as she gets out of bed way too fast, running into her doorframe as she tries to exit her room.

"Ouch!" she huffs as she rubs her head she had hit against the doorframe.

"Are you okay?" Eleanor's voice calls from the kitchen.

"Um, yeah…" Brittany responds weakly, more confused than ever. Glancing in the direction to where her two sister's bedrooms are, she slowly begins to walk along the small hallway to where the kitchen and small living room connected. As she gets in close range, she begins, "Eleanor, how did I…" but she cuts herself short when she spots both of her sisters sitting at the small dining table, just like they normally would on any other normal day.

"Morning, Brittany," Jeanette grins from behind a fantasy book she's been reading for the past few days, causing Brittany's heart just about to stop.

"Oh my gosh…" Standing there with her mouth gaping, a small smile lifts Brittany's lips as she runs towards her younger sister and crashes into her with a big hug. She felt like she had just crossed the finish line to a marathon. She was so relieved. "How are you—are you feeling fine? Oh, my gosh I thought you were dead—!"

"Um, I love you, too," Jeanette lightly laughs as she pats Brittany's arm.

"—I don't know how you're well and here, but whatever the doctors did they did a pretty darn good job—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa—what are you talking about, Brittany?" Eleanor speaks up, a funny grin on her face as she stares at Brittany with curious brown eyes.

When Brittany finally releases Jeanette, she looks to Eleanor with a mirroring look. "Oh, well, you weren't exactly there, but Jeanette got severely injured last night…"

"What?!" Eleanor's confused smile widens.

"I did?" Jeanette speaks up with a bewildered look.

"Yeah…you should know this…" Brittany slowly says, beginning to feel slightly awkward. Neither of them remember or know what happened last night? It wasn't a dream though…or was it?

Eleanor slowly shakes her head. "Um, I think you must've had a pretty hectic dream…"

"Yeah…" Jeanette agrees. "Are you feeling alright?" she then asks, putting a bookmark in her book and setting it down on the tabletop.

Furrowing her eyebrows, Brittany nods her head. They were clueless… "Yeah, um, heh," she lightly laughs. "Yeah—you're right. It was just a…a dream," she grins. But it felt so real…

"Alright…it must've been a pretty exciting dream for you to believe it like this," Jeanette comments. "What was the dream about?"

Brittany turns to stare into Jeanette's emerald green eyes. They're twinkling with wonder and interest—something that was a normal appearance to her usual pretty eyes—they were full of life. And she didn't want to have it any other way. She didn't want to ever see a hint of fear or a trace of that glossy dead stare she knew Jeanette had last night… So she chose to say nothing of her so-called "dream" and laughed it off.

"Oh—I—I actually can't really remember much of it anymore, so…no worries," she lied, waving it off as she headed off to the bathroom. "I think I'm going to take a shower and help refresh my mind," she called back to her sisters as she walked back down the hallway and to the bathroom. Stopping at the door, she stood there and listened momentarily to her sister's soft voices speaking to one another.

"That was weird…" Eleanor was murmuring.

"Yeah…but it was probably just an intense dream she was having," Jeanette quietly sighed.

"You're probably right. As far as I'm concerned, you went and got the car with no troubles while Brittany and I waited outside the restaurant…"

As Brittany stared down at the ground, she placed her hand gently on the bathroom door handle and pushed it open, softly closing it behind her as she flicked the lights on. Staring into the mirror, she stared at her figure. She no longer was wearing her black dress and was dressed in her usual tank and shorts that she normally wore to sleep. She couldn't quite recall ever changing…or returning home to her room…or anything that her sisters seemed to remember since Jeanette had walked off to get the car.

What she remembered was that Jeanette said she was going to go get the car, but she was taking longer than what it should've taken, so she had decided she'd go find Jeanette, assuming her sister had lost track of where the car was…and when she arrived at the scene to where there car was parked, that's when she saw…

Brittany swallowed back the tingly feeling she felt on her tongue from the gruesome image and squeezed her eyes shut as she leaned against the bathroom sink. Reopening her eyes, staring into the mirror, she stared back at her reflection. Her deep, ice blue eyes stared back at her, and that's when she remembered his eyes. The sky blue…and then the odd gold that was trying to consume the blue… She could sense something when she saw that…something dark.

But it was all supposedly a dream… Everything she had seen last night was apparently all inside her head…and she was having a hard time believing it, but that's just how it seemed to be. It was all too real for her to simply forget, however. Her headache she had woken up with had subsided for a bit, and she forgot about it when she got distracted by her sisters, but there was still a faint pressure fighting inside her head. She still felt like she could feel the liquid from the injections buzzing in her veins still…

Blinking at this, she leaned in closer to the mirror and peered down at her neck where she remembered feeling the needle poke into her skin. As she stared harshly at the reflection of her neck for a while, she was about ready to lean back when she saw it. Two, small, tiny holes poked in her skin, just above her collarbone, looking much like a wound from getting a shot. The holes were coagulated and small, but she could see them. She lightly brushed the tips of her fingers over the small wounds, and leaned away from the mirror with a blank face.

Turning around, she opened the door a small crack and listened to her sisters' typical conversation. They were talking about what they were going to do today, about how the weather should be, and about Jeanette's fantasy book she was reading…and that was the problem.

Everything was normal…when it shouldn't have been.

Thanks so much for reading! :D

And review, tell me what you think, whatever your heart desires.

Hope you guys are having a smashing summer! ;D