It was a lovely day in the Japanese mountains.

well.. except for the horror.

She tripped and fell down a steep incline, tearing herself up on rocks and sticks

And then, she kept falling. She just didn't stop for some reason.

there was a hole or an opening and she just kept falling

before she knew it, she was falling through another sky

she screamed and looked out, seeing twisted and grotesque skeletons littering the landscape

she kept falling. she didn't know how to stop

Until eventually, she fell down into a gigantic rib cage

her coat caught on some low hanging bones which snapped like tree branches, but slowed her descent just enough that she could land on the bone pile below and not die somehow...

but she thought she was dead

she was cut and bleeding....

her blood flowed down, down into the bones, faster and faster... more and more... until she was dizzy and weaker than before...

In her mind the picture of a man appeared. or at least she thought he was a man. a man she did not know, but somehow did know all the same...

he had long silvery white hair and two blue markings down his cheeks... and he wore the most unusual clothing, befitted with sharp and ancient looking armor

"You there...!" she called out in the dream, but he did not come

eventually too much of her blood had flowed into the bones and she felt so sleepy and heavy and tired and broken and just... done

she closed her eyes and called to the spirits in the world, in her mind, too...

"Please... come... come for me. Come back. Come here. Come... help. Help."

and then, she fell again. She fell into her mind, down, down, into the deep...

for hours, years, or days - she did not know

when she awoke again, there was a silver thread of hair or two tickling her cheek and a particular musky smell... almost like wet fur...