Regal |Fantasy Ryden AU| DISCONTINUED

-11-

Opaque clouds of pure white mist surrounded the prince when he opened his eyes.  The gentle wisps danced along his skin like delicate fairies, twirled past his legs like sprouting vines.  He couldn't see anything past the endless ivory fog, and it didn't take long for the fear to creep into his veins.

All of his senses were heightened.  The mist was icy against his skin, making his hair stand on end.  His breath crystallized into the cold air around him, mingling with the pristine white fog blinding his vision.  There was a familiar scent in the atmosphere, too, faint but still potent enough to catch his attention.  He couldn't quite put his finger on its origin.

He also quickly discovered that no matter how desperately he tried, he couldn't make a single noise in the void of pure white in which he was confined.

Terror flooded through his mind, paralyzing his limbs and making a dreadful bout of nausea swirl inside his stomach.  He forgot how to breathe.  He forgot how to think clearly, how to keep the stoic composure he always had.  Every bit of rationality inside of him came crashing to an abrupt halt, and he didn't know what to do.

Then, through the hazy blanket of white mist, he spotted something in the distance.  He squinted his eyes, tried to swat away the frigid fog, feeling nothing other than the frantic pounding of his own heart.

A faint outline of a small building soon materialized before his narrowed eyes, shrouded in the ivory mist.  He tried to move closer, tried to discern any details that could give him a hint as to where he was, but he came up empty-handed.  He was frozen to his spot, legs paralyzed and terror coursing through his blood.  He couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't do anything, and watching as the white mist billowed around the enigmatic building only fueled his crippling fear.

A light turned on inside the small building then, its golden glow piercing through the endless sea of opaque mist.  It seemed to stretch on and on forever, pooling onto the ground at his feet like a dazzling puddle of liquid gold.  There was something otherworldly about it, something that made the prince's stomach ache with apprehension, but whatever that something was, it was nearly impossible to tell.

Feeble whispers began to echo in his ears, making his cold skin prickle with goosebumps.  They were completely indecipherable, nothing but hushed noises in the ringing silence around him, but the uncertainty of their origin was enough to make spots dance in the corners of his vision.

He thought for sure that he was going to faint in the horrifying void he was trapped in.

Then, with a mighty creak, the door to the building creeped open, allowing even more of that golden light to percolate through the haze.  Murmurs of jovial conversation resonated in the frigid air, a strange sound among the eerie silence surrounding the prince.  The faint echoes of hearty chuckles and booming voices certainly didn't seem to belong in such a mysterious and sinister place; Brendon didn't quite know what to make of it.

He tried to step forward again, fighting back against the seemingly invisible tendrils holding him to his place, and ultimately inched closer to the peculiar building in the distance.  He felt as if he was trudging through water, the deepest part of the sea, where the powerful and merciless currents swept away any ill-equipped travelers.  He trudged, and he trudged, and he trudged, until he finally reached the door to the small building.

The golden light was blinding, radiating brighter than the glow of a thousand suns.  The prince grimaced, squinted his eyes, desperately tried to see inside the odd building as the mirthful conversations grew louder in his ears.  A soothing warmth washed over him, like that of a balmy summer's day, but not once did the dazzling light's luminescence diminish.