Hey everyone! Just posting the prologue from my new book, Ell (name subject to change)!

First off, you’ll probably notice similarities between this and one of my previous entries. Rest assured that they are unrelated and follow two entirely separate storylines (Also, in this piece, the protagonist is only dreaming, whereas in my other story bit, it was actually happening in real life).

Also, apologies for the shortness of this post,  I didn’t have time to finish Chapter 1 as well. Don’t worry, I have  the whole story mapped out, so if I die before I finish it, someone else can do it for me!

So, without further ado, ELL!!!

*Edit: Updated to Prologue 2.0! 😀

Prologue

The White Room was seven feet square, devoid of furnishings, a mere box of a room.

It had been part of a wine cellar many decades ago, part of the original house, and had remained intact through the various renovations the old building had undergone. Painted an off-white color by the house’s previous occupants, the room hadn’t held wine in over thirty years. Stripped of its oaken wine racks, the room had been repurposed as something far more sinister.

A torture cell.

The room’s only illumination came from a naked bulb, swinging gently on its seven-inch cord. She tried to ignore it, squeezing her eyes shut, but the light was unrelenting, glowing crimson through her eyelids. The thick concrete walls deadened outside sound, leaving the room in relative silence. The only noises were the low hum of the burning filament, and the soft sobbing of the room’s sole occupant.

The girl was half-dead from hunger and thirst, crumpled in a corner as far from the light as she could get. Her black hair hung in sweat-soaked strands, clinging to her pale face. It had been at least two days. Two days in the room where time had no meaning, where it was always harsh, searing daylight. Earlier, she had considered smashing the bulb, ending the torment forever, but she had long ago lost the strength to move. Her arms hung loosely at her sides, raw and running crimson from numerous cuts. In the end, it didn’t matter. Without the light, the blackness would come. And the blackness was worse. Much, much worse, she was sure of it.

Besides, Daddy was coming. He would rescue her from this place, and take her to her favorite restaurant, and buy her a milkshake like he always did, and everything would be all right. She just had to wait… and wait…

So she gritted her teeth and bore on.

The memories of her arrival remained lost in the swirling cacophony of heat and pain. She remembered being dragged down a steep flight of stairs, the wooden planks slamming against her heels. A rough voice in her ear, rasping filthy words through broken teeth, blood and saliva flecking her cheek. Then came the concrete floor, rough and uneven. She had broken free then, swinging with every ounce of her strength, cracking his jawbone. The floor had rushed up to knock the wind from her, only to recede again as she was yanked back up amid a barrage of curses.

He had dragged her the rest of the way by her hair.

The White Room was becoming unbearably hot, a seven-by-seven box of hell with one little girl packaged up inside it. She tried to breathe, coughed out the air, forced her lungs to draw it in, to take the oxygen even as it burned her. Had it lasted months? Years? Time didn’t matter any more. Everything was pain. The heat, the cuts and bruises, the horrible stretching in her mind as rational thought slowly, slowly gave way…

The door was open. She had forgotten there was a door at all. It blended perfectly with the walls, the same stark white, the same maddening chalk tone as the rest of the room. And it was hanging open, a crack in the unbreakable hurt that was White Room.

A breath of cool, damp air swirled lazily through the haze, sending goosebumps up and down her arms. Slowly, very slowly, she dragged herself to her feet, wobbling a bit as she stood. The darkness seemed to call to her, a reprieve from the searing light. A way out, a way back…

A way back to Daddy.

Then she was outside, in the blackness, and with the darkness came fear, an absolute terror. The sudden chill, the deadly stillness, the feeling that something, or perhaps a multitude of somethings, were watching her, smiling, grinning with razor teeth as they drew nearer…

She fell backwards, but the White Room was gone. All that remained was the pitch blackness, and the Things. The Things creeping around her, their long fingers brushing past her face, skittering across her ankles like enormous insects. And she could hear them, too. Whispering, whistling softly, rustling in the dark. They spoke words too soft for her to catch, chuckling quietly, growing ever closer.

There was a metal cigarette lighter in her hand. She didn’t know how long she had been holding it, and it didn’t matter. She had to see, she had to have light, however small. The thought of what she might see made her hand shake, and she almost dropped the lighter, but in the end, the darkness scared her more.

The gear turned once in a spray of sparks, but the wick didn’t catch. The whispers rose in alarm, and she panicked, clicking the igniter over and over until, finally, it caught. A tiny flame flickered into existence, and she held it up before her, desperate to see…

A mutilated face grinned at her, inches away.

She couldn’t move, couldn’t cry out. The thing remained still as well, and for a brief second she hoped beyond hope that it stay where it was, silent and menacing, for eternity…

Then it screamed, its cheeks ripping apart as its mouth opened impossibly wide, and it swallowed her whole.

Please rate and critique! Thank youuuuuuu!

So I figured I aught to post this… a few people asked for more, so here you are! Ell, Chapter 1!

Oh, by the way, please re-read the prologue I wrote before. It’s been updated. 🙂

I’d love any critiques you can give, as I hope to actually publish this when I’m done! Grammar, spelling, plot points, anything! I welcome feedback! K thnx here u go:

Chapter 1

Ell came awake with a gasp. For a moment, the nightmare clung to her, unwilling to let its prey escape, but in the end, reality banished the last figments of the night into whatever hellish void bad dreams occupy. Despite the cold sweat now lining her brow, Ell still felt a sense of pride; she hadn’t screamed out loud this time.

The dream had been the same as it always was, never varying, returning to haunt her every time she closed her eyes. Always waiting in the back of her mind, lurking beneath her thoughts, like a black spider dangling in a dark corner. The doctors had told her father that it was a variant of PTSD, the result of a traumatizing childhood memory. Two years of therapy later, and the dreams had become commonplace; a part of normal life. In truth, Ell rather liked them. It assured her that the monsters were still locked away safely in her head, unable to harm her in the real world.

Blinking away the last threads of sleep, she rubbed her eyes with the back of her left hand. Her right hand was cuffed to the metal bar in front of her, as it always was when she left home. Daddy had told her it was for her protection; to keep her from getting lost. They let her wear it over her sleeve, so the metal wouldn’t cut into her wrist. She didn’t like it much, but there had been no choice in the matter.

The train car was the same as it had been when she dozed off, quiet and empty. Although it was a modern train, it had been modeled in a manner reminiscent of a victorian-era house, all varnished wood and shades of tan and gold. A bronze plaque over the door bore the name of Ell’s home in fancy calligraphy: Elm Hope Hospital.

