Alone in the Endless White

Misa's eyes were on nothing. Literally nothing. Around her was a blanket of white with not an object or a bit of color in sight. It was as if Misa had gone blind, her vision clouding over and all that was left was a blank screen.

"Where am I?" She wondered aloud.

Her voice didn't echo into the spacious white around her. She couldn't tell how far out the space extended. She heard nothing besides herself. From what Misa could tell, she was utterly alone in a place where nothing existed.

Beads of sweat began to rise on her brow and the back of her neck. "What is this?" The silence screamed back at her, and she grew desperate for an answer but was too afraid help herself find one.

"Where am I?!" The trance-like state from before that had called her to this place having gone from her mind, Misa was lucid now. And anxious.

She recognized that this was a bad situation she had found herself in, and going it alone had her majorly freaked out.

There's gotta be someone here. She thought. One of the others. Her mind instinctively thought of Prince Ran. She remembered the lore about the Fae he had explained while she unsuccessfully fought through the murky haze that had overtaken her mind.

"Especially effective on the weak human mind... making travelers delirious with fanciful imagery... they end up lost forever and perish somewhere far from home."

Shaking her head in protest of the prince's words, she mumbled to herself, "No. No way am I lost. No way. Nope. No."

Misa turned her body in all directions, meeting nothing at every angle. "No!" A series of 'Oh my gosh-es" were racing through her mind as she came to terms with just how alone she was.

She couldn't help but freak out for a little. Misa stilled herself and closed her eyes to the void. She didn't want to see it. The endless sight made her anxious enough to cry, so to calm herself, she breathed deeply and slowly.

After about thirty seconds, she opened her eyes and shook the nervous tingle from her fingers. Misa berated herself. This is no time to be a slave to my fears! I need to get out of here and get back to the others.

With that, Misa set off into the white nothing, her footfalls slow and cautious. There was no telling if she'd smack into a wall that had made itself invisible blending in so well. Or if she'd walk off the edge of an unseen cliff and plunge to her untimely death.

Ohhh, man... She breathed out, the thought making her extraordinarily cautious. Misa counted her steps. Fifteen... sixteen... seventeen... eighteen... nineteen... twent--

"You have got to be joking."

"AAAGH!" Misa screamed, her hand flying to her chest in surprise and her eyes darting around the blank space. "Wh-Wh-Who's there?! Show yourself!"

She could see only as far as she had before. Nothing had changed. Around her, everything remained still and empty. "Sh-Show yourself!" She demanded again, waiting with bated breath for the owner of the voice to appear.

Finally, Misa felt movement.

On top of her head.

"WaaaaaaAaAaaaghhhhh!! Aaaaaaah!!!" Misa ran circles around the room, clutching her hair. "I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die. Something's gonna kill me." She cried.

Like she'd slammed into one of those invisible walls she'd imagined up, Misa dissolved into a puddle of tears, melting to the floor and wailing into the echoless white void around her. While trying to find the creature that had been perched atop her head!

Misa ultimately got her hair looking like a bird's nest, using her fingers to comb through and flip everything everywhere.

"Really, human. How do you live like this?" The voice spoke again through Misa's cries.

Hearing it this second time, the voice was more familiar to Misa. She paused, her nose still sniffling as she popped one of her teary eyes open and gave a fearful peek into the endlessness.

"Mm?" She hummed in question, the sound thick with tears.

It was a tiny black bat.

"You are much too fearful, human." The bat spoke in Prince Ran's voice and Misa sucked in a huge breath before crying, "Raaaan!"

"You cry too much, too."

Elated, she scooped the little creature up in her hands and planted a thousand kisses on its furry little head. "Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay!" she mumbled between each smack of her lips. Meanwhile, the vampire prince screamed in his bat form, his still deep voice contrasting with his small size.

"Hey!" He cried as Misa pecked him over and over again. "Hey stop!" He flapped his little wings as hard as he could, but Misa had a firm grip on him.

Finally, Misa held him away from her at an arm's length to get a better look. "I'm so glad you're here, Ran. Seriously. Thank you for being here." She mumbled. "I didn't want to be alone."

The vampire bat cleared its throat--a sight that was a tad funny to Misa--and looked away. "Why the sudden familiarity? You, you must address me as ... Anyway, wipe your eyes, human." The prince finished in his most gruff voice.

Misa chuckled fondly at the creature's attempt to hide his bashfulness and swiped her left hand across her eyes a couple of times. Her right hand still held Prince Ran.

"Now, let us go." The prince urged, "I have a feeling we mustn't linger too long."

"Oh, right." Misa nodded. She stood and looked around the white space once more. As there was no clear path to take, she simply set a path forward, walking with noticeably more confidence this time as she had Prince Ran cupped gently in the palm of her hands.

Except, she halted when she heard, "Where are you going?"

Misa frowned down at the bat prince. "Where? I mean," she gestured around her, "forward? There's nowhere else to go."

"Except you're about to enter the obviously ominous, doomsday is near, red and purple portal just five steps in front of us."

"Wh-what? I am?!" Misa stuttered.

"Correct. Are you blind?"

And for the second time that day, disappointment flooded Misa's body. She had no snarky reply for him because again, she couldn't see what she was supposed to see. What Prince Ran and the other vampires were able to see.

"Apparently, I am." She felt weak. She felt frustrated.

The sigh which came from Prince Ran's bat form was much more massive than his puny size. "I'll lead, Misa. Follow me." She didn't miss the rare kindness in his voice. It made her smile a little.

Attached to nothing and standing on its own among the white backdrop was a shimmering blue and green portal the shape of a large rectangular door. It stood twenty steps to the right of the dark red and purple portal of the same shape and size. Around them, and stretching far, far beyond their current position, countless matching pairs of door-like portals scattered the boundless white space. 

It was the perfect setup for a Fae's deadly game of luck.

Of course, Misa could see none of them, but she followed the prince into what he described as "the other side."