It was just another evening, the scent of vanilla and old paper anchoring Sophia, acting as a shield against the persistent and nagging feeling that she was a stranger—an imposter in her own life. She had carried this weight since childhood, a sense of belonging that always remained just out of reach. It seemed hard for her to put a finger around it when asked as to why she felt so out of place but it was her books which were her sanctuary. She had been curled in her favorite armchair, the lamplight flickering over the pages of a worn leather-bound volume, when the air in her room suddenly turned heavy and cloyingly sweet. A strange, velvety drowsiness swept over her, pulling her down into a dreamless void before she could even mark her page. The silence of her bedroom didn't break; it simply dissolved.
She was jolted awake by a violent jerk, and as she snapped her eyes open she realized the peace and quite of her room was gone, now replaced the aggressive humming of the high-end engine and the constant rhythmic thwack-thwack of the wind and rain on the glass. Sophia gasped, her heart hammering against her chest, as the realization hit her that she was no longer in her cozy armchair but pressed into the leather seat of a speeding car with her arms and legs bound tightly by coarse rope. She tries to move towards the window to scream for help, but that was the moment panic starts to creep in as outside, the endless horizon of the familiar golden fields and plain ranches she had known since childhood, had vanished. In it's place was a dark damp forest, where its tall primeval trees gnawed at the dark grey sky, and the sheer possibility of her being miles away from home made her head spin.
Sophia swallowed hard, her mind racing to find a thread of logic to cling to. None of it made sense no matter how hard she thought she just could grasp the reason as to why someone would try and kidnap her. Her parents were ordinary people, with ordinary jobs, so why would someone want to kidnap her. Maybe it was all but a big misunderstanding, maybe they had gotten the wrong house. Maybe she was a collateral victim in some rancher's feud. It had to be some kind of a mistake. In a desperate plea for answers, she mustered up all her courage to talk to driver.
"Listen," she croaked, "I don't know what reasons you have doing this and why you're doing this but whatever you're doing, you've got the wrong person." Sophia's breath hitched as she caught the driver's eyes in the rearview mirror—cold, amber, and distinctly non-human. The sight of his eyes was enough to slowly drain her courage but she had to do something before it was too late. Swallowing the lump of terror in her throat, she tried one last time. "I'm just a student. I don't have any money, and my family... we're just farmers. Please, just pull over."
The driver didn't turn, his grip on the steering wheel remained firm and after a moment he finally said something in low guttural voice. The words that he spoke weren't English. It seemed like a completely foreign language, something you'd expect aliens or maybe demons speaking. The words were low and guttural, vibrating through the car like a rhythmic chant. It was a language of clicks and deep vowels that felt heavy in the air, as if the words themselves had physical weight. Yet a terrifying part of hers felt close familiarity to it.
The driver's voice died away, leaving only the chill that kept creeping down her spine. Just as her brain was registering it all, the sudden realization hit her like a physical blow- that a farm girl isn't kidnapped in a luxurious, breathing nightmare by mistake-the world outside exploded.
A massive thud shook the car, the sound of something heaving slamming into the roof. Sophia screamed as the door next to her is wrenched open, the metal hinges snapping with a crunch. Something heavy-a beast, a man, or Lord knows what- landed on the roof with enough force to cave in the ceiling. The driver hissed, his hands losing their grip on the wheel as the car swerved wildly.
The last thing Sophia saw before the world tilted was a blur of obsidian trees rushing toward the windshield. There was a deafening screech of tearing metal, a bone-jarring impact, and then... silence. Through the haze of smoke and the smell of burning flesh, she felt a pair of strong arms wrap around her, pulling her from the wreckage just before the flames claimed her. Through a hazy vision she saw the driver disappearing into the inferno. Voices, different from the driver's but just as ancient, whispered above her, but before she could understand what they were saying, the darkness finally surged up to claim her.