Astrid sat in the dimly-lit kitchen, one elbow on the table propping her face up as she stared dully at her microwave dinner, picking idly through the mashed potatoes with her fork. Alex’s note was sitting right in the center of the table while Astrid battled with her desire to pick it up and examine it again. She kept her eyes down to keep from staring at it because she knew that would only fuel her temptation. She’d already read it enough and it didn’t say anything particularly interesting-just that there was an emergency and he’d call.
It had been two days and still no phone call from Alex. He was usually pretty reliable so that made Astrid think that it must have been a pretty dire emergency that was claiming all of his attention. She wasn’t upset with him-just anxious to hear from him. Astrid wanted to know he was okay. She sighed and gave up on trying to eat dinner as she didn’t really have much of an appetite for it. She dropped her hands down into her lap heavily as she fell back against her chair and used her mind to push the little black tray away. It slid across the wooden table making a quiet sort of scratching noise. Out of boredom and slight restlessness, Astrid began moving the tray back and forth across the table. Up. Down. Back. Forth. Scratch, scratch, scratch. Again and again she did this with her mind-still slumped in her chair with her hands laying limply in her lap-just to pass the time as she thought of nothing in particular.
The day was so much better when she was busy at work. Astrid found herself almost wishing there would be an accident or a fire-something to merit being called back in. She’d spent Monday and today examining and organizing her shots from the fundraiser on Saturday and it occupied her time quite thoroughly, but now that she was home with nothing to do but play with a tray of cold food and try not to dwell on the short note and the lack of communication, she was feeling rather listless.
She went through each photo, picking out the best shots to submit to the editor on Wednesday, so he could choose the best ones for the Sunday paper. Astrid was extremely selective when it came to choosing shots worthy of submission. She often took a hundred or more photographs and would end up submitting only a handful for further review by the editor. That was why Todd liked her so much-she made his job a lot easier. She knew it was only a small-town paper, but Astrid refused to display any work of hers if it was less than superb no matter what it was or how diminutive the viewing populace might be. She was so meticulous when it came to critiquing her own work that she usually dreaded having to do it-not the case this week. It was a tedious job, but a great distraction if you had things you didn’t want to think about and Astrid certainly did have plethora of things she didn’t care to think about presently.
A swell of agitation overwhelmed her and she flung her tray to the trashcan across the room with barely a second’s thought for the action before it occurred. It fell with a resonant thump to the bottom of the empty can. It was only five thirty and Astrid had nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to see. It was a lonely existence and one she was beginning to get absolutely fed-up with. She walked to the bathroom to run a tub of water deciding a long, hot bath was just what she needed.
While she waited for the tub to fill, she brushed her teeth and took care of other needs before she undressed for her bath. She stepped in, taking a minute to let her bare feet adjust to the pleasant sting before slowly submerging the rest of her body into the relaxing pool of hot water. Her muscles seemed to melt like butter as she laid back and tried to sink into a contented haze. She didn’t want to think about anything-she only wanted to lay there in the steamy water and let her mind go blank.
Astrid was running again, running as fast as her legs could carry her. It was all dark, but somehow she knew where she was going. She had to catch the man at the opposite end of the hall. He’d just flitted silently into a doorway on the left and she glimpsed the shadow of his long coat flapping in his rush to get inside unnoticed. The moment Astrid saw him, she felt strangely compelled to follow and instantly began running. Fear and curiosity warred with each other as she pressed forward, trying to reach the mysterious figure. The icy fear was pulling at her, telling her she was racing in the wrong direction. Any second he would realize he was being followed and hide or else emerge from the room to come bounding after her.
Ultimately, curiosity won out over fear and she hustled even faster down the length of the hall so as not to lose him in the darkness. She didn’t know how she knew it, but she sensed that he was dangerous and wherever he was going, he went there intent on delivering pain and suffering. Something about him made her skin crawl and her blood boil in her veins and fear was replaced with fury while curiosity remained the more dominant emotion. Where was she? What was she doing here? Who was the man? Where was he going?
She turned the corner into the doorway on the left and stood there wondering where he could be. She was blind in the thick darkness and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Finally, Astrid spotted movement only a few feet from where she stood. There was an ominous sound of a lock clicking followed by a quiet, devious laugh. She held her breath, crept a few steps forward and saw a solid shape through the blackness disappearing into what looked like another room. Another click and he was gone. The door was closed when the screaming began.
Astrid rushed ahead planning to plow through the door and stop whatever attack was taking place, but suddenly she was in a hallway full of doors, all exactly alike and she had no clue which one to run into. The horrendous, mind-shattering screaming continued while Astrid flew to every door one by one looking for its origin and coming up empty every single time. She heard the deafening pleas for help from every room until the moment she opened a door and stepped inside. As soon her feet stepped over the threshold, there was nothing but silence. When she stepped back out into the hall the cries were still there, more terrified with every second that passed, every opened door that turned out to be the wrong one.
Where was it coming from? How could Astrid stop it? She had to find her. She had to find the girl and stop the horrible things she could imagine were happening to her, but she could not find the right room. The search felt endless; an infinite line of battered, chipped, grey-painted doors, each one as dead and empty inside as the last.
At last, Astrid stepped in front of a door that she was certain would be the right one. What she felt was so strange, terrifying, but useful-this had never happened to her before. She could feel every emotion the girl named Aysa-how Astrid knew her name, she wasn’t sure-was feeling as if they were her own, only heightened, unbearably intensified and more terrible for that very reason. The man inside the room with her was causing Aysa deep, incapacitating pain. Astrid froze, immobilized in fear. It was hovering, threatening to suffocate her and she could not even attempt to push it away for it was too heavy, almost completely tangible.
