I stood in a dark hallway of what looked like a shoddy apartment complex. Stains dotted the carpet, and mould had set onto the walls and ceiling. The lighting was poor, and seemed to emanate from nowhere as I could not see any lights. The air felt heavy, and moments blurred into each other as I was struggling to keep my thoughts straight.

I could make out the silhouettes of two people on the far end of the corridor. They stood motionless, and I could smell their fear in the air. Slowly, as if in a trance, I approached them. My steps were completely silent and, in fact, aside from a low, electrical hum, I couldn't make out any sound at all. As I got closer, an immense sense of loneliness and longing washed over me. I wanted to shout out to the two figures, reach out to them, embrace them, hold them as close as I could.

With each step that on its own seemed to take forever I managed to make out more of the two figures. They still stood completely frozen in place, their faces fixed with an expression of wonder, confusion, and a slight hint of dread. There was a man and a woman, both of average build, healthy -- as healthy as one could be living in a place like this, anyway. The man stood behind the woman, about to turn, but still with his gaze fixed on mine.

Time ever crawled forward, but the closer I got to them, the faster it seemed to pass, and the louder the electrical hum in my ear got. The man began to turn and run around the corner of the hallway. The woman, still standing, began to scream. Or at least I saw her face contort into a scream, for I could not hear anything but the droning electricity in my ear.

And then everything happened really fast.

I heard a crackle, and in an instant I crossed the distance to the woman. I saw her horrified face up close, and felt as if lightning struck. An enormous boom shook my entire being, I felt energy rushing through my entire being, both body and mind. My vision turned black.

Moments later I regained my sight and found myself kneeling on the floor. My mind felt clear, and time was moving as normal, though the hallway still had the same eerie, unnatural look to it. The walls and ceiling around me were drenched in blood splatters, and I sat in what appeared a puddle of blood. Startled, I shambled backwards until I hit the wall, only to discover that I, too, had become drenched in blood, from top to bottom.

That wasn't the only change either, though. I wore unfamiliar clothes, and my physique was drastically different, too. Confused I pushed myself up the wall back onto my feet. A headache started to pierce my head and I had to lean against the wall to walk. As I staggered around the corner of the hallway, away from the pool of blood, I made out the sign for a washing closet.

I turned the water on and splashed my face, to clean off the crust of blood that had caked my cheeks and hands. Staring into the mirror for the first time, I didn't recognise myself. I blinked and stared in disbelief. The mirror image stared back -- a piercing stare from golden eyes. Less like a human's and more like an animal's, a gaze that showed a ferocity and intensity I had never seen before. The face was extremely light skinned and had a kind of otherworldly beauty to it that I could not quite put into words. Long, blonde hair in thick streaks fell down the face and back, reaching well below the shoulders. Some of the hair was stuck to the cheeks, glued together by the dried blood.

I instinctively reached for my face to brush the hair away, and so did the mirror image, in perfect synchronicity. No doubt about it, this was me I was seeing after all. As the reality of this thought circulated in my head, nausea set in and the headache returned with a vengeance. It felt like a drill was boring in on my forehead. I gasped for air, and I fell backwards through the floor into a neverending black abyss.