𝐀𝐒-the golden-haired girl awoke, her body drenched in heavy, saline sweat that trickled down her glistening forehead, she realized with a sinking heart that the world she once knew was nothing more than a distant memory.

Her delicate frame was encased within a claustrophobic, cage-like structure—a makeshift prison crammed to the brim with supplies. The confined space felt suffocating, the air stale and heavy, amplifying the dread that coursed through her veins.

She had no memory of who she was or where she might be, but one thing became glaringly clear:

Nothing about this was good.

As though the cage could read her very thoughts, it began to ascend with a jarring speed, faster and faster until her surroundings blurred into a nauseating whirl. She stumbled, her legs giving way, and her head collided with a jagged edge of the cold metal. Pain exploded through her skull, a searing agony that pulled her into a suffocating darkness—a darkness as absolute as a void stripped of stars, void of life’s faintest glimmer.

When she finally stirred, sparks of pain rippled through her body, radiating from the sharp wound on her head. Her eyes shot open, her senses returning in disjointed fragments. The world around her swam into focus. She found herself in a tiny hut, sparsely furnished with only a battered chair and shelves lined with vials of medicine. The air smelled faintly of herbs and alcohol, a sharp, sterile scent that did nothing to calm her mounting panic.

Without a second thought, the blonde-haired girl bolted, ignoring the throbbing ache in her skull. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, drowning out her pain as her bare feet pounded against the rough, uneven ground.

But then she stopped abruptly, her breath hitching in her chest. Looming before her were enormous stone walls, their surfaces covered in a dense blanket of ivy, the green tendrils twisting and coiling like living chains. She stood frozen, her wide eyes darting from one corner of the towering barrier to another.

Her breathing grew ragged, each gasp of air more strained than the last. The oppressive walls seemed to press inward, and as her lungs struggled to draw in oxygen, her vision blurred with pinpricks of light—like stars invading the daylight.

The world spun, and just as her legs began to wobble beneath her, a sound cut through the suffocating silence. Laughter. Deep, mocking laughter echoed all around her, resonating off the stone walls. It was deafening and inescapable, like the taunts of unseen phantoms.

What unsettled her most, however, wasn’t the sound itself but the strange familiarity of the voices. Every laugh belonged to boys—voices she should have recognized but couldn’t place, as though her mind were playing cruel tricks on her.

For the first time, she felt truly cornered, like a trapped animal under the watchful eyes of predators.

Her pulse raced, her thoughts scattered like shards of broken glass. What was this place? Who were they?

And most importantly, how would she escape?