The leather seats squeaked as the train’s heavy wheels shuddered over a rough patch of rail. Mei, sitting on the seat beside Ell, shivered. She hated leaving the hospital, and was deathly afraid of loud noises. A ride in the train, especially for such a long trip, was almost more than she could take.

Ell reached over, patting Mei’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Mei. I’m right here.”

Mei stopped shivering, but she still looked uncomfortable.

Ell decided to cheer her up. “I had that dream again. The Whispers are still right up here, Mei.” She tapped her head. “They’re angry, but they can’t get out. You’re completely safe.”

“Oh, you’re awake, Ell?”

Ell ground her teeth in frustration, turning to face Dr. Mortimer. The man was hazy and indistinct, flickering in and out of existence on the seat next to her.

“Who are you talking to, Ell?”

“None of your business, Mr. Mortimer.”

“That’s Doctor Mortimer, my dear girl. And please, call me Jared. Did you sleep well?”

“Yes. The scaries tried to kill me again.”

Dr. Mortimer frowned. “Hmm. Did you take your medication?”

“Yes.”

With a second “hmm”, Dr. Mortimer drew a notebook from his breast pocket, scribbling a few notes.

“I was just telling Mei about it. She doesn’t like train rides.”

Dr. Mortimer sighed. “Ell, Mei is your shadow. She likes train rides if you do.”

“She does not.”

“She likes whatever you think she likes. Look, I know doctor Hurie says that imaginary friends are good for you, but I would strongly suggest that you try to make real ones. You remember poor Anna back at Elm? She sits in her room all day because she doesn’t have anyone to talk to.”

“That’s because she’s crazy. She only says numbers.”

“Imagine she’s talking to you in code, or something of the sort. It’s better than talking to something that doesn’t exist.”

“You don’t exist, Mr. Mortimer. I don’t like you. Please go away.”

Dr. Mortimer sighed, turning away as his image began to waft apart. He was on the verge of disappearing altogether when a thought occurred to him. “Ell, were you lying earlier? About your meds?”

“No. I really did take them. Even though they taste like rubber. Now go away, I like it better when there’s no one else around.”

The doctor chuckled. “No one except the ten of us. Don’t forget your travel partners, Ell. Elm Hope doesn’t charter a train just for you.”

For the first time, Ell turned, staring into his eyes. “There is no one else in this train besides Mei and I.”

Dr. Mortimer threw up his hands in surrender, his colors blending together like spilled paint. “Fine, fine. No one else, Ell. Whatever you say.”

Ell turned back to Mei as Dr. Mortimer vanished. “He likes you, he really does. He didn’t want to embarrass you, that’s all.”

Mei’s fingers moved across the seat, spelling out letters and images in the crude sign-language Ell had taught her. It was their only means of communication; everyone knew shadows couldn’t talk.

“Oh, don’t be mean. He’s a nice man, even if his mustache does look funny.”

A muffled snort emanated from the air where Dr. Mortimer had been sitting, but Ell ignored it. The train began a wide turn, and Mei moved with the sun, ending up in the seat across from Ell.

An intercom speaker in the ceiling crackled to life, “Attention passengers, the train will be reaching its destination in ten minutes. Supervisors, please assist your patients in departure preparations. That is all.”

Ell sighed, glancing out the window at the dense foliage rushing by. There had been a time when she had wanted to explore the world outside, to climb the towering pines, wade through the streams, jump on the slabs of shale rock that dotted the countryside. Her father, Dr. Hurie, had been overjoyed at the thought, and offered to take her hiking on a trail system near the hospital. They had packed lunches in twin backpacks, taking the car two miles to the trailhead. Mei had gone as well, just as curious as Ell.

The three of them arrived in the evening, the sun red on the horizon.

They made it half a mile.

It started with the crickets, calling to the sky in subtle clicks and whines. They reminded Ell of the Whispers, hissing through the shadows, lurking behind trees. The rustle of leaves in the wind became the hushed footfalls of hideous beasts, the forest noises turning to the monotone murmur of the Things…

By the time they made it back to the car, the forest had become a swarming mass of unseen creatures, hiding in every shadow, clawing at Ell’s legs from under boulders and fallen logs. Mei had curled herself around Ell’s feet, trying to hide from the unending terror of the night.

The trip back to Elm Hope had been a quiet one. Dr. Hurie didn’t say a word, a frown creasing his brow. Ell found out later that her father blamed himself for her “breakdown”. She did her best to assure him that it wasn’t his fault. After all, no one could have known that the Whispers would find a way out of her mind and into real life. He had just wanted her to be happy, and she appreciated that.

He didn’t seem very encouraged by her words, and eventually they stopped talking about it altogether. She hadn’t been off the hospital grounds since.

Actually, that wasn’t strictly true: this was the third train trip she had taken in the past two years. However, each time she was careful to stay indoors, whether it be the train, the station, or the “Big Hospital” that was always the destination of these long rides.

“Five minutes to arrival. Please secure loose belongings. Supervisors, have your patients ready to disembark upon arrival.”

Ell gave her handcuff a shake, listening to the sound as it clinked against the rail. It wouldn’t be removed until the train had come to a stop, another aspect of the security measure she didn’t approve of. It hurt her arm to keep it outstretched the whole time.

Dr. Mortimer flickered into being once more, but his eyes were not on Ell. He was squinting out the far window, his face betraying his confusion. “What is that… Something on the tracks… I hope the driver sees it, or-”

The locomotive’s brakes locked with an earsplitting shriek. Ell’s head struck the metal handrail, dazing her.

Somewhere up ahead, Ell heard a thunderous impact, followed by the grinding cacophony of steel tearing apart. Abruptly, the world twisted 90 degrees, throwing her against the wall of the train. Something heavy landed on top of her, only to be torn away as the train car struck a tree, spinning like a top.

For a while, everything was noise. The train’s own momentum tore it apart; metal crunching, glass smashing, baggage thudding against the walls, floors, and ceiling. Ell was flung about like a rag doll, her fingers clutching the bar to keep the handcuffs from wrenching her arm off.

The train car struck another tree, this time dead center, shearing in half amidst a cloud of sparks. Cables flapped loose as bits of rock, glass, dirt, and wood showered the inside of the car.

Then the train was airborne, falling, and for a brief moment, Ell’s window showed blue sky and clouds…

The train hit the ground, smashing everything that was not already broken. Ell’s head struck something very, very hard, and the world went black. 

You asked for it; now it’s here! The Book of Ell, Chapter 2 (first draft)! Woot!

Minor scariness alert, this one is more intense than scary! Let me know what you think!

Chapter 2

The first thing to return was Ell’s hearing.

