[i]'Unnh...?'[/i] Azalea opened her amber eyes, peering around the room cautiously as she tugged her blankets closer to her body. Something had woken her up, something... wrong. But the room was dark, impossibly dark, so she would wait until her eyes adjusted before she went to turn on the light. Weren't your eyes normally adjusted while you slept? [i]'Oh well.'[/i] [b][i]SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECHHHHH[/i][/b] She pulled her blanket over her head, trying to block out the sound. After what seemed only a moment, the nails-on-a-chalkboard sound disappated and left her surroundings utterly silent. She peeked one eye out from the confines of her blanket, hoping to be able to see something. Her surroundings weren't dark anymore, and instead an eery red light dimly illuminated the walls of [i]where ever she was[/i]. The room was spherical and incased in countless shining gossamer threads, as if she was inside a hallowed out ball of thread. It was hard to tell where one thread began and another ended. "[b]Haha, is somebody playing a joke with me? What is this? SUPPPERRRR funny guys, you got me![/b]" Azalea laughed, crinkling her nose up as she tried to push her blankets off of her. A rank smell hit her nose, decay and... blood? "[b]Ugh! Gross, what is that? You guys didn't put a dead fish in here with me did-[/b]" Her words were choked out as her heart leaped to her throat. A disembodied head was in her blankets, the eyes and mouth frozen in such terror that she had a hard time really understanding what was happening. It's hair was weaving into her blanket... Her blanket.... She looked at her blanket more closely. It was made of... of... "[b]Oh my god![/b]" Struggling to free herself from that awful thing was harder than hell, but she finally made it after discovering several more terror stricken heads. She turned around in a frantic circle, looking at the room more closely. There, an eye gleaming from beneath the shining threads, there the ashen cheek of another. The entire place was made of... She doubled over and wretched, but nothing came out as she gagged breathlessly. "You'll end up like them." A voice, a voice like a young boy...? What would a child be doing here? She wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand and peered towards where she heard the voice coming from. "[b]Where are we? No, no nevermind that. I wont hurt you, just come out so we can leave this awful place![/b]" She called out, walking slowly towards where she had heard the boy's voice coming from. "[b]She[/b] ate them. She's coming for me next." Azalea stopped dead in her tracks. What was this kid talking about? "[b]Ate? Wh... what are you talking about? Don't worry, I'll make sure whoever did all of th...this,[/b]" She breathed in deeply in an attempt to stop her stomach from lurching before continuing. "[b]They can't hurt you. I wont let them, okay?[/b]" "Ohhhhh really?" The boyish voice suddenly turned deeper and more sensual as it breathed into her ear. Her shoulders hunched up against her ears reflexively and she jolted back. Shooting a furtive glance over her shoulder showed her that nobody was there. But she had [i]definitely[/i] felt hot breath against her ear just a second ago. When she looked back in front of her, she had to restrain the urge to leap back. A boy, probably three or four years younger than herself, was standing in front of her. He was small, fragile almost, with pale skin and violet colored hair that hung messily around his face and neck. His eyes... they were red. Besides his eyes, something else about him seemed really weird, but she couldn't think about that right now. She grabbed his hand and leaned down so she could speak with him face to face. "[b]I'm Azalea, but my friends call me Azzie okay? Do you know the way out? What's your name?[/b]" She spoke softly. His hand felt so small in her own. Something about him made her want to protect him. "Oh, Azzie, I was so scared." His boyish voice trembled as tears formed in his eyes, "P-please get me out okay?" He threw his arms around her neck and hugged her tightly. She felt her own eyes well up, but shook it off. She couldn't - wouldn't - imagine what he had seen happen here. "I'm Orion." His voice was soft in her ear as he snuggled his face into her hair. "[b]Where is the way out?[/b]" She murmured, picking him up easily with an arm underneath him and standing to her full height as he clung to her. "Over... over there!" He said, lifting a long strand of her hair and waggling it to her right. She followed where he was directing and there was an arched opening in the sphere that hadn't been there before. Heads hanging from their hair decorated the arch and she hurriedly placed her hand over his eyes. "[b]D-don't look anymore, alright Orion? Just lay against my shoulder and close your eyes. We're getting out of here.