Chapter 1 – Down the rabbit hole
'How did this happen? How did things come to this?' She thought has she looked up at the figure slowly growing more and more distant from her. She'd never thought that things would end like this. After all, out of all the women in the world she'd had the brightest future. The world had been at her feet and all those whom dwelled therein envied her. A bright future… what a bright future she'd had. 'Where did I go wrong? Was it wrong to love him? To want him? How is that woman better then me? I'm clearly more talented… more beautiful. And as for love… I love him so much more.' She wanted to scream this out but her mouth wouldn't work, in fact her body in general wasn't under her control.
She could barely see them anymore. Her tears had blurred her vision and she was falling rapidly… and yet some how she could still make out his cold and indifferent expression. How perhaps it wasn't that she could actually see his face but rather that, that expression had been seared into her memory.
She closed her eyes.
She was rapidly falling, she wasn't sure how but she could instinctively feel the bottom of this cliff was only moments away. She was going to die full of regrets and there was nothing she could do about it. If there was another life she would live for herself… not for her parents… not for her lover, but for herself. Even though she did a lot of wrong…this kind of ending… wasn't it a bit much?
"It's over?" A soft and feminine voice cut the silence.
"She can't hurt you anymore. It's over Yu'er. Let's go." Without the slightest hesitation the stotic and handsome young man took the hand of his beloved and led her away from this place of death. He looked at her with love, longing, and utter devotion. For him there was certainly no other woman that could take her place. They were after all soul mate. The red string of fate was unbreakable after all, they were meant to be together.
***********
Several hours later.
Pain… there was so much pain.
How could there suddenly be so much pain? What had happened to her?
She groaned and blood trickled down the side of her mouth. She couldn't moved and she was struggling to open up her eyes. The air was biting cold and it felt like every inch of her was broken and throbbing in pain.
She couldn't understand. She'd just been on her way back to Wuhan, China from a psychology conference in New York that had been. She remembered that she was nearly home, only two blocks to go. Was she in a accident?
She forced her mouth open and tried to call for help but all she got was a weak cough. She must have been in really bad accident.
Her mind kept trying to work things out but the terrible pain was clouding her mind, making troubleshooting nearly impossible. Eventually she no longer had the strength to fight the drowsiness and surrendered.
*********
Four hours later.
She stirred again. A soft groan escaped her dry and cracked lips, her eyes fluttered and opened this time. She turned her head and tried to look around. There were rocks everywhere and to the other side of her she could hear water.
She was still trying to work out her surrounding and trying to remember what happened. But the pain was still way too much. She was still unable to move for the most part. Moving her head around was the best she could do for now.
A wave a nausea hit her and she turned her head to the throw up. She couldn't move anymore than that. The clenching of her stomach muscles made her want to double over in pain, but it was as though her body were paralyzed and all she could do was lay there and take it. She was in misery, it felt everlasting and there was nothing she could do about it.
She'd only been able to stay awake for few minutes before she once again fell unconscious.
**********
Ten hours later
She once again found her way out of the darkness. The pain was still enough to make her stomach turn but at least she could think a bit more.
When had she ever had to endure pain like this. It wasn't just physically taxing either it was also mentally taxing. She found that even taking in a few breaths for air was a struggle. She didn't know what to do so she just started sobbing. She cried and cried and cried. It hurt and there was nothing she could do about it, and no one was around to help. She was hurt and alone. There were no first responders, no one tending to her. She was clearly broken and on top of that alone and laying on a hard and ragged ground. It was cold and she could smell rain in the air. Looking at the sky she could see clouds… another clear sign of rain.
What else was there for her to do but cry? So that's exactly what she did. She wept until the pain slowly became more and more bare able.
After another hour or so she opened her eyes again and slowly raised her hand to look at it. It was so unfamiliar that it confused her. She furrowed her brows in concentration.
While her had always been white, they'd never been this pale and delicate. It looked like craved jade. Although the hand was dirty, the dirt couldn't hide how beautiful they were.
She was extremely confused. While it was true that she was a working professional, she'd always been a hard working woman. And before she moved to the city for college she lived in a rural village. She'd worked her parents land just like all the other village children so she'd always been tanned as she never shied away from the sun even after childhood. She couldn't understand it… Her skin had never been so perfect.
"What..?" She murmured in an almost inaudible before she suddenly screamed, and pain so intense that it nearly knocked her out struck her brain and she was suddenly assaulted by memories that obviously didn't belong to her.
It felt as though her brain was being ripped apart and someone was just shoveling information in.
She gasped she air as she tried to understand what was happening to her. She couldn't comprehend where all these memories had come from.This pain was just too much. The pain in her body had barely become bare able and now with this she simply couldn't hold on any longer and passed out as the memories were downloading continuously at a rapid rate. Her body once again went slack and she sank back into oblivion.
*******
It hurt…
For the first time she could actually tell where she hurt. It was her leg. It was a strange a feeling… After spending so much time in a state of complete pain to finally be able to tell which part of her body actually hurt.
Wait… something was wrong. She was moving. Her brows furrowed as she realized that she was moving. She was being dragged. Something was hooked into her leg and she was being dragged.
Her heart began to thump wildly.
She opened her eyes and look towards her leg only to dine two gigantic red eyes staring at her… as well as the sharpest teeth she'd ever seen biting into her leg.
