THIS CHAPTER DOESN'T CONTAIN ANY GAY!KYLE JOKES, BUT I FIGURE I SHOULD SAY THAT KYLE'S GAY ANYWAYS. GODDAMNIT ASSASSIN IS SO FUCKING HARD TO WRITE ITS NOT EVEN FUNNY. SO KYLE IS GAY. KTHNXBAI.
also this is total shit.
also Aedan and Mina need to stop having stupid conversations, because holy shit guys, this is action, STOP WITH THE ROMANCE OR WTFEVER. jackasses.
also, PS, HOLY SHIT EXPLOSION TIME FUCKIN' FINALLYYYYYY
CHAPTER TWO, PART THREE: SHIT AHOY!
I MEAN CHAPTER THREE, PART TWO: KATIE DOESN'T KNOW WHERE THE FUCK SHE IS IN HER STORIES ANYMORE THIS IS WHAT SHE GETS FOR POSTING IN A RUSH
This wasn't as bad as Mina had orginally thought. Of course, she hadn't done much yet, it was all very...pretty, at least. The grand ballroom of the hotel had been decorated in an astonishing manner, one that she found very hard to belive she was really seeing. Ice sculptures, unlike anything she had ever seen before decorated every table, corner, and staircase in the gigantic room. Silver and ice blue were the colours of the evening, and Mina couldn't turn left without running into something covered in it. Way off, on the otherside of the room, she could hear an orchestra playing some sort of waltz or something like that. She was tempted to sneak her way across and ask them to play something more contemporary...or at least something she could recognize, but she had a feeling that would get her more angry looks than she could handle.
With a sigh, she scooped a glass of champagne off the tray of a passing waiter, taking a sip. She had managed to lose Aedan, Phoenix and even Marco in rapid sucession soon after entering the ballroom. It was a pain, white tie affairs like these, because there was a whole bunch of rules and protocols that nobody followed or cared about, and it was hard to keep up. For instance. Each one of them had to be announced into the ballroom. There was no such thing as sneaking in through the side door. Oh no. You got to stand at the top of the grand staircase, and somebody got to read out your name, and your title, if you were Phoenix or Mina, anyways. Phoenix, as always, looked composed and perfect as she glided down the staircase, as if she was made for events like these. Which she was, really, even if she preferred to bend the rules as far as they could go.
Mina, on the other hand, was always caught off guard when introduced as "daughter of the Lady of the Shadow Clan." For one thing, the title was ungodly long and awkward, and for another, that wasn't really how she thought of herself, as someone with a title or...whatever. Besides, her parents didn't even do that anymore, it felt kind of stupid to refer to her mother as Lady of the Shadow Clan. But she was hardly about to start an arguement with the stuffy butler-ish looking man who had been doing the announcements, making her way down the stairs before she was swallowed up into the crowd. She heard Aedan, and then Marco announced behind her, but by the time she had worked her way around back to the front of the crowd, where she had started from, they were long, long gone. So, plan B was wait by the biggest ice sculpture she could find, and sooner or later, somebody she knew would come along. Right? Then again, there had to be nearly three hundred people here, most of them wearing perfume or colonge, which was going to make her start sneezing any moment now...
"Mina!" Mina jumped slightly, looking to her left where she heard her name being called, spotting her mother waving at her, before she caught sight of the champagne glass in her hand. Her expression shifted to one of exasperation, and Kat waved Mina over. Mina swallowed guiltily, trying her best to look nonchalant as she made her way across the floor towards her mother, and, by default, her father. Eesh. The moment she came within reach, Kat plucked the glass out of her hand, raising an eyebrow at her.
"Champagne, Mina, really?"
"What?" Mina sighed, shifting on her feet and glancing around the room. "It's just champagne..."
"You're 18." Mina reached over and made a grab for the glass again, shrugging.
"Legal drinking age in Sweden is 18, can I have it back now?" Kat regarded her for a moment, glancing back at Assassin, who merely shrugged at her. With a small sigh, she handed the glass back to Mina, looking faintly regretful.
"If I find you drunk, there will be hell to pay." Mina rolled her eyes, really hoping her mother was kidding. As if she was going to get drunk, at a party like this, on New Years, in front of her parents. Yeah, okay. She might not be the most brillant crayon in the box at times, but seriously? Who does that? People who weren't exactly very smart, clearly.