At first, the noises were a confused jumble, barely registering in her shell-shocked brain. Gradually, they became more distinct; the crackling of a fire burning nearby, the sound of a light rain drumming on the metal above her, the rumble of distant thunder.

Then the smell hit her, and she gagged, fighting the urge to throw up. The lingering odor of smoke and ozone permeated the air, as well as a sickly aroma she couldn’t quite place. Something about it reminded her of the surgery back home, where she had gone after a nasty fall from the third-story roof of the hospital.

She tried to move, and was pleasantly surprised to find that she could. Everything hurt, but nothing seemed to be fractured or cut. Her lungs drew air, then expelled it painlessly; no broken ribs. She ran her hand over the place where her head had struck the wall. Aside from a thin trail of dried blood down one cheek, it was as if she had never hurt herself in the first place. In other words, there was far too little injury for someone who had just survived a train wreck.

Something clattered nearby, and Ell opened her eyes, peering into the dimly lit interior of the train. She was lying flat on the ground, which was actually the right-hand wall of the passenger car; it had come to rest on its side. The car itself was a twisted husk, pitted and blackened from the fire that must have raged while she slept. A corner of her grey dress was still smoldering, glowing as she moved. A quick series of slaps sufficed to douse the embers.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Mei, jittering behind a crushed seat. The shadow was trying to stay in the one ray of light provided by what appeared to be a burning suitcase. Noticing Ell, she waved frantically, her fingers spelling out gibberish in her panic.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be right there! Don’t try to move.”

Ell got to her feet, steadying herself with one hand. The handcuffs had broken during the crash, which was a stroke of luck. One cuff still dangled from her wrist, a single link of chain swinging from its base. She worked her way through the rubble, stopping beside Mei.

“Hold on, I just need to get some light. Daddy taught me how to make a torch, so I’ll put one together for you!”

Glancing around the destroyed train car, she finally saw what she wanted: a metal pipe, protruding from the headrest of one of the leather benches that hung from the cieling. The flickering fires outside the train illuminated it in eerie contrast, throwing a black silhouette across the rear of the coach.

Ell walked over to it, glass crunching beneath her shoes. She grasped it with both hands, pulling as hard as she could, but the pipe was stuck fast. The seat itself swayed, held in place by a single bolt. Ell took a step back, just in case it broke free and fell, but she was not to be deterred from her objective. She tried again, this time gripping the pipe in one hand and placing the other on the headrest as leverage…

Her hand hit thin air, about eight inches from the seat. For a brief second, the world seemed to tilt, and she saw a balding man staring back at her, his eyes blank and unfocused. He was upside-down, held in place by a misshapen length of metal across his knees. Rainwater from the damaged ceiling dripping from his lower lip, ticking out a steady cadence on Ell’s shoes.

The metal pipe had gone clean through his head, jutting from his face like the horn of some demented unicorn.

There was blood on everything. On the man’s suit, on the pipe, dripping from his hair, coursing over the seat, pooling on the floor…

And then he was gone, flickering out like a candle in the rain.

Ell remained on her feet, unmoving, eyes wide and unfocused. She was paralyzed, unable to speak, unable to breathe. Her brain had been knocked for a loop; all conscious thought halted as she tried to comprehend. Thoughts rushed in like a tide, only to flow smoothly back out, leaving nothing but empty space. Emotions boiled up, even as she fought them back, refusing to acknowledge any sensation other than complete, utter blank.

Time ticked by, the seconds measured by the rain, falling drop by drop onto her cold fingers.

Then Ell was back, ripping the pipe free from the dead man who wasn’t there, who couldn’t be there, who she would never, ever, allow to exist in her world. She turned away, shaking the rain and the red… the rain off of her torch-to-be. Light was all that mattered now. Save Mei. Save herself.

Tearing a strip of fabric from her sleeve, she wound it tightly around the end of the pipe. Elm Hope’s uniforms consisted of two layers, a waterproof exterior and a thick cotton interior. She peeled the layers apart, tossing away the rubbery exterior. The cotton was wound tightly about the pipe; an excellent fire starter.

Mei was still in the corner, the suitcase blazing steadily beside her. She had calmed down a great deal, and was now bobbing beside the fire, watching Ell work. Ell smiled reassuringly, dipping the makeshift torch into the flames.

As the fabric began to burn, she lifted it up, illuminating the battered shell that had once been a rail car. Mei fluttered into view behind her, now a more proportionate size.

“Okay, Mei. Now we got some light.”

The torch sputtered, growing dim as the cotton burned to embers.

“Well, shoot. It was a good idea, too. Hold on.”

Tearing a chunk from a low-hanging seat cushion, Ell drew out a mass of stuffing, piling it on the floor. A thick tree branch had become lodged in one of the smashed windows, and it took only a gentle tug to dislodge it. Ell broke it apart with a swift series of cracks, adding it to the pile. She dipped the remnants of the torch in the heap of kindling.

It took five minutes for the wet wood to finally begin to burn. White steam curled about the roof, drifting through ragged holes into the storm beyond.

“You still there, Mei?”

She waved her hand experimentally beside the fire, and smiled as Mei waved back from the wall.

“So, we’re okay. Well, I bumped my head, but other than that, we’re okay. Everything’s good now.”

The shadow on the wall stretched out an arm, the fingers forming spindly letters in crooked sign-speak.

T-H-A-N-K Y-O-U.

“Hey, I wasn’t going to leave you to die. Anyway, don’t thank me yet. We still gotta get home somehow.”

Mei signed out another phrase: S-C-A-R-E-D.

“I know, Mei. I am, too. But if anything happens, I’ll protect you, okay? We can’t stay in here. We need to find help.”

After a moment of thought, Mei nodded.

“Good. I’ll carry you if you want to sleep some.”

Once more, Mei nodded. Fluttering a hand in front of her face to signify a yawn, she gradually lost her shape, merging with Ell’s shadow on the wall.

Ell smiled. “Good girl.”

Moving slowly so as to avoid disturbing Mei, Ell re-lit her torch, this time using a collection of twigs and cushion stuffing to fuel the burning end. She made her way to the place where the train had been split apart, peering out.

The night loomed before her, a curtain of fog and misty rain concealing whatever might lie in wait.

Far off, deep in the oblivion of night, Ell thought she heard a faint, faint voice, whispering the words of some old lullaby she had forgotten the words to long ago. Then it was gone, and all that remained was the hiss of rain.

“Well, ah… It seems we shall look for help in the morning, Mei.”

The shadow did not appear; Mei was fast asleep.

“Okay. Here we stay.”