It was a monster. A monster was biting into her leg and dragging her away like a lump of meat. It was huge, whatever it wa…
Wait..
She knew what it was! It was a almiraj. This huge rabbit looking creature was a demonic beast that started out about the size of middle sized dog, but could enlarge itself to up to ten times it's original size to tackle larger prey. It was carnivorous and ruthless.
She'd found all the answers she needed in the memories that had been forced on her. She even had the answer to how to kill it and free herself.
As unbelievable as she found all of this she made a quick decision to not ask questions for now. Her life was more important. After coming to that conclusion she took a deep breath and and tried to circulate her Qi.
It moved like a engine trying to stall. She knew what she was supposed do but deep down she just couldn't that something so manga like even though this appeared to be apart of her new reality.
It bit down hard and she muffled a scream. This thing wanted to eat her alive, she had no doubt about that. She was scared… incredibly scared. She was sucking down air in gasps.
No, no this wouldn't do. Even if there was a tiny percentage that this was real she had to fight for her life. She couldn't just allow her fear to paralyze her like this. She had to fight and if this turned out to just be a nightmare like she believed it to be then she would just laugh at herself when she woke up in the morning.
She did something that before this moment she would of thought was impossible. She forced down the pain and took deep calming breaths.
Inhale…
Exhale…
Inhale…
Exhale…
With her mind clearer she once again closed her eyes and tried to circulate Qi once again. She stomped down her excitement as she felt it her Qi circulating from her dantian and flowing through her meridians. Filing her body with energy she took less than a second to focus her Qi on her leg where the Almiraj was biting her and stopped the bleed then she quickly choose a hand seal from her memories and activated her power.
Immediately the Almiraj stopped moving and bit down even harder on her leg. The sound of bone breaking could immediately be heard.
Bai Mei Li gritted her teeth as a burst of adrenaline kicked in and helped her toforced herself to ignore the pain. This was clearly a life of death situation. If she wanted to live she had to kill this monster.
After completing the hand seal and with lightening fast movements that she didn't even know she was capable of she struck out at the creature.
The temperature in an area of several meters had dropped but this rabbit like creature wasn't afraid of this level of cold. It jumped back baring it's bloodied teeth at Bai Mei Li. Angered that it had been interrupted from bringing its food back to it's lair.
Bai Mei Li had gotten to her feet with the help of a near by tree as quickly possible and was now balancing herself on one foot. She was trying her best to put as little pressure on that foot as possible. She looked and felt haggard. She was exhausted although she had absorbed and circulated some Qi… it honestly wasn't that much. So while she had more strength than she'd had before that was only in comparison to having no strength at all.
She knew from her memories that she needed to make this as quick as possible. The almiraj had one thing in common with the rabbits from her memory and that was that they reproduced rapidly. That was way despite this particular demonic beast having generally low cultivation is was still a threat because where there was one there was many.
She was barely managing to survive as is right now. If even one more appeared she'd been dead with out a doubt.
She clenched the ice sword she'd manifested tightly in her hand. She had finish this as quickly as possible. She grinned as an idea on how to do just that appeared in her mind. She sifted through the new memories in her mind and got the information that she was looking for.
But just as she was about to cast the hand seal the almiraj attacked. It's speed was frighteningly fast. She dodged as quickly as she could to the side bare missing the worst of the attack, but it still managed to claw her shoulder.
She fell to the ground with a groan, but didn't dare to waste anytime. She grabbed hold of another tree and climbed back up.
Blood flowed freely but she didn't have the time to even think about it. She quickly attempted the hand seal again then stomped the ground to dodge its next attack. This it managed claw across her neck and collar bone.
She cried "Ice domain!" And the moment the almiraj landed from the second time it's feet were trapped by the ice she'd planted when she'd stomped off the ground before.
The Almiraj was startled and Bai Mei Li knew that this technique was far too low level to trap it for more than a minuted or two. But that was all she need. She circulated all the Qi she could muster to her feet then flew directly towards the Almiraj stabbing it straight through the heart with so much force that she ended up pinning it to the ground.
Her heart was pounding in her chest. She was truly terrified. After all this wasn't her life. She didn't go around killing wild animals bare handed. If she was hungry we would just go to the supermarket. There simply wasn't a need to do things like this in modern times. This was just too primitive.
She backed away from the animal her wide and terrified staring at the dying creature in front of her.
It was breathing shallowly. Though it was pinned to the ground it was still kicking its legs as though it were still trying to run away. It was dying as as it's life force ebbed away it began to shrink back down to it's original size.
It was now about the size of a medium size dog on earth and it no longer looks vicious and scary. Instead it looked pitiful… sad.
Bai Mei Li's body trembled.
She should put it out of it's misery, it was clearly suffering. But… but she just couldn't. She couldn't bring herself to deliver that final killing blow. So she clenched her small hands into fists and closed her eyes so that her didn't have to watch it die.
Coward.
This was the first time she'd ever thought of herself as anything but brave. On earth she'd met ever problem she'd ever had with an unblinking fierceness. She'd thought her has such a courageous person, but now she could feel what she was lacking. She dearly hoped that this was some kind of horrible dream. How would she survive if this was her new reality?
(Edited)