"Yeah, yeah, Mom, I know...Have you see Aedan around? I lost everybody already..." Kat glanced around for a moment, raking the crowd with her eyes. After a moment, she pointed off to Mina's left, shrugging apologetically.
"Jasper is over there, but I haven't seen Aedan..." Mina let out a breath, blowing a strand of hair out of her face, nodding in a resigned manner.
"Alright...Thanks Mom." Jasper wasn't exactly who she was looking for, but if she had to spend another ten minutes by herself in this room without somebody to talk to, it was going to drive her insane. Besides, it was likely that Jasper knew where Phoenix was, and Phoenix would be able to find Aedan, so all in all, it would work out eventually. She hoped. Pivoting on her heel, once again glad for her rather perfect balance, otherwise she surely would've toppled over into someone by now. She had hardly taken two steps away from her parents before she was stopped once again by her name.
"Mina!" Rolling her eyes and wondering what exactly she had done wrong this time, she paused, clasping her hands together in front of her and turning slightly, looking back over her shoulder, expecting to see a stern expression and a lecture soon to follow. Therefore, it was rather puzzling to see that the expression on her mother's face wasn't anything resembling annoyance or anger or whatever she had come to expect lately.
It was this odd sort of smile, pride, almost...Mina wasn't sure, and she wasn't sure she felt like spending that much time trying to decipher it.
"Yeah?" Was her somewhat impatient reply. She had friends to find, a party to make something of here, this was wasting her time. Not that she said any of that out loud, because if there
was no real sign of a fight, there was no reason for her to go looking to start one, was there?
Kat glanced sideways at Assassin again for a moment, looking back at her impatient daughter with another smile.
"You look beautiful tonight, sweetheart..." With a small wry smile, and a hint of a teasing tone, Kat felt somewhat ridiculous. She wasn't always given to emotional displays, especially in public, but she couldn't help it when she saw her daughter looking like an adult. "Tell Hawk she has good taste in clothes, as if she hasn't heard that from me enough." True enough, although Kat really wasn't sure how she had made it through her first shopping trip with Hawk without killing somebody. Maybe she had, the entire memory was fairly fuzzy, and she was fairly certain that was on purpose. "Go ahead, go find your friends."
Mina turned away again, disappearing into the crowd of bright dresses and custom fit suits. Kat sighed again, somewhat wistfully, "She was just 4 years old yesterday..." Or at least it seemed that way. She could feel the look she was getting, without having to look sideways again, and she barely restrained another eye roll. "What? You were thinking it too."
Assassin shrugged slightly, his eyes still on the place in the crowd where his daughter had disappeared off too. "Was not." He muttered, before turning away, although not fast enough for Kat not to spot the small smile on his face.
"Well, that and how to kill every man that just looked at her..." Assassin sighed, unwilling to admit that maybe he had been thinking something along those lines. Because, Kat had been right, it did seem like just yesterday that she was 4 years old, and he wasn't quite ready to deal with men looking at her like that.
"Just the one, with the red tie..." Kat laughed quietly, reaching over to take his hand and pull him away to a different part of the room, likely in the rather vain hope of somehow finding Rose. These types of events were not really either of their idea of a night out, but it was once a year, and not the type of invitation easily turned down.
"Yeah, I don't like him either..." It was Assassin's turn to laugh as he caught up to his wife, pulling his hand out of her grip and resting it on the small of her back, waiting patiently as Kat surveyed the room yet again for Rose's familiar shock of red hair. She was usually hard to miss in a crowd, but in a room filled with people like this, it wasn't really a matter of elbowing her way around until she ran into her friend. Assassin turned to glance to the left, leaning over slightly to mutter into her ear, "When do I get to get out of this suit?"
Kat grinned faintly, tapping one perfectly manicured nail (this only happened once in a blue moon, her nails never stayed decently manicured for longer than a day, at most) against her chin as she kept an eye out, "It's barely even 11:30, Isaac, have a little patience..." Although she wouldn't exactly be protesting when she got to take off her shoes either. Thank God they only did this once a year, she had no idea how Hawk and Nick put up with this all the time. Her face lit up as she spotted Rose in the middle of a group of people that she was quite sure neither of them recognized, "Come on, I see Rose...Just another half hour, and then you can fake sick and we'll leave, alright?"