Ell propped the torch against a wall, out of reach of the glistening sheet of water outside. Leaning back against one of the leather cushions, she yawned. The wound on her temple was beginning to throb, but she ignored it, drowning all feeling in the deep abyss of sleep.

The rain shower continued to dwindle, the patter of water on the train roof becoming all but inaudible. Eventually, the droplets ceased to fall altogether, leaving a cool breeze in its stead.

The train had derailed on a steep hillside, sliding down into the ravine below. Burning debris littered the hill, popping and crackling in the wind. The soaked grass shimmered in the dancing light of the fires, the dewdrops twinkling like a million garnets.

The bulk of the wreck lay at the very bottom, its warped frame partially submerged in the rushing river that cut through the valley. The engine had somehow remained atop the tracks, standing watch over the scene of the disaster. An inferno coiled about its bodywork, like some macabre funeral pyre, casting an orange glow across the scene.

Morning crept into being, dawning grey and bleak through a cover of clouds. A low fog drifted through the tall grass, grey wisps coiling through the wreck. A solitary sunbeam played across the landscape, only to flee back to the safety of the overcast sky.

Ell shook her head in dismay. “What a mess. It’ll take a lot to fix Daddy’s train. Oh, I hope he won’t be mad…”

Absently, she ran a hand through her hair, twirling with a lock around her index finger. There seemed to be no way out of her train car without wading into the river. The frothing stream was swollen from the night’s rain, over two feet deep at its shallowest point. Ell watched with disinterest as a whole tree floated past, its branches stripped of leaves by the current.

“What do I do, Mei? We can’t stay here.”

Mei didn’t answer. The pale light made the shadowy girl blurry and indistinct, her thin form barely showing up on the scarred floor. Ell tipped up her heel, allowing the shadow to sift under it. It was Mei’s location of last resort; the lightless space beneath Ell’s shoes. Mei hated to go there, as she felt it was degrading to a shadow of her stature. Ell found this sentiment ridiculous, but she had respected her friend’s wishes. Today, however, there was no other choice.

“Sorry, Mei. The sun is hiding. I wonder if-”

The floor beneath her lurched to the side, knocking her off balance. The train car was shifting, the rushing torrent dragging it from its resting place. Ell covered her ears as the train roof grated against the stream bed, vibrating the floor and ratting the seats above her head.

Then it was over, at least for the moment; the car turned parallel to the river, its ends digging deeply into the rocky banks. Ell was thrown against the wall, her breath leaving her in a short gasp. She staggered forward, half-crawling, half-running, as the train struggled to resist the current.

In the end, the deluge was too strong.

With a groan that seemed to shake the universe itself, the decimated train car came loose. The sudden lurch sent Ell face-first into the frigid river.

The cold was shocking. It was like being rolled from one’s bed into a bathtub filled with ice-cubes. Water was everywhere, in her eyes, in her ears and nose, creeping down her sleeves. Her head breached the surface just long enough for a breath, then she was under again, pinwheeling beneath the waves.

A rock appeared; more of a boulder, really. Ell struck it head-on, the impact cracking something in her chest. What pain there was paled to insignificance in the swirling, freezing vortex that now threatened to suffocate her.

She rose again from the torrent, coughing out the stale air. Her numb fingers caught hold of a floating log, and she clung to it in desperation. The river tore at her clothes, trying to drag her back, to crush her once and for all in the icy depths, but she would not let go.

In the end, she must have passed out. The next thing she was aware of was sand between her fingers, and the gentle lapping of waves near her feet. The cloud cover was breaking up, warm patches of sunlight playing across her back.

She lifted her head, squinting against the light. Mei lay beside her, awake but unmoving, her round eyes staring up at the sky. Ell sighed in relief.

“Hey,” she rasped, reaching out her hand. It hurt to speak, to breathe, but for now, she was just happy to be alive.

Mei didn’t respond at once, watching the clouds roll by. Eventually, Ell let her hand drop, smiling and shaking her head. “You do love the sky, don’t you? Well, fine. I don’t care. Enjoy it all you want.”

Getting to her feet, Ell took in her surroundings. The river had deposited her on a tiny sand-bar, mere feet from the grassy shore. An evergreen forest rose before her, glistening with raindrops in the sun. She reached out, giving one of the branches a shake. Droplets showered to the ground in a shimmering shower, pattering softly on the pine-needle carpet.

“So pretty here…”

A pebble bounced off her back, and she turned in surprise. Mei was standing on the beach, one foot in the water, signing one word over and over: H-O-M-E.

Ell sighed. “I know, Mei. I want to go home, too. It can’t be too far, right? We were only in the train for a few hours. We just have to find a road or something, and we can walk back.”

Mei nodded, a jack-o-lantern smile filling her face. The grin would have terrified most people, but Ell was quite used to it.

“Let’s go. I don’t want to be out here when it gets dark again.”

Yaaaay Chapter 3 is out! And badly unedited! Guess you’ll just have to suffer through it. 😛

Read! Comment! Loose your mind! Play baseball! Yaaaaay!

Chapter 4 is on the way! Hang tight!

Chapter 3

The forest seemed to go on forever.

Ell trudged along, stepping over fallen branches and the occasional rotting stump, as the sun inched across the sky. The day had grown warmer, unseasonable weather for late fall. Steam rose from the endless conifers, creating the illusion of a woodland on fire. The beauty was lost on Ell, who paid her surroundings no mind. For the most part, trees bothered her, all skeletal arms beneath a bulging skin of green, perched atop a stocky wooden leg. Pine trees, however, she loved quite a lot.

Every Christmas, her father purchased a tree for the hospital foyer. Ell had spent hours watching the staff decorating the towering evergreen, wrapping it in blue and gold tinsel, adorning its branches with glass baubles of every shape and size. Strands of multicolored lights set the room aglow, ringing the tree in a halo of light.

“Are they fireflies?” she had asked.

“What?” said her father.

“Fireflies. In the little glass jars.”

“Oh, the lights on the tree? No. No, they are electric lights. There’s this tiny particle, see, and it makes a bit of gas inside it glow. When you plug it in, see”

“You’re making that up. They’re fireflies.”

Her father thought for a very long time before answering, “You’re right. They are fireflies.”

“Aren’t they sad? Stuck inside those tiny jars.”

“No, Ell. They are special fireflies. They like the jars.”

“So what is the point of their existence?”

Her father looked startled. “What? Existence? Where did you learn a word like that?”

“Dr. Heiman said it. He was reading a boring paper the other day, and he said ‘point of existence’, in a funny british accent. I asked him what it meant, and he said it means poor… pur… porpoise?”

“Purpose. Yes, I suppose. He said that?”

