Her heart was beating so fast she thought it was going to jump out of her chest. Flashes of brick walls and floorboards mixed with the blind spots in her vision. She struggled to move her limp body across the bloody wooden floor. The stench of death loomed over her. The pain in her broken legs shot up her body like electricity every time she moved. Her surroundings were blurry. The spots were getting bigger. There was tightness in her chest. A figure stood over her and stretched out a hand. She screamed.
Her eyes opened, and her body involuntarily shot up. She hit her head almost immediately. She was shoved back down from the impact, hitting the back of her head. She opened her eyes. Darkness was all she could see, and pain spread around her skull. She was lightheaded. The air around her was heavy and thick when she inhaled. It made her feel like she was suffocating. She tried to push whatever was on top of her out of the way. When she put her hands in front of her, all she felt was stone. She checked all around her, touching the walls on both sides and the one she was laying on. She was trapped, lying in a stone prison.
She started slamming her fists against the stone on top of her. Her hoarse voice ripped out of her throat, causing her pain. She screamed for help until her throat felt like it was filled with broken glass. She couldn't breathe. Her whole body shook. She needed to get out of there. There was no air, no light, no nothing. A faint cracking noise sounded. Her hand rammed through the stone, breaking it into a thousand pieces.
A gust of air shoved its way in. It calmed her a little. Only faint light streamed down from the medium sized hole at around head level. She reached up, breaking the cracked pieces of stone around the hole, worming her way out. The light was blinding.
She inhaled as deep as she could despite the fact the air felt like ice shards stabbing her lungs. She was afraid it was going to escape from her again. Scrambling out of the stone box she sat down on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest, shivering. Her mind was swirling around and around. When she closed her eyes all she could see were the bloody floorboards and the shadowy figure.
She sat there, rocking back and forth until she was no longer shaking, and her breath was steady. Her eyes were now somewhat used to the light, and the only thing that hurt was her slowly swelling hand. She looked around.
The structure she was in was a completely gray cube made of stone, aside from the wooden door. There were two stained glass windows. Each had a different colorful bird with large wings on it. They were on opposite sides of each other, right in the middle of the long walls. She got up and turned, almost falling down from what she saw.
There were several stone coffins on slabs all around. She was in a mausoleum. She looked down to the one she had burst from. The lid was in pieces, as well some of the sides. But the first name was still legible. Prudence.
No, no, no. I'm not dead. She felt her heart speed up again. She was out of breath as flashes of a knife holding hand filled her mind. Then she was back on that floor, heart in her throat, desperately trying to get away. Need to get out. Need to run.
She scrambled, running backward, and soon tripped over the dress she wore. She hit the wooden door with her back. Before she could regain her balance, the hinges gave away, and she fell with the door.
The impact shook her to the core, and the bright light felt like scalding water pouring over her bare arms. She got up, surprised she had that much strength. Around her were other stone houses like the one she came out of. There were also round marble slabs all around her, with different names and ages on them. She realized she was in a graveyard. Rows of tall trees framed the graves. Their branches hung over the memorials, producing a thick shade all around.
She couldn't stay in the sun anymore, it was blurring her vision, and her skin felt sore. She walked over to the closest tree to hide under its shade. Her body was a burden to her, the pain in her arms and back spreading over her, pushing her down into the earth. The muscles in her body were rigid. She did all she could to push the nightmare away from her mind for now. But the images sprouted up like mushrooms, haunting her.
To ignore them, she focused on remembering the name she saw on the coffin she came out of. Prudence. She couldn't remember if that was her name or not. In fact, she realized she couldn't remember anything about her life. Apart from the nightmare. She clutched onto that name, hoping it was hers.
Prudence was rubbing her now bruised and swollen hand, staring at the short grass. She noticed a curious shadow. It was longer than all the branches and was swinging back and forth in the wind. The shape reminded her of something…