Assassin looked briefly amused at the thought, although it was hardly far-fetched. "Fine...I can survive another half hour, if I have to..." And only because he really did have to, otherwise he would've slipped out a side door a long time ago. He had to move quickly again, or risk losing Kat in the crowd, and the last thing he wanted to do was be left here alone.
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"Jasper!" Mina raised a hand, waving frantically. Who cared about decorum or whatever, she needed to get his attention now, before he wandered off into the crowd yet again. It really shouldn't take twenty minutes to make your way across a room, but somehow dodging around people, and being pulled to a stop to talk to other people that she apparently knew, but somehow barely remembered had rendered "walking across the room" into an Olypmic obstacle course of some kind. Squeezing herself with a quick 'excuse me' through a group of people that weren't speaking a language she could recognize momentarily made her wish that she had Andromeda along to translate, as the looks they gave her were less than friendly. With a somewhat apologetic smile, she turned and rushed off towards Jasper, nearly tripping in her heels for the first time that night.
"Jasper, oh my God, you would not
believe how hard it's been to find you!" Jasper looked almost startled at her sudden apperance and the way she latched onto his arm like he was going to wander off again if she let go. Mina straightened up after a moment, brushing her hair away from her face irritably. "Have you seen Aedan or Phoenix around? I can't find anybody."
Jasper laughed lightly, extracting his arm from her iron grip and looking around the immediate area. "I saw Phoenix around about ten minutes ago or so, but I haven't seen Aedan..."
Mina's face twisted into an expression of annoyance and impatience. It should not be this hard to find people, honestly. She could find Aedan in a crowded underground club under a cover of smoke and God knows what else, but here, in a wide open room with good lighting? Nowhere to be found. Ridiculous. "Seriously?! This is retarded, ugh."
Jasper raised an eyebrow, raking a hand through his dirty blonde hair. "What, I'm not good enough company for you?"
Mina blinked, before shaking her head, "No, no, that's not it, I'm just...I dunno."
Jasper couldn't help but grin slightly in understanding, although he didn't voice it out loud for fear of Mina's reaction. "Yeah, yeah, I get it..." He turned his gaze toward the dance floor that everybody had been carefully skirting for the past hour or so, before holding his hand out to Mina, "Wanna dance?"
Mina blinked, before smiling slightly and taking his hand, "Yeah, alright..." Jasper smirked, pulling her out towards the dancefloor. Putting one hand at her waist, and holding onto her hand with the other, he laughed again as Mina's eyes went straight to her feet.
"Calm down, I know what I'm doing..." Mina wrinkled her nose slightly, looking back up at his face, and then around at the other couples around them. They had to be the absolute youngest people on the dancefloor, unsurprisingly enough. Mina knew she wasn't about to fall over flat on her face, but that didn't reassure her much against not knowing exactly what she was doing. She felt a lot more comfortable somewhere dimly lit and dancing in the kind of way that would probably get her grounded for a month or three if her parents saw.
"You and Phoenix are so good at this kind of stuff, I don't know how you put up with it." Jasper shrugged casually, looking over her head at the rest of the people around him with a smile. Even when she was in heels, he still managed to have a good few inches on her.
"Nahh, it's not that hard." He looked down at her again, smiling, "Or maybe it's just a royalty thing."
Mina stuck her tongue out at him with a laugh, very mindful of keeping her eyes up, and not on the floor. She let Jasper do the leading, even though it was very tempting to try and take control for herself, there was absolutely no what she knew what the hell she was doing. Tilting her head to the side, she let the classical music from the band filter through her thoughts for a moment or two, thinking of a topic of conversation.
"So how's school going?" Jasper shrugged, taking a moment to extend his hand outward, twirling Mina around, just for a bit of flair.
"Pretty good, actually, it's a lot more interesting than I thought...Antomy is insane, tons of homework, but I think it's my favourite class." Mina shook her head, not even bothering to hide the tone of disbelief in her voice.
"I can't
believe you're actually taking anatomy. You already know the ankle bone connects to the leg bone or whatever, why are you even bothering with it?"
Jasper laughed again, "Those would actually be the tarsal bones, and the fibula, but that's sort of the gist of it...And yes, I do already know it, but only in a weird way..."
Mina shrugged, with a vague eyeroll as she narrowly caught herself from stepping on Jasper's foot again.