“Well, first he told me to shut up, but then I stole his clipboard and told him I’d eat it if he didn’t tell me. So he told me.”

“Ah. Well, Ell, the fireflies’ purpose is to make us happy. That’s all they want. If you are happy looking at them, they will be happy, too. That’s their purpose.”

Younger Ell nodded. “I see.”

Then, a minute later, “They must be very small fireflies…”

A stick snapped nearby, bringing Ell back to reality. Mei had been fiddling with some dead wood on the ground ahead, breaking a low-hanging branch in the process.

“What are you doing, Mei? Shadows shouldn’t touch things. You aren’t solid.”

Mei drooped a bit.

“Oh, cheer up. Shadows can do other neat things! You can’t be hurt, for one thing. No one can ever punch you or kick you, or stick you with a needle. And you can grow really tall when the light’s right. I’m solid, so I can’t do that. I’m stuck like I am…” she let her sentence trail off. Something was beneath the dirt and twigs Mei had been playing with. An odd-colored rock, all but invisible amid the dead pine needles.

“What have you found, Mei?”

She brushed the pile of wood out of the way. The “rock” was actually man-made, some sort of mechanical device…

A bear trap.

Ell snatched her hand away, taking a step back from the thing. After a moment’s inspection, she realized there was no cause for alarm; the horrid thing had been set years ago, and had long since rusted beyond any hope of further use. Its orange teeth were blunt with age, and several parts rattled loosely as she lifted it.

“Hmm. Be careful, Mei. This was made to bite bears, make them hold still so hunters can shoot them. I think it’s broken, but there might be others. Watch where you step.”

The trap was tethered to the ground with a heavy chain. The rusty links popped with little resistance when she pulled at them, plinking to the ground in rough disharmony.

“I don’t know, Mei. Should I keep it, or not?”

The shadow didn’t reply, sitting sprawled on the ground. Ell wondered if Mei had fallen asleep again, reaching down and tapping the shadow with the bear trap.

Mei contorted at the touch, a huge smile filling her face again.

“Silly, you worry me sometimes. Do you want the trap, or no?”

Mei shrugged, uninterested.

“Fine, I’ll keep it. I’m not sure if Dr. Fahlman would approve, but I haven’t seen him for a while now. Maybe he’ll finally leave me alone. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Mei shrugged again, curling around a tiny green bug that happened to be passing beside her.

“Hmph. No help you are. Well, if there’s a trap, then someone must have set it here. Maybe they’ll know how to get back to daddy.”

Ell turned the toothy snare over, looking for anything that might indicate the owner. If there had been, it was long gone, eaten by corrosion. The remains of the chain yielded no clues, either.

Finding no further clues, Ell gave up, returning to her journey through the endless trees. The trap dangled from her fingers, jingling against the broken handcuff, clinking out her steps. Without direction, without any point of reference beyond the sun, the pair walked onward, oblivious to the hopelessness of their goal.

They had no map.

There was no sign of civilization for miles.

They were utterly, completely alone.

“This way, Mei.” said Ell, humming to herself as she walked.

—

The forest grew ever thicker, oaks and willows filling the gaps between the conifers. Above, the clouds had all but vanished, leaving only the vast void of endless blue. Ell’s legs had begun to tire, but still she trudged on, unwilling to spend the night outside. She could already imagine the softness of her bed, the smiling face of Maria, the hospital chef, as she served dinner, the…

A hand closed around her ankle, sending her face-first into the sparse grass. She twisted around, flailing about her feet with the metal trap she still carried, but there was nothing to hit; the hand was gone. For a minute, she stayed seated, trying to get over the shock.

“Mei, what…”

A tree crashed to the ground beside her in a mighty crunching of branches and dead leaves. As she scrambled back, it burst into flames. The surrounding trees followed suit, becoming a conflagration that filled the sky with black smoke. Faces swirled through the fire, howling, moaning, screaming in wordless terror. Ell rose to her feet, fell to her knees, found that she was still standing, lurched backwards and landed on her face once more.

“Help…” she managed to gasp out.

The words were echoed by the lurking apparitions in a laughing melody of madness.

A headless body crawled past, chasing after a dog.

The ground became water, and the landscape sank below the surface, leaving Ell standing alone on a plane of glass..

A ship of stone broke the surface, falling from a cliff of bones to shatter on the rocks below.

A tar-colored monster, miles away, ran towards her, its wrinkled arms flinging boulders into the sky.

“Medication,” said Dr. Fahlman, chewing on his pocket watch.

“Medication,” said Mei, in Dr. Fahlman’s voice.

The words swam lazily through the air, turning a variety of shades of green before finally penetrating the dreamlike haze in a flash of realization.

Her medication.

The pills.

The ones her father gave her, to keep the bad things away. In the zippered pocket in her shirt.

Ell fumbled for the bottle, her arms already heavy with fatigue. The hallucinations grew ever closer, darkness and grinning skulls and Whispers whispering words louder and louder…

Her hand came up, and the bottle was there, clasped tightly in her numb fingers. Her hands seemed so far away, every motion creating double images. There was pain as well, a sharp stabbing pain in both temples.

Three pills in the bottle.

She shook one out of the container, but there was nothing to catch it with. It tumbled to the ground, becoming a white worm that squirmed away into the flames and shadows. In a sudden surge of desperation, she brought the bottle up to her mouth, tipping both of the remaining pills in. She swallowed hard, feeling the soft pills slide down the back of her throat. Then she squeezed her eyes shut and waited.

Gradually, the pain, noise, and fear drained away, folding back into the recesses of her mind. The forest rose whole and quiet around her, glowing in the evening sun. Mei was lying at her side, watching her with hollow eyes. The shadow didn’t seem concerned, contemplating her human counterpart with a flat disinterest.

Ell took a deep breath, wiping perspiration from her brow. She had completely forgotten the medicine. Usually, her father would remind her about it, and she would take it then. “A pill every four hours” was what her father said. Anything longer than that, and it was only a matter of time.

A brief search about her feet turned up the remaining pill. She popped it back in the bottle, screwing the lid on tightly. One more dose. She had just taken a double, which would probably make her sick, but it would keep the scary things away for a good eight hours.

Eight hours to find home.

“Home,” she said aloud, her voice hoarse and dry. She cleared her throat and spoke again. “Home. We need to go home, Mei.”

Mei looked from Ell to the pill bottle, apprehension making her outline jitter and blur.

“I know, Mei. I know. One more. There are lots more at home, Mei. We’ll make it. Don’t worry. Daddy will be there when we get back.”

For some reason, Ell found herself blinking back tears. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, rising shakily to her feet.

