Chosen by Fate, Rejected by the Alpha

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Trinity

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I ran. I ran and I ran and I ran as hard as I could. That laugh, that voice, all of it was getting to me. I couldn't help it. There was just something about it that was scaring me. Maybe it was right, maybe it wasn't, but whatever it was, it was getting to the point where I couldn't take it anymore.

Every step I took, each time that my foot met the floor of this dark room, I could see that light growing larger in the distance.

"Oh thank the Goddess. At least I am making progress. At least I can tell that I am getting closer. This doesn't seem to be one of those fun house, or horror house effects. That is one good thing."

Why did I keep talking to myself? Was it so that I could drown out the sound of the voice inside my head? I didn't know if that was the real reason or not, but it seemed like a good idea to me. So, I was going to keep talking. I was going to do whatever I needed to so that I didn't officially go insane.

Or is talking to myself and justifying it with feeble responses from myself even more insane than letting that voice take over my mind? Honestly, I didn't know anymore. All I knew was that I was almost to that light and I would feel a lot better once I got there.

"Just a little more, Trinity, come on, keep going. That's it. Keep running. Go. Go. Go. Go." Yeah, this little pep talk I was giving myself wasn't crazy at all. I was doing just fine. Yup, nothing to worry about here.

Run. Run. Run. Run. I stopped talking out loud because I was starting to feel silly, but I chanted along inside of my head. Hey, it was helping me just a little bit. Each step I took I said the words inside my head. Run. Run. Run. Run.

Finally, the light was right there. It looked like it was a campfire that was just sitting there in the middle of the room ahead of me.

Yeah, that's what it was. It was a campfire with large sitting logs laying around it. The fire itself was huge too. I could literally walk right into it, and it would still be way taller than I was.

Not that I was going to walk into it. That would truly make me insane. No, I was just noting the very impressive height of the fire that was looming before me. It was massive and definitely dangerous. Who the hell would want a fire that big to begin with?

Even though I was still so far away from the fire, I could feel the heat that was coming off of it. I hadn't even realized how cold I was until I was this close to the fire and I felt the warmth that it was giving me.

"Damn, that feels good." I couldn't stop myself from crying out as I started to feel warmer and the numbness in my limbs that I hadn't even noticed started to subside.

The ends of my fingers and the tips of my toes were actually starting to prickle with a slight amount of pain now that I could feel them again. It was strange, the things that I hadn't noticed around me. Was I just ignoring it or was I just not able to tell the difference in things anymore? Or was it just this place in general?

I thought about all those things as I walked toward the heart of the warmth. The moment that I entered the circle of light that the fire was giving off, I saw that the fire was starting to shrink. With each step that I took the fire got smaller. It was odd, I had never seen anything like this before.

In a way, it was like the fire had burned bigger and brighter just so that I could see it. Like it was actually acting as a beacon for me to follow this entire time. I tried to think that this whole thing was odd, and at first, I really did. In truth though, I don't think anything from this place was going to surprise me all that much anymore.

Finally, I got right next to the fire, and it was no bigger than a typical campfire that you would see anywhere else. It wasn't a bonfire or anything like that, it was a normal sized, perfectly contained campfire that was surrounded with a beautiful array of stone that had been stacked in an elaborate design.

"Is anyone here?" I called out in a loud voice. Someone had to be here, didn't they? Why else would there be a fire here? Someone had to light it. Someone had to be waiting here for it. So, who was that person, and where were they? That was the big question, wasn't it?

"Hello?" I called out again, hoping that there would be someone here to answer me this time. "HELLO! IS ANYONE HERE? HELLO!?"

I couldn't see or hear anyone near the fire. The only sound that I was able to hear right now was the crackle of the flames inside the rock pit.

Just for the hell of it, knowing that it would amount to nothing, I walked around the fire in a slow circle. I looked in every direction as I walked, trying to find something or someone that would help explain to me what was going on right now. I looked at the ground, the fire, the wooden benches, all of it. I even looked out into the darkness around me trying to see the place that I was in, but there was nothing to be seen.

Outside the edge of light that the fire was giving off, I could see nothing. I couldn't see the ground, the walls, the ceiling, nothing. The place that I was in was still a mystery to me. And to make matters worse, the stuff inside the circle of light just confused me even more.

I knew from my walk here and the exploring before I started walking, that this was a room with walls. Walls that had felt like they were made of wood. I had gotten the impression that the floor was made of wood as well. I hadn't felt it under my hands like I had the walls, but the way that it reacted to my steps definitely made it feel like wood instead of stone.

However, inside the circle of light, what I could actually see clearly, looked like I was outside. I had somehow gone from locked inside a wooden room to standing outside at a campfire that seemed to be surrounded by rocks and dirt.

"This is fucking weird as could be. What the hell is going on here?" I turned in a circle while standing in place, looking around the place that I had found myself now. "I really don't like this fucking shit at all. This is freaking me out."

"Have you ever noticed that you start to use more profanity when you get frustrated?"