"Well, you know how to heal it, right? What else do you need to know?" Jasper was quite unsure of how to explain his love of learning about all this stuff to Mina, who was somewhow under the impression that since he already 'knew' how to do it, that meant he couldn't learn anything else.
"I don't know, it's kind of nice to know what I'm fixing exactly...My Mom has all the natural know-how about all that stuff, I'm not quite at her level yet." But, for only being 19, he was fairly good, if he did say so himself. Even if he was barely a child in Aldrian years.
"What about the healers in Aldria, didn't they teach you that?" Sighing, Jasper looked over her head again and into the crowd.
"They did, but it's not the same...They taught me how to work my powers, they weren't giving me a science lesson on the human body. Both of them are useful, it's just...different to know exactly what part I'm fixing, and why." Mina waved the hand she had resting on his shoulder dismissively.
"Whatever you say, Jasper, whatever." She had no idea why he'd want to go back to school for something he already knew how to do, but that was his choice, and he could do whatever he wanted, as far as she was concerned.
"So what about you? Senior year kicking your ass yet?" Mina groaned quietly, although her face retained it's grinning expression.
"Senior year sucks, how the hell did you guys get through it?" Jasper shrugged, glancing upwards for a moment before he looked back down at her with a smug grin.
"Guess we're all just smarter than you, huh?" Mina stuck her tongue out at him, tempted to stomp on his foot with her heel.
"Oh very clever Mr. Pre-med, very funny. Just because I hate math, does not make me stupid, alright?"
"Yeah, yeah, Mina, whatever you say..."
"I can still kick your ass in heels, you know." Jasper put on a mock scared expression, teasing her now.
"Oh, really? I'm terrfied, honestly." Mina lifted her nose with a somewhat haughty air, stepping on his foot on purpose, although not stomping.
"Yeah, you should be shaking in your boots, in all honestly." Jasper broke out into another fit of laughter, and opened his mouth to say something before something over Mina's shouler caught his attention.
"Oh, hey Aedan." Mina twisted her head to see over her shoulder, easily spotting Aedan coming up behind her.
"There you are!" Aedan gave her a somewhat sheepish smile before he looked at Jasper again, jerking his head over to the left.
"Mind if I cut in? The blonde in the red over there has been staring at you all night, figured you should have a go." Jasper followed his look to the edge of the dancefloor, breaking out into a smile. Taking a step or two back from Mina, he released the hand on her waist, bowing and kissing her hand in a gallant manner.
"My lady." Mina rolled her eyes, pulling her hand out of his and waving him off.
"Whatever Jasper, save it for someone else." Jasper grinned, giving her a small salute.
"Yes ma'am." He nodded at Aedan, already starting off towards the side, "Hey, thanks man."
Aedan shrugged carelessly, already picking up Mina's hand and starting the dance again, right where Jasper left off, "No problem, knock 'em dead."
Mina shook her head, looking up at Aedan with a half amused smile as she put a hand on his shoulder. "That poor girl."
Aedan laughed, shrugging, "What? There really is a blonde in red over there, and she looked lonely..."
"So, what, you needed an excuse to dance with me?" Mina arched an eyebrow, pursing her lips, with a curious tilt to her head. Aedan held her gaze for a moment or two before turning his attention elsewhere, somewhere above her head. Mina really hated the fact that everybody seemed to be taller than she was.
"No, why would I?" Mina shrugged, letting her eyes wander to a spot over his shoulder, scanning the crowd for anybody else she knew. She was fairly sure she had caught a glimpse of Nate standing at the edge of the crowd, looking moody as he often did, but it was hard to say, as the next moment found her spinning the opposite direction.
"Because you were avoiding me again." She could feel his shoulders tense up as she said that, making her roll her eyes once again. Mina didn't quite understand why they kept coming around to this conversation, but it seemed like whenever there was even a half chance of them spending any time alone, Aedan managed to vanish off the face of the planet. It was starting to wear on her nerves, after the past week or so, and she was tired of trying to guess why that was. She wasn't a freaking empath like he was, she had no idea what was going through his head.
"...I wasn't avoiding you."
"Mm, right, that's why you vanished into the crowd." Aedan sighed, sounding faintly exasperated again, as he often did when talking with Mina.
