Playing a dangerous game

Run

"You want to play?" The voice asked.

"On one condition." I trembled.

"What?"

"You let me go afterwards."

Then a malicious chuckle came out.

My heart crumbled. The heat drained out of me. It felt like I was truly in the presence of evil.

"Well... On one condition." Then girl said. I felt an evil smile creep up on her face even though I couldn't see her.

"What?"

"If you win, you live, free to go. If not..." A pause came. "You'll find out."

--------------

A gasp jolted me back to life and I found myself running blindly through the forest, my feet dragging me somewhere but my mind falling back into a cage of darkness. I shook my head and focused on something else.

How long had I been here for?

It had felt like I had been here forever but I couldn't stop. I needed a way out. There had to be a way out. I slowed to a walk, as I made my way through a mess of thorns and branches, ripping a small piece of cloth off my white sleeve in the process. I cut my way through the dense, suffocating undergrowth, fighting through the very air, which hung heavy, moist and still. Trees as tall as cathedrals surrounded me everywhere and a strange green light - almost holy - shimmered through the vast canopy of leaves. The jungle seemed to have an intelligence of it's own.

But I couldn't stop.

Not now.

Or ever.

I came to a halt and scrambled up a magnificent, tall tree, hanging on with the worn out muscles in my legs and gritting my rough fingers at the bark as I climbed up, chipping the top bit of my nails off. I squinted in pain but carried on, ascending up the scabrous tree. I knew I had lost track of time from the ground, at least up here I'd know where I really was.

And what I was really dealing with.

I settled on a thick branch of the tree letting my feet dangle off. I sighed, letting a rough hand scrape the thin layer of sweat across my forehead off. I looked down and quietly applauded myself on how far I had clambered up the tree; even though I hadn't even reached halfway. The eerie silence of the jungle made me shiver and the rustling of leaves so suddenly made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Even so, it was quiet.

Too quiet.

I scrambled up to the top of the tree to see if there was any clearing in this hell of a vast jungle. Instead of my eyes searching the area around me, my eyes were suddenly bought up to the unusual scene hanging above my head. At first I stood in awe but soon I realised something wasn't right. The sky wasn't blue but a very light shade of pink and instead of clouds, there were planets. I gasped. I noticed my feet tremble and even if I wanted to look away and not face the alarming fact, my body was paralyzed. I was on a different planet, probably in a different universe and I had probably just walked through a veil breaking space and time. I forgot everything and surveyed the skies above me.

There were two huge and visible worlds hanging disturbingly close to the sky, the smaller one with streaks of blue across its face and splashes of orange and purple and the clearly larger one with multiple brown rings circling the planet and red stripes streaked along a white face. They were so close that it made me fear they would crash the jungle I was in right now; but of course I knew better. "I guess I'm not on Earth anymore." I muttered to myself terrified. How did that little ghost girl get me here? It scared the hell out of me and the one question that my mind kept lingering back to was: