TW: Warning, the following scenes contains scenes that might be too graphic for some viewers. Viewers discretion is advised

Rachel didn’t know what she should do, go back outside and deal with the rolling black shadowy cloud or follow that baby crying.

She didn't want to do either.

“Nope, nope, nope fuck this horror movie shit.” She yelped.

It wasn’t long before the cloud consumed the building, turning everything into pitch black. With the sounds of what sounded like demons coming out of hell, the sound of the baby screaming and crying caused Rachel to cover her ears with her hands.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up SHUT UP!” Rachel screamed, crouching in the ground, the combined sounds sounded like it was scrambling in her head.

How could she be stuck in her head and yet the combined sounds were in her subconscious head?

The sounds lasted a few moments before it died out, Rachel waited for a few minutes to make sure before taking her hands off of her ears. She shuddered when she stood up.

“Okay..okay, I gotta get the fuck out of here.” she spoke to herself before looking at the pitch black dance studio.

Unable to see anything, she closed her eyes, waiting for a few minutes until she opened them back up. She could just barely make out shapes in the darkness. The studio itself spanned about 30x20, 600 square feet, boxes claustrophobically compact, making it have very little room to maneuver. She remembered after the incident, dad had begun using the studio as storage, mannequins of dance models were spaciously spread out.

What used to be her mother’s pride and joy of a job is now a distant memory…

“And I hate this already…hold up, this is my head. So say if I want a flashlight?” Rachel held her hand out, trying to see if a flashlight would just magically appear for her to use.

Nothing.

“Uh, turn on the lights?”

Nothing happened either. She tried breathing fire but only spat out spit.

It was worth a shot.

With a gulp, Rachel began to try and make her way through the darkness. Her hands were out in front of her as she wandered inside.

The floorboards creaked loudly with each footstep she made. Her heart was beating against her chest hard, her anxiety was shooting through the roof at this point.

Her hips ended up bumping into a set of boxes and it swayed and fell, causing her to jump back with a shout.

“Oh shit!” she gasped, shuffling until she hit another set of boxes and it fell on her, causing her to crash into the ground.

It took her a moment to push the boxes off of her and she climbed out.

“Ow…” Rachel muttered, rubbing her head where the boxes fell on her before freezing.

If that actually hurts…that means she could get hurt in this mind world.

Sounds of the floorboards creaking caused Rachel to look out in the room. Scanning the dark area but was unable to see anything. She pulled herself up out of the mess, crawling onto the ground where her hands felt a much smaller box.

After rattling whatever was inside and feeling a rough textured side, it was a box of matches!

It wouldn’t provide her much light, but she knew she wouldn’t be in total darkness.

Rachel opened the box, stuck her fingers inside, only having what she felt like ten matches. She grabbed one and struck it against the side of the matchbox. The first strike didn’t light. She tried it again and again two more times before the match itself snapped half.

The floors creaked once more and this time Rachel was able to detect something or someone was in the room with her. And judging by it, it was getting close.

The girl drops the broken match before digging out another one. She struck this match once and a small flame was lit between her fingertips. Having to control her breathing so she doesn’t accidentally blow out the flame, she slowly turned the light around the room. The hairs on the back of her neck and arms were standing up as she looked.

She slowly twisted and turned until she caught a reflection of the mirror wall. Squeezing her body as carefully as possible as she approached it, being careful where to put her foot and other body parts so she doesn’t cause another avalanche.

Rachel soon came to a set of boxes where she had to crawl, a makeshift tunnel of boxes and tables as she crouched the match burned and she felt the brief pain of the fire hitting her fingertips, causing her to softly hiss and drop the burnt stick, waving the burning sensation before sticking her thumb and index finger in her mouth, using her saliva to soothe the burn before continuing.

As she crawled, she could hear more and more sounds of something moving in here with her. Rachel tried to keep as quiet as she could as she tried to reach the other side.

All of the sudden, something grabs her ankle and physically pulls her back. Rachel let out a frightened scream as she was dragged a few feet before it let go of her.

Frantically, Rachel crawls as fast as she can forward, panting and grunting. She knew this was all a trick by Sombra, but she had no choice but to be a part of this game of his.

Rachel continued to crawl and crawl until she reached the otherside, bumping into a smooth wall. Her hands shook as she fumbled out another match from the box and struck it, the smell of sulfur hit her nose and the fire was lit.

She saw herself standing in front of the wall mirror. There were some obvious cracks and shattered parts but otherwise it was quite intacted. The light of the flame illuminated her golden draconic eyes, but it did help her in the reflection, seeing the door to the stairwell that led to the living quarters above on the other side of the room. Just had to go past another maze of junk and she’ll get there.

Easier said than done.

As the match burned and Rachel was making her plan, briefly looking behind her, she turned her head back to the mirror, she froze when she saw that her reflection wasn’t in sync. It wasn’t blinking the same rate or breathing the same. Its breathing was calm, calmer than what Rachel was feeling.

The match again burnt out, causing her to drop the old one and get another one. It took her two strikes to ignite the flame and jumped.

The reflection was giving her a rather twisted smile. A smile Rachel herself had only seen when her father was abusing her. During the beatings he had the same twisted, sadistic smile.

The exact smile Rachel herself gave to those who pissed her off and she got into fights.

She watched the reflection’s eyes turn from gold to blood red before lunging out at her. Jumping out of the mirror, wrapping its hands around her neck and tackled Rachel to the ground, knocking the box of matches out of her hand and it scattered off somewhere. Leaving the only glow of the thing’s red eyes was left.

Its jaw unhinged as it opened wide and shot a concentrated stream of smoke while letting out a hellish sound, shooting the smoke into Rachel’s face.

Feeling the smoke entering from her mouth and nose, causing Rachel to choke and cry out and begin coughing and spitting the smoke out, Her body squirmed and kicked as she tried to throw the creature off of her. When unable to physically knock herself off, she reaches her hand out and blindly reaches for something she could use.

Her veins were becoming ice cold as it was starting to become harder to breathe. Something inside her was creeping its way throughout her body.

Rachel continued to struggle and blindly reach before her hand grabbed onto a random object, she didn’t know what she grabbed and didn’t care to find out, she bashed the entity in the head as hard as she could, sending the entity rolling off of her.

She began coughing and wheezing as she rolled to her stomach and tried to crawl away. Her chest felt icy cold and her hands were trembling from the sensation. As she tried to crawl away, the entity grabbed the back of her head, jerking her head back as she let out a painful shout.

Her left elbow flung back, colliding with its face before Rachel twisted around, grabbing the reflective twin and threw her on the ground. She quickly saddled on top of it and began punching repeatedly.

“GET OUT OF MY HEAD!” She roared with each blow she gave.

The entity grabs her fist just as she was about to land another blow. A very distorted laugh escaped from its lips, a combination of her’s and Sombra’s.

“So much rage, hatred,” he hummed. “It’s refreshing.”

Sombra flips her off, sending her colliding into one of the stacked boxes and junk, sending a few pillars falling all over her.

Rachel quickly tries to get out of the mess, however her body felt like it was being dragged down further in the pit, unable to resist before she felt gravity take control and she fell.

She lands on her side, hip and shoulder taking the blunt of the damage, she gritted her teeth and let out a pained growl. Writhing in place for a moment, groaning loudly.

“Fucking asshole..” she groaned before sitting up, rubbing her shoulder to make sure she didn’t dislocate it again.

She heard sounds of flickering lights caused her to look towards the source, she felt a lump in her throat, her stomach twisted in sight.

Rachel was now in her childhood bedroom. It looked decrepit and rundown, the walls were black as mold was growing from water damage and the elements, windows boarded up. Her old computer sat just near the bed, the screen looked like it was smashed and cracked. A broken chair scattered across the old shag carpet.

The light shined from above revealed a body lying on her bed, laying on her stomach facing at the door, on the nightstand next to her was an empty bottle of pills.

The body was of Rachel when she was 15. Her skin was sickly gray, face sunken in, clothes extremely loose as if it was still decomposing.

Rachel let out frightened screams, scrambling away from herself, backing herself all the way back to the door.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The bedroom door pounded loudly, Rachel screamed again before jumping away from the door.

"Open the door, now!" The sound of her father roaring and pounding on the door. "Rachel, open the fucking door now! I know you're in there!"

Rachel shuffles back away from the pounding door, the cold sensation kept growing inside her, making her movements more sluggish than normal.

Rachel gripped her chest as she backed herself against the bed.

"It's not real, it's not real, he's not here, he's not here!" She shrieked, trying to bring herself down but it was hard.

She stiffened when she felt something wrapped its arm around her neck. Rachel let out a shout and tried to move but the creature wouldn’t let go.

“Does your mate know the true horrors you went through with daddy dearest?” Sombra’s mixed voice cooed in her ear as she struggled in his grasp. “How the only time he was ever proud of you was when you killed your mother?”

“FUCK OFF!” Rachel screamed, grabbing him by the wrist and went to throw him over her right shoulder and slam him down on the ground.

Sombra switches holds and grabs onto her wrist and pulls her down before him. The two struggled before the tyrant threw Rachel to the wall.

With a loud grunt, she felt something grabbing her wrists, holding her in place. Sombra shadow stepped in front of her and shot more smoke into her face.

Her body began shaking as more of the smoke was forced into her. The freezing sensation grew to painful proportions, feeling herself losing all sense of there was and reality.

It lasted a few moments before Sombra stopped and stepped back with a laugh, snapping his fingers and the restraints disappeared and Rachel was dropped to the ground, gasping and wheezing, feeling so cold.

So…so cold.

“After all that bravado, you are just a scared little girl.” He chuckled at amusement before approaching her again, bending down and putting his hand under her chin, having her head tilted up to look at him. “Give in and this nightmare will end.”

It took Rachel a moment to respond, glaring at him. “Go…to…Hell.” She hissed, panting with each word she spoke.

Sombra hummed before smiling at her.

“I’m going to enjoy breaking you.” He said in a rather husky sound of tone.

Then, something most peculiar began to happen, the longer Sombra had a hand on her face, this burning sensation began to resonate from the girl's skin.

Sombra first dismiss this as he began his next round on Rachel, but the burning grew and grew until he couldn't stand it and threw his hand back with a hiss.

"What??" He looked at his hand, noticing how red and blistering it already looks. His form dropped and he was reverted back to his old self.

The room began to shake violently, startling the both of them before the floor broke and the two fell.

Falling deeper and deeper into Rachel's subconscious mind, something forcefully pulled the two down.

For what felt like an eternity, the two soon land in a rather unfamiliar place.

Rachel found herself landed in a crouch, feeling the cold crippling sensation fading away as a fire took its place. She raised her head and her eyes widened.

Surrounded by large stone carved pillars, countless burning braziers lit up what was usually a darkened room, the large roundish area had rows upon rows of stone seats with ghastly images in them watching below.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that they were in some sort of a large coliseum.

"Uh okay… Not that I care or anything but where the fuck did you bring us?" Rachel confusedly asked the rather confused Sombra as she stood.

"This was not me." Sombra admits, taken back by this.

Rachel looked around and noticed a section of seats were empty, only having two larger chairs in its place. One seat on the left was vacant, the other seat however was filled. What looked like a figure of a woman sat in it. A woman with raven black hair, eyes though painted on a black mask, her golden draconic eyes glowed intensely. She wore dark armor that shines blue in some areas, blackened scales underneath the armor, wearing an obsidian crown on her head. Rachel saw in her clawed hands was a staff. A blueish black stone and crystals made up the shaft of the staff, holding in place was a large blue crystal with a single black streak in the center of it to form an eye.

The pupil moved on its own to look at Rachel.

"What is this?" Sombra asked, not knowing what was about to happen.

The woman in the throne wordlessly raised a hand out, having something thrown in the pit below.

The object embedded itself in the ground at Rachel's feet.

A sword.

Rachel looked at it and up at the woman above before looking at Sombra. She reached out, grabbing the handle and pulled the sword out, it rested comfortably in her hand.

She doesn't know what's going on, but at least she now has a weapon.

"I know I'm not perfect. I made many mistakes, bad, bad mistakes." She said to Sombra. "My biggest fear is that I may end up like my father. Hell, I've already displayed similar traits as him." She rolled her shoulders and popped her neck. "I'm not a good person, I try but… I'm not. When I get into fights, I enjoy them. I enjoy being underestimated to see the look on the other guy's face as I bash their heads in. I like causing assholes who deserve it as much pain as I could because it gives me a sense of control… I am my father's child." She then raised the sword up to Sombra. "My head is already a fucked up place, it doesn't need any help from the likes of you. Get out. " She growled.

Round two begins.

Author's Note

Sombra, get your fucking Freddy Krueger knockoff ass out of my head. 🗡️