Myth Incarnation 1 - Where am I?

'Where am I?' he thinks to himself while frowning.

It's cold, dark and wherever he looks there's a reddish hue illuminating his surroundings. As his eyes adjust he can make out what seems to be a fancy hallway. There is some kind of runner along the centre and windows on one side of the hallway, when he stares out of the window to find out where he is all he can make out is black terrain as far as the eye can see and a giant mesmerising blood moon filling the night sky along with a few clouds struggling to cover it's size.

It's so big and deep red it seems impossible. When he looks further down he sees what appear to be castle wall and towers surrounding a snowy courtyard. It's eerily quiet and deserted wherever he looks, not another soul to be found despite the place looking quite well maintained rather than in ruins. For some reason it all feels eerily familiar to him, as if he has been here before, but he can't remember when or where like an itch in the back of his mind trying to claw its way out.

"Where the fuck is this... and where is everyone?" he mumbles under his breath.

He focuses back on the hallway and now that his eyes have had longer to adjust notices an assortment of armours, paintings, statues and more decorating the hallway along with numerous closed doors. There are candle holders along the walls with partially melted candles, but none of them are lit and he doesn't have anything to light them either.

As he slowly makes his way across the hallway towards the first door he rattles the handle, but it appears to be locked. He stars walking down the hallway to find someone or something to tell him more about this place and why he is here. It is so eerily quiet his ears start ringing from the silence the further along the hallways he goes when he finally can barely make out some distant moans.

Slowly following the sounds he makes his way through the seemingly endless hallways the moans getting louder while at the same time an oppressive feeling coming from all around him grows thicker and thicker. Eventually he turns the umpteenth corner and near the end of the hallway he sees a door that had been left ajar with a faint orange flickering light coming from inside.

He inches closer and closer to the door and the moans become slightly more audible, though they don't seem to be moans of pleasure. More like the moans and whimpers of pain along with subdued sobbing. He shivers and finally releases the breath he has been holding not sure if he should continue or just turn and run away as fast as he can forgetting all about this place.

Against his better judgment he creeps closer to the door as quietly as possible before peeking through the crack of the door. What he sees makes his blood run cold though, the flickering red light of candles dimly illuminates a tiled room, but he can make out multiple girls hung from the ceiling by black iron hooks and chains. Some are wearing maids outfits while others are completely naked. Some of them are covered in countless cuts, others whipped until they were bleeding.

One even still has a dagger embedded in her side as blood drips down their bodies. The worst thing is at least a few of them still seem to be alive and the moans and whimpers he had heard were coming from them, but their eyes are already lifeless. It was impossible to make out if they are even crying due to all the blood covering nearly every piece of their body he could see. The smell of blood is so overwhelming causing him to gag as he tries to prevent himself from throwing up.

The final thing to capture his attention is closer to the back of the room though. There he sees a standalone porcelain bathtub on black claw feet. Inside it is a viscous red liquid that can only be blood from the girls he sees. In the tub bathing among the blood is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. Her skin as pale as the moon, her luscious lips tinted ruby red and her lustrous raven hair cascading down her shoulders and the top of her plump milky breasts before landing in the blood slowly dying the tips red.

Suddenly she turns and looks directly at him and he can see her deep crimson eyes that seem to stare directly into his soul while she smiles revealing her porcelain teeth some of which seem sharper than they should be and despite her flawless beauty he feels like he is being stared down by a predator, but curiously at the same time there seems to be a little warmth there.

She slowly stands up in the tub and rivulets of blood slowly flow down her porcelain skin revealing everything without even a blush marring her pale skin. If his bladder wasn't empty he would probably have pissed himself right now. Before he realised he is already running down the hallway a chilling chuckle ringing from the room behind him as his hair stands on end and a cold sweat runs down his back while his heart beats faster than it ever has.

'Shit! Shit! Shit!' he is practically shouting in his mind as he can't get his thoughts straight to calm himself down.

He runs through and past what seems to be countless intertwining hallways not even knowing how long as he hast long lost track of time when he finally makes it to what appear to be the main hall. He rushed down the grand stairway towards a giant set of doors at the end of the hall. With all the force he could muster he burst through the doors out into the courtyard where he momentarily falls to his knees, the blood moon shining down on him and the white snow surrounding him giving it all a slightly red hue.

His breathing is ragged as he tries to catch his breath for a moment before climbing back up from his knees struggling to make his way across the massive courtyard towards the gatehouse and out the thankfully open gate afraid that he might be caught as exhaustion starts taking over he finally falls and slowly his consciousness fades away leaving nothing but darkness. The last thing he hears seems to be a distant crying.