Astrid’s breathing began to accelerate nearly to the point of hyperventilation and she began to retreat away from the door with its crippling emotions coursing through her. If she could just get away, she would be able to collect herself enough to figure out what to do. Leaving was not an option. She could not leave when such torture was taking place. With every shaky backwards step she took the raw panic lessened slightly, though it was still overwhelming. She could hear the continuous, shrieking sobs being emitted from the inside of the room and her heart abused the inside of her chest as she kept steadily moving back. Farther and farther back Astrid went, still feeling tense and afraid, but gaining more composure the farther away from the door she moved. Until she hit the opposite wall and could move away no further. She was still too close. How could she think when this poor girl’s emotions were assaulting her, filling every microscopic particle of her body with intense, unrelenting horror?
Almost immediately after Astrid reached the wall, the screams started to ebb away to be replaced with tired, breathless sobs. Astrid could feel all of Aysa’s emotions draining out of her from pure exhaustion. She was too weak to scream any longer, on the brink of unconsciousness and she welcomed the numb daze she was falling into. Aysa wanted to die and Astrid would have bet her own life that the man in the room with her would not grant her such a kindness. Astrid had to do something so she took the few moments of clarity-when she was sure the emotions she was feeling were her own again-to concentrate with all her might on opening the door from a distance.
She reached out with her mind and the knob began to turn. With the desperate need Astrid felt to help, the exertion to open the door with her mind was nothing. It was the easiest thing she’d done on this strange night. But as the door swung open, she was hit with a different set of emotions. They piled onto her unexpectedly and entirely unwelcome. This brain was not frantic and terrified like the other brain in the room had been, the one that was quickly fading away. The man was absolutely jubilant. His insides were steaming with a demented pleasure as he watched his victim slump against the wall in the dark room, broken and defeated. He’d won again as he would always win. Aysa could not fight him, could not escape him and he felt exceedingly superior, gratified with his nights work. She deserved every once of what he’d dealt to her and Astrid could see he’d made plans to return nearly every night to “punish” her, as he thought of it.
Astrid could not take being inside his perverse, twisted brain any longer and some part of her gathered itself enough to push with all the strength she possessed to break free of the monster’s head. She simply couldn’t tolerate it. Once she was back inside her own head, she felt sick to her stomach at what she’d just experienced and wanted nothing less than to set his brain on fire until it exploded inside his skull. Somehow, she knew she could do it if she really wanted to, but she realized she’d have to project herself into his mind again and this time on purpose. Astrid didn’t think she could handle that again. As wretched as being inside Aysa’s head had felt, being inside his was even worse.
The door was completely open now and how the man didn’t notice was beyond Astrid. She guessed it was because he was so consumed in his own manic meditation that he wasn’t aware of anything or anyone that he wasn’t busy torturing. Astrid thought maybe she could sneak up on him if that were the case, but what would she do if she managed to make it inside the room unnoticed? She didn’t even have a weapon. She would just have to find a way to bear it. It was the only chance she had-the only chance Aysa had.
Astrid took a deep breath and tried to brace herself for the impact of his insanity. How she was going to creep back inside his demented head and still keep a grasp on her own sanity was a mystery to her, but what else was there to do? Astrid placed her hands on the cold, stone wall behind her. She hoped the solid brick beneath her fingers would be enough to bring her back to her reality if she got too deeply tangled in his mind.
Another deep breath and she closed her eyes and prepared to project herself back into the head of the barbarian in the room across from her. It was exceedingly difficult not to lose herself inside his mind because the emotions were so unbelievably potent. It was all snarled with hatred and intoxicated with the sick power he gained from his affliction. He seemed completely lost in it; severely and utterly deranged. Every single feeling was coursing through her body in a fashion that made it almost impossible to remember that these were not her emotions. The only things that seemed to separate her from him were the cool, painted bricks beneath her fingertips and her own disgust at the evil she was witnessing first hand. She clung to that feeling of disgust because it was the only emotion she felt that she was absolutely certain was hers alone.
Astrid began to slowly regain her individual awareness while still retaining a hold on the man’s madness. He was slowly coming down from his high, making it easier for Astrid to separate his wild brain patterns from her own determined ones. She guessed that he was getting ready to leave Aysa alone since she would no longer scream for his satisfaction and Astrid knew she‘d have to hurry if she was going to do anything. If he walked into the hallway and saw her, she would likely suffer the same fate as the deteriorating form inside the room. Astrid gathered all the strength her mind could muster, she pulled every emotion she’d ever felt-both from her own mind and those of others-into a tight ball and tried to envision catapulting it into the man’s mind as one might shoot a rock from a slingshot or an arrow from a bow. Her intent was to overload his brain so suddenly with emotional energy that it would quite literally explode from the pressure, but in the second she sent the blast, he retaliated with a shocking wave of energy of his own.
Astrid shot up in a panic, splashing, screaming, choking and gasping in rapid succession so that it seemed everything happened almost at once. Her eyes were wide and her nose burned from inhaling the cold water, most of which had been splashed onto the floor. She sat straight up, stock still in the tub for quite some time trying to regulate her breathing and pull her heart out of her stomach before she finally got out, wrapped a towel around her shaking form and threw a few on the fake linoleum floor to soak up the puddle. When she walked out of the bathroom, she saw that it was dark outside and knew she must have been asleep for hours. Still rattled, she made her way to her bedroom where she plopped down on the bed and settled in for a long night of tossing and turning.
_____________________________
CONTINUE TO CHAPTER SEVEN: CLICK HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment