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The darkness was flickering all around her, she was almost nothing at all still. Her memories where hardly gathered, she had only found two shards. Undead. Fighter. The two words echoed in her mind but something was still lacking. A whole self, a whole memory. Who was she? What had she forgotten?

Manthas had no answer to these questions her mind could only run in circles so many times before silence took over leaving her to wander the void that was the spire in silence. She saw others, she did not approach them. She wandered.

Somehow she found herself before the Goddess, her Shrine was almost silent as always except for her working diligently in the middle. The conversation was short. A bag was passed from hand to hand and into her own. Nothing inside, nothing like her memories she rolled it around in her hands slowly pondering what to do with the bag.

"Collect...a heart." She glanced down at her own red pulsing orb tucked in her chest. She took the scissors in her left hand flipping them over, inspecting their shape and design. Simple. Efficient. She looked back to the Goddess and simply shrugged moving on towards the thin slit of an opening. Shadow met darkness once more as she climbed into the slit venturing down into the dark, the only sound following her foot steps was a steady thumping in the distance.

The darkness was deep and quick. It swallowed her whole in an instant leaving her nothing but the faint glow of her pulsing red heart. Even that did nothing to guide her it seemed like the darkness swallowed the light leaving nothing but the abyss.

Even forward as she walked she had no sense of where she was going. Where the hall lead what it lead too. It lead to a heart right? To put in her bag. Simple as that. The longer she walked the greater the fear grew, the greater the sound of the thumping. Finally she reached it. A crate blocked her path, her fingers moved slowly over the crate, or was it a cage? She slid her fingers around it till the brushed over flesh. Or was it flesh? It was soft and long sticking out the side of the box. Long, slim, appealing even in some odd way.

Finally her fingers brushed the opening, something squirmed inside, or tried too rather. Fear was oozing through the air, Manthas swore, swore she could taste it. There was silence, silence till she pressed against the figure in the crate. They whimmpered they objected it seemed.

Manthas only shrugged flipping the scissors about sinking them into the soft flesh blocking her way to the heart. "SAMMY! SAMMY STOP SAMMY!" The cries to stop gave Manthas a pause. Her head tilted to the side scissors tucked into soft tissue before she gave a few more snips causing the voice to scream that strange name again.

Snip, snip, snip.... snipsnipsnip. CRACK.

She hit something hard blocking her path towards the heart. It made her scowl though the figure in the box sobbing in agony screaming a strange name as she cut at the harder parts. Her hands slid in, between the bones stroking the pulsing device inside. Each stroke caused the person locked inside to scream more "SAMMY PLEASE SAMMY STOP. SAAAMANNNNTHA!" The cage rattled harder fingers lashed at her flesh. She hadn't even realized what was going on in the rush of fear and her work. Fingers clawed at her flesh her hair she squeezed the heart and the hand stopped in shock howling in pain again. "Please... please Sammy stop... Sammy I-"

SNIP!

The body gave way crumbling down into the cage, blood gushing as she cut the last of ties between heart and body. She tugged at her prize feeling it slip free. Manthas didn't speak as she held the heart in her hand. The sack slid open and the heart dropped in wet and heavy.

"Hey Sammy?"

She looked up from her guitar. The shadow was smiling playfully across the quad. Ghost white teeth in a midnight black face, hair curled and coiled bouncing up and down. The ghoul grinned easily at Siddie, how long had they been dating? Yellow eyes met nothing but the contact was there. Sammy could tell Siddie was staring right back at her as she shifted around tucking her guitar to her side. "Hey Sid." Her finger bone, not flesh, gestured for the ghoul to come closer.

A hop a skip and another hop lead a ruffled and layered ghoul to fall into Sammy's lap. The air was cool, Siddie was warm against her cold flesh. It was the closest she had ever really known to being alive, being near Siddie feeling that warm pulse against her own lacking one. It was so warm... so warm... she loved her, they loved each other.

The memory was gone just like that. Darkness surrounded her once more. The terror, the fear, it was all gone, the room was silent, the bag was heavy and she didn't dare look into the cage.

She started towards the hall again bag in hand stumbling as she went.

What was this about?

The water was gone, she was coughing, spitting the last of the liquid from her lungs stumbling and crawling along the floor as she was freed from the water and her killer.

The bag was still there, heart tucked against her side heavy and guilty as she scrambled to get away, to get to the shrine to be free again. She had to return the heart it was all she wanted to do, had to do.

The darkness was ending, she saw a shift, the slit, the door and the exit to get away as she stumbled to her feet. Slipping through the door she looked back catching a glimpse of the figure behind her, a flicker of something, something holding a pair of scissors and then she ran.

Manthas' eyes snapped open, staring up to the white ceiling above her. She felt cold, unusually so for that matter. Looking around the room seemed flat and white. Nothing important other then her and the table.

And a very annoying humming sound.

Turning circles on the floor she looked for the source of the buzzing, every second it grew louder. The buzzing was like a series of nats jammed into the side of her skull eating and plucking at her thoughts. It pissed her off really.

So onto the door then, her only option. It opened easily enough, she didn't have to force it, it was simply unlocked.

Manthas pressed her back to the door watching the creature draw closer, still farther down the hall but slowly moving forward, the scissors still dragging in the ground leaving tiny marks in the flawless white floor.

"No... dammit... I need, something." She turned spotting a sheet of paper, letters, numbers, something. She snatched it holding it tight in her hand looking around the door again mashing a series of buttons on a pannel.

"Let. Me. Out!"

The monster only walked closer chuckling softly.

Distance: 40

The forest was thinning, the trees where farther apart and the brush was not as deep. A sliver of hope as she used her dagger to cut the last few brushes aside. "No, almost... away..." she stepped out of the chaos of the woods to find her path only had one option. A scrappy little bridge was the only way across the valley before her.

"Sahhhmmmyyyy give me your heaaart." The scisscors clicked in the distance as the creature moved forward. "Give mine back.... I'll make it quick. But only because I carrrrreeee."

Manthas looked back, the figure was pressing through the brush pausing to clear the last bit between them. "Damn you, it was the Goddess who asked for that heart. Not I." She turned to the bridge sprinting along its crumbling path. Her foot hit hard and the planks split tugging her down as she let out a helpless yelp of shock.

No mater how she twisted or turned she couldn't get her leg out. At the edge of the bridge, the creature was coming. "Like hell, it's my heart. I won't let you have it." THe ghost of Siddie only laughed as Manthas turned to her ankle dagger in hand. She bit her lip over her tongue as she hacked away fighting back the desire to cry to scream. Tendrils of smoke leaked from the twisted lump as she finally cut her foot free scrambling on all fours along the bridge.

All the while the monster breathed over her shoulder, the snipping of her blades just behind her as she cleared the last of the bridge.

Not today, not today.