Prologue

Loe felt her spine tingle with sweat. The lights blinded her and the shadowy figures accelerated her heart rate. Her eyes burned as if the juice from ripe and sour lemons were being squeezed into them.
She tried to move her head but she couldn’t.
All around her came smell metal, like a sulfur gas penetrating her senses. She lay on the table feeling sick and desperately looking for a sign of freedom. Where was she, who put her there? The questions came and went.
Without warning the lights went off and the hard metal shackles were removed from her arms and legs. She screamed, letting out a low pitch groan which made her throat dry and sore. Fear paralyzed her.
She considered the moving figures and if perhaps they might come back. Move, she thought, move, move, move. She couldn’t.
A door opened and light carved its way into the room exposing her colorless white clothes and silver surroundings. A sharp pain forced its way up her face and to her right temple causing her face to jolt and lift. Finally, she thought, some movement.
The door revealed a long and endless corridor.
Her body trembled and her hands shook as she tried to remember where she’d been and how she got there. Loe waited and thought about her next move.
A small boyish figure stepped in front of the bright light. It held no discernable features. It escaped into the hall and the door slammed closed. Darkness once again filled the room.
Loe forced her aching body to move. She managed to get her hand to grab the cold table and slowly spun her body so that she faced the direction where the door was. Right now all she could think was to get to that boy. Maybe he knew something, like where she was and how she could leave.
It hurt her to think, and she noticed as she tried to lift herself from what she considered to be a medical examining table that her left hand was swollen and possibly broken.
She could barely see and so she sobbed dramatically in the dark, feeling her left hand with her right.
Gathering all her strength into one final attempt, Loe tried once more to push herself onto the floor. With much luck she reached it with her feet; a triumph that amounted into more fear. With her big toe she felt a something cold and sticky flowing at her feet. She let out a sharp cry and covered her mouth to stop her self from vomiting.
She held her breath and counted down from ten, 10, 9, 8, 7 ... Loe focused hard and tried working her way to the door, 6, 5, 4 …
Finally she reached a wall; all metal. She grabbed a small knob and pulled ferociously to get it open; no luck.
She looked down at her hands as the paranoia engulfed her thoughts. Where was she, she thought over and over again. She was tired, her body hurt, and ready to strip away all previous efforts and give up, when the door opened. It was the boy again. This time she could see his face. No mouth, no nose, only eyes. Small dark glowing orbs, tracing Loe’s face in twisted confusion.
He pushed past her. Wait, she tried to say, still no sound. She grabbed his arm. This time he turned around showing his face as it truly was, dark and gloomy, not boyish at all but beastly. He opened his mouth and let out a foul laugh as she stood staring at him, letting a blank and hopeless expression turn her face.
Another figure moved in the partially lit room causing her body to fall back into the hall way and pulling the boy down with her. She turned to leave, crawling at first then finally forcing her body to walk. She limped her way down the hall.



A black door stood amongst all the white. Loe had forgotten how long she been walking. She looked back and couldn’t tell whether the hall had no end or if it was just an illusion created by the lack of color.
The black door was wooden. It looked swollen as if it had been soaked in water and then hung on its hinges as a joke to any who’d try to pass. The black paint was beginning to peel off of the outside. She reached to open it, but it had no knob. She got down to her knees and looked through a hole where the knob should have been. All black.
This could be it, she thought and excitement found its way into her body. She banged her body against the door. It flung open taking her with it.
Loe was falling into nothin. Like Alice down the rabbit hole, only there weren’t any cupboards or plates or books, only blackness. She was right, the door had been a trick.