“Daddy. Home…”

In the distance, the edge of the sun touched the horizon, standing tall in a farewell salute.

Night had come.

From the gloomy depths of dementia, it’s Ell chapter 4!  Again, I haven’t even bothered to edit. I’ll probs do that after I finish the book.

More of a transition chapter, so it’s gonna be shortish. Sorry. I’m thinking of writing more on the Bullet Dancer story…  what do you think?

As always, critique is welcome!
Chapter 4

The light flickered, dimmed, then brightened again. Mei wobbled in the unstable glow, staying close to Ell’s shoes.

“Mei, it’s okay. It looks like this bulb’s been on for a while. There’s no way it’ll go out now.”

The bulb in question was affixed to the wall of what appeared to be an old school, though the building had clearly seen better days. Ivy and creeper vines covered most of its surface, and flowers grew from cracks in the stone steps. The large wooden nameplate above the door dangled by one corner, its letters long since faded beyond coherence.

“This is a creepy place, Mei. Who builds a school in the middle of a forest? How will the children get to it? They didn’t think this through. Maybe that’s why it’s all run-down. No one could find it after they built it.” She smiled, imagining the children and teachers hunting through the woods for their lost school.

“Maybe someone’s inside. I hope it’s a nice person with food. I’m kinda hungry.”

She knocked on the door. The noise echoed hollow, fading into the depths of the dilapidated school.

“Hello?”

No answer. The few unbroken windows watched her with an empty glare, cold and uninviting.

“Well, someone left the lights on. Maybe there’s a back door.”

Mei shook her head, worming through the cracks in the stone just for the heck of it.

“Oh, right. Stay in the light. Don’t worry, Mei. The whispers can’t find us all the way out here…”

Somewhere in the darkness, something muttered to itself. Ell froze, listening. A bush rustled, a twig cracked sharply, and a weird, ghostly form slithered from the forest. She caught a glimpse of wrinkled black flesh, an arm grossly elongated… and turned away quickly. If she didn’t look at it, it might not notice her.

The Whisper was alone, dragging itself noiselessly through the grass. Ell couldn’t remember ever seeing one by itself. The things usually appeared in droves, coiling about her nightmares, tormenting her in her sleep. This one was different, somehow.

Mei had seen it too, and was shivering violently beneath Ell’s foot. Moving as little as possible, Ell reached down and scooped her up, hugging the shadow close to her chest.

The whisper paused, rasping a few unintelligible sentences to itself. Ell snuck a peek in its direction, and immediately wished she hadn’t; it was looking right at her with the shriveled mess it had in place of eyes.

Then it moved, but not towards her. It was wafting towards the school, its deformed arms stretching out as if to hug the building. Gnarled fingers wrapped around the sill of one shattered window, and the thing heaved itself up, dissolving into the darkness within.

Ell remained still for another minute, her heart thumping in her chest, half-fearing that the thing would return.

It didn’t. The empty window remained, but the Whisper was gone.

Mei was no longer in her arms, having dropped to the ground again. The shadow spelled out a long word that took Ell a minute to decipher; HALLUCINATION.

“H-a-l-u… oh, right, daddy says that sometimes. No, I definitely saw it, Mei. I thought you saw it, too.”

Mei shrugged, turning herself upside down. She signed out several words in rapid succession; WE BOTH SEE THINGS THAT ARE NOT THERE.

“Like Dr. Mortimer? He was different. I could wish him away, and he’d be gone. Just like all those other imaginary people back home. But this is different, Mei. When I tried to make that Whisper go away, it wouldn’t. He just… went inside. He kinda looked different, too. The ones in my dreams are flickery and shifty, like black fire with teeth. That one was all solid and gross. Like Mr. Flannigan was last year, before the men in white took him away. Except Mr. Flannigan didn’t move.”

Mei twisted herself into a question mark, her way of showing confusion.

“You remember him. Daddy said he was ‘dead’. I think that means I can’t imagine him any more. He’s never tried to talk to me since then, anyway.”

There was a sound inside the school, a heavy rumble, like a steel drum being rolled across the floor. Ell turned, pressing her face against the door’s dusty glass pane. The interior of the school was not as dark as she had been expecting; a few lights flickered sporadically within, illuminating the peeling paint, dark doorways, and cracked floor tiles.

“Looks spooky, Mei. Like that horror movie with the hotel and the man with the knife…”

Mei rustled a pebble, and Ell glanced down. The shadow flexed her arms, smiling with half its head.

“Silly, I wasn’t scared. As long as you’re around, nothing can hurt us. Nothing but the Whispers, and they are all right-”

Something splatted against the glass. Ell glanced back through the glass, and the Whisper’s watery eye stared back at her. She tried to avert her gaze, but her body moved sluggishly, as if she were swimming in wet concrete. The thing was most certainly solid now, rotting tendons stitching its makeshift face together. A good deal of its face remained on the glass as it pulled away, taking a step back. Ell found she could move again, but she still did not look away, morbidly interested in the weird creature standing inside.

It lifted its hand, pointing at Ell, then beckoned with one long, long finger.

“You want me to come in there?”

The Whisper didn’t seem to hear, continuing to wiggle its index finger back and forth.

Ell still wasn’t sure. “How do I know you won’t hurt me?”

The thing’s arm dropped to its side, and it stood perfectly still, staring, staring…

“What’s in there?”

To her surprise, the Whisper made a noise with its mouth, as if trying to speak. It might have been a cough, or maybe it had something stuck in its throat, but the sound conveyed meaning somehow, a simple command: “Come with me.”

“And if I don’t?”

The Whisper screamed, a demented, high-pitched keening noise, and slammed itself against the door with such ferocity that the glass blew apart. Ell jumped back with a tiny gasp of fear, lifting her hands to fend off whatever attack might be heading her way.

The door seemed to sag on its hinges, the faint smell of mildew and stagnant water wafting from the hole where the window had been. Nothing moved within; all was still.

Ell took several deep breaths, trying to calm down. “Mei, are you okay?”

In jumping back, Ell had gone almost all the way out of the light’s radius. Mei bobbed in what little space there was, clinging tightly to Ell’s ankles. The shadow was obviously terrified, but she still managed a tiny smile and wave.

“I think… I think we have to go in there, Mei. I don’t want the Whisper to be mad…”

The shadow’s nod was barely perceptible. Ell grasped the door handle, and was about to pull it open when something caught her eye. Her hand had been cut somehow, all across the back.

“The glass. It must’ve hit me when the window broke.”

Her theory was proven correct seconds later, as further inspection revealed several small shards planted firmly in a lattice of cuts across the back of her hand. She picked one out, holding it up to her face.

