cantillate
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When Sarah woke up, there were many strange things she noticed. She was on a hard slab instead of a nice, soft bed. The air was cold and damp instead of warm, the smell of mold filled the air when it should have been house plants and air freshener. When she opened her eyes, her worst fears had been confirmed. She was not in her room.
Well, she supposed that was no surprise, considering the night she had had. She did not remember too much, but she knew she should be in a bedroom, not some kind of dungeon. There was a light dangling from the ceiling, so at least she was in a place with power. That was something. Not much, but something. And she was dressed, which was more of a comfort than she would have thought. As was the suspicious lack of hangover.
And so, Sarah did the only thing she could reasonably be expected to do. She panicked. She shook and trembled and hyperventilated. There was a lot of screaming as well, which lead to nothing. But, it seemed like the right thing to do. She had no idea how long she spent having a panic attack, but she eventually wound down, simply because she ran out of energy to continue panicking. But now, it was time to actually try something productive.
A quick look around the room told her next to nothing. She was in a dimly lit stone room that was smaller than her old college dorm room. The bed was a cold metal slab, and there were no windows. The only door was made of wood, and she assumed it was locked. But, she still had to try, just in case. Sure enough, the door was locked. It did lead to another discovery though. It was a very old door in an environment that was not good for wood.
A few solid tugs was enough to make pieces of the door break off. Sarah discarded the rotting wood and shoved, breaking the now weakened door. Her situation had not improved much. Instead of being in a dimly lit cell, she was in a dimly lit hallway. There were no guards at least, but there were a lot of other doors, most of which were either open or broken. There was little reason to search those, so she chose a direction and started walking.
Several minutes after she started, she heard something. Voices coming from farther down the hall. There were several of them, and they spoke in a low, rhythmic chant. Some kind of religious ceremony maybe? She mentally cursed. Had she been taken by some kind of demon worshipers? This seemed like the kind of place they would hang out. Not that she knew a lot about demon worshippers or anything.
As she went, the voices slowly grew louder. And the more she listened, the more Sarah came to realize something. The voices were wrong. The chanting was wrong on a level she could not quite explain. They spoke in a language she did not recognize, but there was an unsettling wrongness to them. Like they were not actually speaking words, but something that was somehow the opposite of words. They made her stomach churn and her hands shake.
She was torn. Part of her wanted to run the other way. Get away from whatever was happening and be done with it. But a part of her felt that was the wrong course of action. She had no idea where she was, and would need to find people to tell her that piece of important information. And the only place she knew there were people was forward. She would have to be careful though. Be sneaky and not get caught until she could get the drop on one of them and make him tell her where she was.
It was a stupid plan. She knew that right away. But it was also the only plan she had. There was no guarantee the hallway behind her lead anywhere. Or it could lead to people not currently engaged in speaking some kind of nightmare chant to do…something. So, she did the dumb thing and kept going.
When she got to the end of the hall, the words made her skin crawl. She almost thought that was more literal that she would have liked, but she swallowed that feeling. Instead, she stood before a large set of double door. These were metal, and in much better shape than the one to her cell. She took a last look behind her and swallowed a lump in her throat. It was time to either run, or do something.
She placed her hand on the door and opted to do something. She just had no idea what.
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Ah hah! A cliffhanger! Muahahah I am evil and...stuff. What? No, of course I know where the story is going. There's no way I'd just end it so I didn't have to make anything up. That's the farthest thing from my mind.
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