Red Rapture

I remember the first time I ever saw her, even though I shouldn't have. She wasn't supposed to be real. None of it was supposed to be real.

But there I was, standing in a place that wasn't supposed to exist, feeling like I was being smothered by something I couldn't see. The air was thick, heavy with the kind of heat that clings to your skin in all the wrong ways. My chest was tight, but not in the way you feel when you're about to pass out. No, it was a pressure that settled into your bones. A pressure that demands you feel everything whether you want to or not. Which, weirdly enough, was the strangest part: I didn't want to run. I didn't even want to fight it.

This wasn't a dream. Not a hallucination. It felt too real, too tangible. But what the hell was this place?

I'd walked through the door-I didn't even know how. One minute, I was in my room, scrolling through the night; the next, the world had shifted. The walls of my room, the comfort of familiarity, slipped away and the only thing left was red. Red everywhere. The sky, the ground, the water that stretched beyond what I could see-it was all saturated in this oppressive shade, like the whole world was bleeding out.

My breath caught in my throat. Something was wrong. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. I turned around, desperate to see something that could explain how I got here, but all I saw was the endless expanse of red that melted into darkness. There were no roads, no signs, no paths that led anywhere. Just red and the water.

And then she appeared.

She didn't just walk into my vision. No, it felt like she'd always been there, folded in parts of the world I wasn't able to see. I became aware of her before I was even aware that I was. She was standing at the water's edge, bathed in the crimson hue of the place. Her dark eyes were trained on me, unwavering, and that was the moment my pulse shot into overdrive.

I didn't know her-at least not consciously-but my body knew her. My heart, my skin, my every damn nerve knew her, and the more I looked at her the less I could remember why that scared me. I felt myself being pulled toward her, compelled by something I couldn't name, some strange magnetism, a pull I couldn't resist if I tried.

A tinge of a smirk curled her lip, and she cocked her head. The air around her folded in on itself. It was as if space itself kowtowed to her whim.

"You don't belong here," she said.

I didn't answer immediately; I couldn't. It was that weight of her words, the manner in which she spoke them; it was not accusatory, yet more like a statement of undeniable fact. A fact up until now I didn't realize.

"I don't know where I am," I said, my voice coming out hoarse. I swallowed, my throat dry and with each word feeling like it would choke.

She laughed, her voice low, almost hollow, resounding off the enormous void. "You don't need to know," she said, stepping forward; every movement almost ostentatiously smooth, almost too deliberate. "But you're here now. And there's no going back.

Her words felt like they stuck in my skin, like thorns-a weird kind of pain that paralyzed me. A part of me wanted to turn around, run-get the hell out of here, out of this nightmare. But I couldn't move my feet. I just could not take my gaze away from her. There was something in her presence that asked everything of me.

Her steps were fluid, gliding over the water's surface without a ripple, and she stopped a few feet from me. Her gaze never wavered, something in the depths of her eyes. It wasn't curiosity; it was something darker, more possessive, something that told me she knew exactly what I was feeling without my uttering a word. She saw me; nobody had.

"Why am I here?" I whispered almost, as if the answer would break me if I spoke it aloud.

She smiled. "To figure that out."

And just then, it happened-the shift. The subtle shift of the ground beneath me, the air growing colder, thicker. My body suddenly felt heavier, like it was filled with something I couldn't shake.

I stepped backward. My foot splashed in the water. Cold. It shouldn't have been cold. Nothing here was supposed to make sense.

I looked at her, my chest tightening as I searched her face for any hint of explanation. "What is this place?"

Her smirk grew wider and she did this really weird thing where she leaned forward, like a predator, and touched my arm. Her fingers grazed my skin, and that sparked heat across my body, and I swear my entire skin felt on fire. Her touch was soft, but all powerful. The burn seared in my skin, but wasn't only physical. It was deeper. The type of burn that lingers long after the moment has passed.

"Does it matter?" she asked.

I didn't say anything. How could I? Because I didn't know if this was real. I didn't know if I'd fallen asleep. But her touch-the heat, the pressure-it all seemed too real. Too much to dismiss.

The world around us seemed to bend and twist, as if it were made of something… fragile. I felt dizzy, disoriented, and I stumbled slightly, trying to catch my breath. My vision blurred for a second, then refocused, and when I looked back at her, her eyes were darker, almost hungry. Again, the air had thickened; the tension between us was palpable.

"You're not ready"

she whispered, then seemed to be talking to herself, yet I caught every word.

I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could utter a word, the world tilted. The red just faded out-like the night swallowed it whole. I reached out for her, but it was too late. She was already gone.

And I was left there standing, with nothing but the open expanse of horizon and the touch of her hand still on my skin.