A single drop of blood rolled down its edge, falling to the ground as a perfect orb of red.

“It’s very pretty, isn’t it, Mei? I don’t bleed often.”

She turned her hand palm-up, allowing a few more drops to fall free. They pattered to the ground, spreading across the pavement like miniature roses.

“So… nice…”

The world tilted slowly, softly. Ell almost let it, the exhaustion of her long trek across the countryside finally beginning to present itself.

Mei contorted into herself in sudden fright, and Ell shook the daze from her head, bringing life back into focus. Inside the school, at the far end of the long main hallway, the Whisper waited; silent, staring, lifeless as a corpse. Its arm was outstretched towards her, its meaning obvious.

“Come…”

Ell suppressed a shiver, drawing open the door. Her shoes clacked on the dusty floor, surprising a cockroach that had been resting nearby. A light flickered on above her, buzzing loudly before dying out again with an abrupt pop. Ell swallowed, her throat suddenly dry.

“Don’t worry, Mei. I’ll stay in the light. We’ll be fine. We’ll be fine…”

The ancient door latch let out a strangled screech of protest as it fell into place behind her, and Ell was inside the school.

Getting spooky now! 😀

Was gonna do more, but the chapter ran too long, so I’m splitting it up. Thus chapter 6 will (whenever i release it) be a direct continuation of chapter 5.

Critique is, as always, demanded at its finest quality. That’s right, I’m demanding it now. GIVE FEEDBACK RIGHT NOW DARNIT! …please?

Caution: This thing gets graphic! Have someone around to hold your hand during the scary parts. XD

Chapter 5

“The inside of the school was like another world.

“The blackness was absolute, as if the building itself consisted of nothing more than islands of poorly lit ceramic tiles floating in the abyss. The Whisper led the way into the depths, sometimes waiting at the end of a long hallway, sometimes lurking just around the corner, leering in her face before sifting away through the walls.

“Ell grew more uncomfortable with every passing second. The darkness seemed almost organic, a living thing, trying with every passing second to consume her. She moved as quickly as possible from one light source to the next; a red exit sign, a flickering strip of fluorescent tubing, a band of white light cast from a forgotten desk lamp in the bowels of a decrepit classroom. A feeling of odd discomfort washed over her every time she passed a closed door, as if something monstrous lay hidden behind the flimsy wood, waiting for someone to walk close enough for it to…

“The Whisper was singing.

“Ell hadn’t noticed it until that moment, but she heard it quite clearly now. The song was chilling in its calmness, a lilting tune murmured from a deformed mouth, a sound like honey and grating bones. The words trailed behind the ghostly monster as it drifted through the black recesses of the school;

“Hush, little baby, don’t say a word,

Mama’s going to buy you a mockingbird,

And if that mockingbird won’t sing,

Papa’s going to buy you a diamond ring.

And if that diamond ring turns brass,

Sister’s going to buy you a looking glass…”

Its voice became a hoarse rasp of expelled air, and after a period of silence, the Whisper started humming softly.

After a good ten minutes of walking, the Whisper seemed to tire of being followed, appearing farther and farther ahead. Her last glimpse of it was from the end of a hall as it mounted a staircase, disappearing up onto the second floor.

She stopped, waiting for it to return, but it never did. Some ancient piece of machinery rumbled briefly in the basement below, and quiet returned once more.

Mei slipped out of Ell’s hands, pooling on the floor. It took her longer than usual to regain her shape, as if the poor light made it hard for her to remain together.

“Well, that was… odd. Should we follow it, Mei? This place doesn’t look very sturdy… I’d hate to fall through the floor.”

Mei shrugged. GO UP OR GO BACK. YOU CHOOSE.

“Well, we’ll stay indoors, one way or the other. We should just find a classroom with the most light, and sleep there.”

The remains of what had once been a desk sat rotting in front of the nearest door, rendering it inaccessible. The next closest room was to the left, down a badly slanted hall, partially submerged in a pool of stagnant water. Ell waded in with little hesitation, pleasantly surprised to find that the water barely covered her shoes.

At the first pull, the door handle came loose from the decaying wood, falling apart in her hand. The cool metal reminded her of the trap she had been carrying. A quick search revealed that it was gone; perhaps dropped during her hallucinatory attack earlier. She briefly considered keeping the remains of the handle in its place, but in the end decided against it, dropping it into the black pool at her feet.

A swift kick to the lower third of the door snapped it clean off its hinges, sending it tumbling inward with a heavy thud. The room beyond exhaled a puff of cool, dusty air, the dust of uncounted years curling about Ell’s ankles. There was no light within, not even a flicker. It was as if a solid wall of black now stood before her.

“Lovely. Well, we can’t sleep here, that’s for sure. I wonder if schools have bedrooms. Daddy never mentioned them, but I guess they would have too, huh? Where else would the teachers sleep.”

Mei signed a question.

“No, silly, the students don’t sleep here. They come from their homes. Don’t you ever listen when daddy tells us stuff?”

She peered once more into the blackness, then shook her head.

“Too dark for you, Mei, and I have nothing to make a fire with. Besides, a fire probably wouldn’t be wise in here. Everything’s so dry and old…”

“Elinor…”

Ell stopped breathing.

The voice was one she knew. One she had heard in her dreams long ago, back when dreams were pleasant, enjoyable, before…

Before… what?

Ell frowned. She couldn’t remember. She tried harder, willing her brain to match a face to the voice, but all that came was an ache, growing to jagged pain as she tried harder to recall.

“Elinor, Elinor, Elinor…”

No one called her Elinor, not since she came to the hospital. ‘Ell’, father called her, and so Ell she was. Elinor was her name from before. The time before she had to alter her world, make the scary people leave her alone. Before, before, before…

“Elinor… Where are you…?”

And suddenly, the lights above her came on with an electric snap, cutting through the gloom. She squinted as her eyes adjusted, blinking a few times in the sudden brightness.

A flight of stairs rose before her, the dirty tile a sterile white in the glaring light. Off to one side, a second staircase led to the basement level, a level rendered inaccessible by the collapse of the right-hand wall near the bottom. Water dripped monotonously from a broken pipe, ticking steadily on the ruin.

Descent was impossible. There was only one way left to go.

The second-story stairs groaned as she placed her weight on them, but held. The guardrail was another matter, coming free of the crumbling concrete as Ell placed her hand on it. For one frightening moment, she was off-balance, leaning over the abyss. Then she righted herself, drawing back against the wall.

The rail impacted loudly in the darkness of the basement, sending a shiver up her spine.

