She felt her eyes flutter open, but everything around her was dark. Sienna came to realize she was lying on her back on a hard, uneven surface, and she was cold. She sat up, but her body felt heavy and slow to respond, as if several stone blocks were weighing down on her chest. A distant, high-pitched droning sound surrounded her, but she couldn't tell which direction it was coming from; other than that, all was silence. Clumsily she climbed to her feet, staggering a bit as she did so, squeezing her eyes shut and opening them wide again as she rubbed her head and tried to look around, but she could see nothing.
She turned about, holding her hands out in front of her, feeling blindly about to get some idea of where she was. The floor felt rocky and uneven but solid, however, the effort it took for her to take a step forward made it seem as if she were trying to walk through deep, loose mud. After a few steps she nearly tripped as her foot met the floor much earlier than anticipated, barely managing to maintain her balance.
"Hello?" she called out groggily, but only the droning sound answered her. She stepped forward a few more times, each time more cautiously, never knowing how level the floor was. She continued to trudge forward, feeling around in the dark.
On one step, the floor simply was no longer there. She fell.
Down, down, down she tumbled, slamming into the hard ground over and over again as she bounced and rolled, yet she felt no pain with any impact. She fell for what seemed like forever, wondering the whole way when she would stop.
With one final slam, she hit a smooth, ice-cold surface, and came to a stop in a heap, face-down. Her body still felt heavy and sluggish, but she did not otherwise feel like she was injured, miraculously. She lifted herself up on her hands, looking around, still seeing nothing.
That is, until she looked over her shoulder behind her.
She could make out the shadowy outline of a male figure in the distance, illuminated from high above by a sickly, pale yellow light that originated from an unseen source and flickered intermittently, like an old spotlight that had gone neglected for years and barely functioned. She pulled her legs up beneath her and struggled to her feet, turning to face the figure.
"Hey," she called out. "Hey, you there!"
The figure did not move or respond in any way, as if it were frozen in place.
"Hey, I'm talkin' to you!" she called, louder, and took a step towards it. However, her nose and chin thumped into a solid invisible barrier, and she was nearly bumped back onto her backside by the unexpected obstacle. Confused, she felt in front of her; her hands touched a surface that was as cold and perfectly smooth as the floor, though she could see right through it, as if it weren't really there. She looked up, down, to the sides. There was only darkness, and the distant figure under the light.
She pushed against it, but in vain. She shimmied to the side, feeling along the invisible wall to find the edge, but a few feet to either direction she ran into another similar barrier, each perpendicular to the one before her. She tried to back up. The same result. She was trapped in a small, invisible cell.
"Hey!" she cried. "Help me!"
The figure still remained still and silent, never acknowledging her presence.
She pushed, kicked, and struck her cell walls with the heel of her palm. She screamed for help, trying to get the attention of the only thing she could see in the darkness. Panic started to slowly snake its tendrils into the pit of her stomach, and her attempts to escape became more frantic. It was useless.
Suddenly the distant droning sound stopped, and when she looked again, the figure was no longer there, leaving her once more in absolute darkness, and this time in perfect silence.
She couldn't even hear her own breathing. The only sensation she felt was the cold, and her racing heartbeat thumping in her face and neck. She stood still, not knowing what to do, frozen in place.
Seconds went by... or minutes? She couldn't tell.
With no warning, there was an abrupt screeching sound from all around her. A bright reddish light flashed, as if she'd just been struck in the head, and the dessicated face of a corpse filled her vision for the span of a film frame, alternating rapidly with a Mishhuvurthyar descending upon her, tentacles flailing wildly.