"You know it's hard for me in crowds, I've had to reel everything in." Mina looked annoyed again, her heels clicking against the marble floor as they danced, probably out of sync with the rest of the crowd. They were moving too fast, dancing too close.
"You can always find me, even in crowds, you told me that." Aedan's grip tightened around her waist slightly, she was sure out of frustration.
"I didn't say—"
"Yes you did, you told me that last year, when we got seperated at that show. You found me first, and when I asked you about it, you said it was because you could feel me anywhere, all the time." Mina's tone of voice was decidedly stubborn, even if a modicum of hurt seeped through her words. Aedan lowered his voice, knowing that only he could hear him, even over all the conersation and music, and miscellanious other sounds that plauged the room.
"Fine, I can."
"So then what's the big deal, Aedan?" Aedan let out an exhale, tickling her face.
"Because I've been trying to tell you something for the past week and I keep getting interuppted." He chuckled, somewhat mirthlessly, pausing where he was to dip Mina, leaning down so he was right in her face. "Starting to think it's a sign."
Mina found herself staring up at Aedan with slightly wide eyes. She had known him since before...well, actually, she couldn't remember a time in her life where she hadn't known Aedan, he was a permanant fixture in her life, a constant. And as far as she knew, they had never kept secrets from each other. Mina, because it was useless to try and hide something from Aedan, because stupid empaths always knew when you were lying, and Aedan...well, really, she had just been assuming he had been telling her everything as well. What did he have to hide? She was his best friend, she should know all of this stuff anyways.
"...You're not pregnant, are you?" Mina couldn't help it, when she got nervous, she started talking and she couldn't stop, and it usually lead to her saying completely stupid things. Like that question right there. Aedan laughed again, pulling her upright, a small bit of the tenseness from his shoulders vanishing again.
"God I hope not, that would be pretty hard to explain." No kidding. Mina blushed slightly, attempting to look down at her feet again, or off to the side or anywhere that wasn't his face.
"Then what?" She could feel Aedan suck in another huge breath, and she knew that if she wasn't standing so close, he would've been muttering something. Mina felt his gaze burning into her forehead, urging her to look up at him. She avoided it for a moment or two longer, finally lifting her eyes again, throwing her head slightly to flick some of her hair out of her face. Aedan smiled in a crooked way again, searching her face for a moment.
"Mina, you're my best friend, you know that, right?" Mina felt the blood rush to her face again, as she nodded. All of the sudden, it was hard to hear the rest of the crowd around them, even the shrill laughter of one of the women that had been bothering Mina all night, no matter where she went, suddenly seemed much further away. Alright, so maybe she had lied before, maybe there was one or two things she hadn't really shared with him. But they weren't really the kind of things that needed sharing, considering that he could feel whatever she felt, and if he hadn't brought it up by this point, Mina had given up hope. Risking a conversation like that was friendship killing, and she had done her best to restrain herself, but sometimes it was really hard and oh God. She was kind of freaking out a little bit now, and she was afraid that if she opened her mouth, she would start talking again, and that would really just not be good for anybody.
The tempo of their dancing slowed to a stop in the middle of the dance floor, unnoticed by the rest of the dancers, as most of the other couples had stopped dancing as well. The difference being that while their attention had gone towards the small stage at the far end of the room, Mina and Aedan were focused only on each other. A man had climbed onto the stage, while the fancy clock mounted on the wall behind him pointed out the time to be one minute to midnight.
"I'm not lying when I said I missed you when I went away to college, and I'm sorry that I've been avoiding you." Mina nodded again, somewhat dazed looking. She was starting to figure out what he might be trying to say, but at the same time, jumping ahead of herself had never helped her before. The last thing she wanted was to jump to a conclusion and embarass herself once again.
Aedan looked faintly nervous, rocking back and forth on his feet for a moment or two, an action that made Mina smile slightly. Aedan noticed her grin, bringing one of his own to his face, breaking out into a small fit of nervous laughter. He lifted one hand away from her waist, running it through his hair again, messing it up.
"I really...don't know why this is really hard to say, it shouldn't be." Mina bit her lip, quite sure her face was ridiculously red right now. Her stomach was all tied up in knots and her knees felt like they were going to give out. He couldn't be trying to say what she thought he was trying to say...could he?
Her attention was snapped away from him for a moment at the cry from the crowd of 'ten!', in various languages. Mina looked back at Aedan, who looked just as startled at the sudden intrusion on their conversation.
