The Understudy of an Alchemist

64. A Visit From A Demon

At first, I am not exactly sure what exactly woke me up. When unconsciousness slowly fades into consciousness, it's quite confusing when you awake calmly and almost naturally, rather than your awakening being abrupt presumably due to a dream.

Or a nightmare.

Yet I awake nonetheless, confused about why I am not tired. Something is wrong. I realise, my fingers gripping the cyan streak tightly. Pushing the covers off my body and sliding my bare feet upon the floor. Sitting up, I realise now to my complete surprise, that there is a light emitting from under the door, leading out into the hallway.

Confusion seeps through my body. I know that it's not morning......so why is there......? Varian must be up. I realise with relief. Reassured by this thought, I release my hair, and calmly stride over to the door, turning the handle as I do so. Yet seconds before I open the door, a realisation hits me. "Yang?" I suddenly call, my voice slightly fearful. I can't see my feline companion anywhere.

However, the door handle is still in my hand, and as I begin to loosen my grip on it, preparing to search the room for my cat; something seemingly yanks the door handle from the other side. It bursts open, the sheer force causing me to fall head first, not into the hallway, but into white nothingness.

Against my will, I let out a shrill scream as I free fall downwards into something I can only describe as empty space. The sheer force that I am falling is incredibly fast, yet it feels as if I am levitating at the same time. I can hear the wind whistling around my ears, as I desperately try to grab onto a handhold which proved to be fruitless, as there was nothing even there in this deep abyss.

I'm sailing wildly downwards at a horrifying rate into a pure emptiness, unsure if this were some horrifying nightmare, or if I'd entered some netherworld dimension by accident.

Yet after falling for what feels like hours, an invisible force suddenly seizes me by the feet. I'm falling so fast that the sheer act of something grabbing me causes me to jolt violently, as the unseen saviour dangles my body haphazardly in the suspended space.

However, what had grabbed me, saved me, must be invisible. As although I felt something holding me, visually there was nothing there. Suddenly, with a sharp momentum, it turns me violently, as it flips me upright, and releases me. My feet land upon an unseen platform, my heart pounds loudly, my chest aching from the sheer pressure of it.

Steadying myself slightly, I tap my foot upon it, the surface seems steady. That's a relief. I grip the cyan streak tightly, as I try to ponder what had happened to me. Was this some dream? Seemingly finally found my voice, I manage to gasp, "Wha....how....Where am I?!"

"Don't recognise it? You're in your own head."

I frantically swivel around in the direction at which the chilling voice had come from, before my blood turns to ice, my entire body paralyses with fear.

It looked like at some point, the creature had more resembled a little girl. It wears a dress that vaguely resembles something that a royal Russian child would wear, yet it's been distorted and rotted to black. Its skin is paler than snow, paler than marble, it's so dead and lifeless, that it should resemble a corpse more than a speaking being. The hair is lilac and twisted into two flawless space buns with a bone white streak on the right side, a diadem of glistening black beads and a sugilite as the main gem sits proudly amongst them. Her black lips are curled into a smile so grotesque that it chills me to the core, her massive aubergine eyes stare sickeningly at me-

It hits me like a tidal wave who this is, where I recognise them from; and I feel absolutely sickened to the core. "I know you." I hear myself whispering. "You've been-" My voice catches, I need to stop. I swallow deeply, before continuing. "You were in my dreams. My nightmares."