[/b]" She felt him nod against her hand and snuggle back into her hair. She took a deep breath and took long, determined strides to the archway, refusing to look at the macabre ornaments. Outside of the gossamer sphere, she found herself standing in the middle of an intersection at what appeared to have been a very busy street. Cars, buses, motorcycles, all of them appeared to have been abandoned where they sat. She looked up at the skyscrapers lining the road, but she couldn't tell where she was. Some big city somewhere. New York, maybe? From the corner of her eye, she saw a blurry mass of darkness skittering across the road to her left, then just as suddenly a bus was hurtling through the air. She opened her mouth to scream, but her legs reacted faster than her mind. She ducked back into the sphere she had come from just as the bus crashed into the pavement where they had been. [b][i]SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECHHHHH[/i][/b] Above the noise of bus colliding with pavement, that nails-on-chalkboard sound reverberated throughout. Every sound was deafened in comparison to it, and when it ended the world was silent with awe. She felt something shaking against her chest, and she realized she had been shielding Orion with her body. "[b]Are you okay? Are you hurt?![/b]" She tried to sit up, but his grip was surprisingly strong against her hair. [i]'He's too afraid to let go.'[/i] She placed one of her hands over his own where it gripped her hair, and took the other to brush his hair out of his eyes so she could reassure him. Staring back up at her though... His red eyes were gleaming with mirth as he looked into hers, and he was shaking with laughter, not fear? "Let's make a Pact, Azalea Crowe." The voice that came from his lips wasn't boyish anymore, it was the deeper, more sensual voice from earlier. "[b]W..what... Orion, what's wrong with you? Did you hit your head?[/b]" She couldn't believe that he could change his voice like that. Maybe her ears were damaged from that loud sound? Something about her questions set him into more laughter, thankfully it was the high pitched laughter of a boy once again. Surely her ears were playing tricks on her. What happened next though, she hadn't been expecting. He pulled on her hair, bringing her face down to meet his and he kissed her deeply. She was too stunned, his kiss was too assertive, for her to react. When he pulled away, his eyes were glittering devilishly, looking like they belonged to somebody much older than what Orion could be. "I want whatever is Precious to you, and you want to protect me... right? Let's make a Pact. [b]She'll[/b] be here soon if you don't hurry, and she's awfully angry at me." His voice was boyish again but it rolled suggestively in just the right places to make her heart flutter. She shook her head, reaching up to slap herself across her cheek. [i]'What the hell is this kid on about?! God, am I a pedo now?!'[/i] Without warning, the room started to shake, countless threads quivering and snapping as the entire top half began to tear off from the rest of the sphere. Hundreds of heads began to fall from the ceiling as the roof was thrown away. "[b]Jesus![/b]" Azalea huddled back over Orion, clenching her eyes shut in preparation for the pain. "I can do at least this much, silly human." Orion's voice... but it sounded weak? Like he was in pain? Azalea opened her eyes just in time to see a head rebound off of an invisible force-field incasing her and Orion. She flinched back, bonking her head against the roof of the force field. "[b]OWfffff[/b]" She rubbed her head. "Please don't do that, Azzie. I need to focus on the shield." His voice was ragged now, his skin even more pale, if that was even possible. She bit her lip, considering the situation. "[b]Fine, fine, I'll do this Pact thing with you if you stop hurting yourself![/b]" She muttered, glaring at another head that hit the shield and bounded off. Orion's eyes shone brightly, actually [i]shone[/i] like a flashlight, casting a red sheen over them both. "Promise to give me your most Precious thing and I'll take us away from here, where we can be alone." Azalea frowned, then opened her mouth to scold him, but was beaten to the chase. "Not like -that-, Azzie! Wait, unless you want to - no no, focus. Your. Most. Precious. Thing. What is it?" His voice got deeper again as he spoke, wavering between child and adult. [b][i]SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECHHHHH[/i][/b] Above them, a million eyed monstrosity loomed, it's body was suspended by eight impossibly long legs as it hung where the roof once was. Fortunately, it was too big to reach them - yet. It tore at the sides of the broken sphere ferociously, all of it's eyes focused on it's prey below: them. "[b]This... this can't be real! That's a spider! A gigantic fucking spider. Like Harry Potter on steroids sort of spider. Oh my god. I have to be dreaming.[/b]" Azalea breathed heavily, her eyes and mouth opening wide in terror. "Hurry Azzie! We need to go, now!" "[b]Damnit! I can't think of anything else "precious" to me other than running![/b]" Azalea shouted hoarsely, slamming her fist against her leg. [b][i]SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECHHHHH[/i][/b] The world was silent again. She hadn't realized she was closing her eyes, but she opened them to see that it was just her and Orion, alone, in the middle of a endless field of daisies. The scene was so starkly different from where she had been before that it was hard to believe anything before had happened, except... Orion was here. "We will make a Pact now, Azalea Crowe."