"Nine!""Mina, I'm really—"
"Huit!""Aedan, are you—"
"Sieben!" "—I just want to say—"
"Sechs!""—You're my absolute best friend—"
"Fem!""—And I think this is—"
"Four!""—Well, kind of awkward—"
"Trois!""Aedan, will you just—"
"Zwei!""I kind of l—"
"One!"Aedan hardly had the chance to finish his sentence before Mina's world turned upside down in an inferno of flames and loud noises. The concussive force of the blast forced her back, away from Aedan, which she hardly realized. Everything was mixed up, and all she could hear was an overpowering ringing in her head. Something stopped her backward momentum, cracking her head against it with an audible noise. She dropped like a rock, feeling like she had just been picked up and shaken. The scene in front of her was blurry, and through the din already going on in her ears, she thought she could hear screaming.
What the fuck?
Shaking her head (that was a mistake, which did nothing but make everything worse, and intensify the pain in her head to an insane degree), she attempted to pick herself up, finding that harder than it really should be. Stumbling in her heels, awareness was slow to trickle back to her, confused by the pain and the sheer suddeness of the situation she found herself in. Clamping both hands tightly over her ears, she scanned the room with an increasing amount of frenzied worry, beginning to process the extent of the actual damage done.
"Mom?" She called out, catching her shoe on a piece of debris, one of many that littered the floor. "Dad? Aedan?" Her own voice was dull in her ears, and she wasn't quite sure if she was shouting or whispering. Crouching down, she began to fiddle with the strap on her heel, trying to get it off to free her foot. It vaguely occured to her that the floor was likely littered with broken glass, and perhaps going around barefoot was a bad idea, but she couldn't do much walking in heels regardless. "Phoenix, Jasper?! Anybody?!"
Mina knew there were people around, she could see them flitting in and out of the corners of her vision. Becoming frustrated with the fact that her fingers weren't responding to her mental commands of fine motor skills needed to undo the shoe strap, she wished she had a dagger, or at least something sharp to cut it off with. She lowerd her head, putting her hands over her eyes, blocking out the flickering flames that danced across her vision, sending pain spiking through her head once again.
"Nate? Dante? Mom! Dad! I need help!" Maybe somebody was calling her name, much in the same manner that she was calling out theirs, but the ringing had yet to vanish, and at the moment, it felt like it never would.
A hand suddenly wrapped around her ankle, and she felt a sense of relief wash over her. She was heard, after all.
"I just need to get my shoe off, it's stuck..." She lifted one hand away from her eye, focusing on her foot below...wait. There was...that wasn't right.
The hand grasping her foot was far too pale to be anybody she knew. And it's grasp was firm around her ankle, not even touching the shoe that was supposedly trapped.
And then it began pulling.
Mina shrieked, both hands darting behind her to latch onto whatever she could grasp. Ignoring the pain that the sudden movement caused, and the ringing that only got louder, she seized a rock, a piece of the gorgeous marble colums that had been destroyed, bringing it up over her head and dropping it onto the arm with force. It made no noise (or maybe she couldn't hear it), and only redoubled it's efforts. She realized, with sudden horror, that she couldn't see what the arm was attached too, only that it disappeared into a hole that she hadn't even realized had been less than two feet to her left.
"Let go!" She screamed once again, twisting to use the hell on her other foot to kick at it. In her dazed and somewhat injured state, it felt like there was very little she could actually to do to stop this. Her foot was already disappearing over the edge, into the dark depths of the pit.
"Dad, help! Mom! Anybody!" She had no idea what was holding onto her, but she did know that the last thing she wanted to do was go down there. In a moment of desperating, she twisted onto her stomach, hooking her arms through a hole in the floor, momentarily halting her movement. Clinging to it for all she was worth, she felt the pressure on her ankle increase, another hand joining the first.
And then the pressure relaxed for a moment, and in a instant of weakness, she relaxed her own grip slightly. So when the sudden jerk came, she found herself entirely unprepared, letting out another scream that hurt her own eardrums as her left arm snapped in the wrong direction. With a sob, her arms lost their grip, and the dragging continued across the few feet of floor covered in shattered glass. Mina felt herself fall into the hole, caught by someone (or something) before she let go, slipping into unconciousness.
Things would probably be better when she woke up. Right?