3 The Dark

"Huff, huff, huff..."

The maid's heavy breaths and clacks of her heels on the cold, hard floor made up all the noise in the quiet corridor. The dim lamp in her hand gave off just barely enough light to illuminate the dark and eerie passageway.

Droplets of water that fell from the ceiling made the path uncomfortably damp.

With unnerving silence and darkness on the way, each step the maid took got faster and faster. Her hair stood on ends, and beads of sweat poured from her forehead. This sort of atmosphere was terrifying, especially when she was all alone. The maid did have one form of company, but she saw it as a liability more than a form of emotional support or mental reassurance.

She helplessly looked down at the baby in her arms and cursed. Her footsteps quickened. She felt like something would pop out of the shadows at any moment and drag her into the dark.

But truthfully, the baby carried in the maid's arms wasn't afraid of the disconcerting darkness but of what would happen to her if the maid dropped her while carelessly dashing down the corridor.

Both Yuna and the maid became more anxious with each passing second.

Iron doors with numbers carved on them appeared, which slowly decreased as they went further and further down the passage.

One-Hundred, Ninety-Nine, Ninety-Eight...

Fifty-Four, Fifty-Three...

Three, Two, One...

After what felt like a century, they finally reached the end of the corridor with a moldy iron door labeled 'Zero' greeting them. Around this door, moss hugged the walls, and bugs trailed down the leaky ceiling. Puddles of water led into the door, which contained the stench of a rotting corpse.

The maid looked even more apprehensive after coming to the door, which seemed to give off an unsettling and unapproachable air.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, pushed open the door, and like her life depended on it, found a table to set Yuna down on, and darted out at the speed of light. The door labeled 'Zero' slammed loudly behind her with a loud clank, following the sound of a lock locking.

Rather than the maid gently setting her down on the table, it'd be more appropriate to say that she threw Yuna at it.

Yuna felt a sharp pain in her back as she came into contact with the surface of the rotting table. If the maid pushed slightly less force into the throw, she would have missed the table and fallen on the floor, probably causing her head to crack open. Though her brain was not too affected, her stomach was. Lampooning, she internally sighed, 'Are babies in this world made of steel? Must everyone here treat this body so terribly?'

As she ranted complaints of her new world to no one in particular, a painful ache tore at her back, interrupting her train of thought.

'Right...' With this new, fragile body, how could she not have been uninjured from everything that'd happened so far?

She thought about her aching back, neck, head, brain, and everyone who's been abusing her these past few hours and felt like she needed another minute to digest it all. With these injuries, it wasn't clear how her future physical development would continue.

She needed time to recover and a doctor to possibly help her, but she knew that man wouldn't send her one. She recalled the look on her so-called father's face as he choked her, along with the lowered heads of the servants who snuck glances of hatred and blame when she did nothing besides being born.

Yuna felt that if she had to live like this every single day, then it'd be better if she hadn't reincarnated at all.

...

Yuna was tired.

There was no more of her blood left to suck dry.

She didn't want to have to endure looking at those cheap masks of such circus animals anymore. It was tiring to constantly cling to the small hope that she'd be able to live a happy life.

Yuna twisted her aching body to look at the dark, endless floor beneath the table.

Now that everything she cared about in life was gone, there was no point in living anymore.

Right?

She felt her body slowly tipping off of the old and rickety table.

But as if something possessed her, by squeezing every last drop of strength in her body, she pulled herself back up.

Yuna remembered her mother in this world, who gave birth at the cost of her own life. She stared at the endless darkness of the room and chuckled bitterly to herself silently, 'What kind of vengeful spirit is cursing me?'

With a tired yawn, her eyes fluttered.

'...Ah,'

'I'm tired.'

Yuna's small gray eyes closed as the darkness engulfed and swallowed her whole.

...