“This place is falling apart. They really should do a better job at fixing these things. Someone could get hurt.”

“Ell, dear. You need to hurry…”

Ell took a deep breath, working her way up the steps, her shoulders pressed against the wall. She wanted to stop. She wanted to go back, to take Mei’s hand and run out of the school, away from the old abandoned rooms, away from everywhere, back home, back to father…

Her foot came down on the final step, and there was no going back.

Unlike the maze of dilapidated rooms cluttering the first floor, the second story consisted of only two rooms: the teacher’s lounge, devoid of furniture since the school’s closing, and a hardwood gymnasium. Ell emerged from the stairwell at the back of the gym, ducking under a termite-eaten beam that had fallen across the opening.

The court was wide and empty, the polished floors dulled by age and dust. Pools of rainwater covered a good third of the remaining wood paneling, slowly draining out through cracks in the floor. The weatherworn roof sagged over it all, pockmarked with holes, more a sieve than a ceiling. One tiny bulb cast a feeble glow from a corner of the room, its tiny ring of light only magnifying the wretched murkiness of the auditorium.

Against the far wall, behind what had once been a steel basketball hoop before rust ate it apart, was a stage. Its once mighty curtains had fallen prey to moths and mildew, leaving only tatters of red dangling from the high ceiling. A weird assortment of limbless mannequins lay piled in a corner, black with grime, their purpose and existence forgotten when the last man out locked the school doors forever. A forever brought to a close by a single girl treading where no sane person would venture.

On center-stage sat a piano, one in surprisingly good shape considering the conditions.

Sitting before the keys was the Whisper. It was motionless, limbs drawn together like some great insect, its soulless eyes blacker than the night.

Mei flinched, spinning behind Ell. Ell stood her ground, staring defiantly at the withered creature perched in front of the piano, unwilling to show her fear.

“Are you… one of the bad things?”

The question echoed feebly off the walls, things, things, things.

She didn’t expect a response, and was surprised when it spoke.

“Elinor, dear, I’ve missed you so…”

“So that was you earlier. I didn’t know you things could talk.”

A charred finger played a single note on the old piano, the sound ringing clear in the emptiness.

“What are you? You’re… different, aren’t you? You remind me of someone…”

“It’s so dark in here. Won’t you turn on a light?”

Ell blinked. Whispers hated the light, or so she had thought. The light drove them away, made them shriek and burn. If one had learned to live in the light… there would be nowhere to hide.

“Please, Ell. The darkness worries me so…”

“What can I… I don’t know where the switch is.”

“Beside you, dear. Right beside your arm. Use your eyes. Such pretty eyes you have, since you were a baby…”

There was a control panel on the wall beside her, its door hanging from one bent hinge. The first three switches did nothing. The fourth started some mechanical device high above, which shorted out in a flurry of sparks that cascaded down around her. The fifth switch activated a floor-level spotlight, throwing a ray of brilliance across the piano and its player, revealing the Whisper for what it truly was.

It was beautiful.

Or rather, ‘she’ was beautiful. Where once a mangled monster had sat, now only a white-clad woman remained. She was almost angelic, her golden hair cascading down about her shoulders. The room seemed to brighten around her, as if the shadows themselves were shining. Her fingers tapped out the beginning of a song, the old piano ringing out the notes in perfect pitch, a song to match the magnificence of the player.

As the melody built, the woman’s bright blue eye again found Ell.

“It’s been so long, Elinor. I’ve been desperate to see you.”

“Who are-” Ell winced, a dull pain shooting briefly through her temples. “Who are you? I think I know you, but I can’t seem to… remember…”

“Oh, come now. You know me! Think, silly. I’ve known you your entire life.”

“Are you an angel?”

The woman laughed. “Dear me, no. You really can’t remember me?”

A thought struck Ell, and she said without thinking, “Are you Mei?”

Again the woman laughed, a gentle sound that wove through the music as if part of the refrain.

“No, silly. Mei’s right beside you. The light’s moved, that’s all.” She suddenly looked concerned. “Ell dear, what’s wrong with your shadow? She seems frightened.”

Ell was growing even more confused. No one had ever seen Mei before, besides father. There was no one else willing to see her. They all said the poor shadow was imaginary. Yet this woman not only acknowledged the shadow girl, she could also translate the shadow’s feelings.

Something was shaking within Ell’s head, struggling against its mental chains. There had been someone, before the hospital, who talked to Mei just like Ell did. The memory brought a whole new wave of pain, but she didn’t even care any more.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. Mei thought you were one of the… one of the bad things.”

Ell took a few steps towards the light, allowing Mei to fully materialize behind her. The shadow girl peeked out around Ell’s legs, hesitant to emerge.

The woman smiled at Mei, giving her a small wave. Mei jittered briefly, her version of a blush, and hid again.

As the music cascaded around them, Ell’s tired brain finally, finally found what it was searching for. The memory brought with it a dizzying cascade of emotion; shock mixed with joy, pain wrapped in loss. For before her now was…

“Are you… you can’t be… M… mother…?”

The woman sighed, her fingers tapping out the last measures of the finale.

“Yes dear. I’m your mother. Did you really forget me, after all this time?”

Ell didn’t remember moving, but suddenly she was on the stage, arms wrapped around her mother, tears of pure happiness streaming down her cheeks. Her mother returned the hug, holding her daughter close. No words were spoken, no thoughts exchanged. Just the two of them, together at long, long last.

For that single priceless moment, Ell was truly, wonderfully happy.

“You were gone,” she finally sobbed out. “Daddy said you were gone. He said you died and went away.”

Ell’s mother ran a hand through her daughter’s hair, cradling Ell’s head against here chest.

“Oh Ell. Dear, dear Elinor.” She let out a small sigh. “I am dead.”

There followed a long, long period of time, in which Ell felt a very odd sensation; one best described as the moment of weightlessness during a fall. A dreadful stillness, a false calm, as every part of her being tensed for the awful impact.

Without wanting to, she found herself looking up, up into her mother’s face. That radiant face, so warm and familiar, those shining eyes, that brilliant smile…

…now turned to rotting decay; now a corpse’s face, ringed in dry, wispy golden hair. The head lolled to one side, the snapped spine jutting like a knife from the side of her mother’s neck. The nose was gone, now a black hole. All that remained in the skullish face were the eyes, eyes now filled with such burning hatred that the devil himself would have flinched under its glare.

“I’m dead, Ell. Don’t you remember? You killed me. You killed me, Ell.”

Ell couldn’t blink, couldn’t break its gaze. The eyes were everywhere, no matter where she looked. The walls crawled with eyes, creeping, staring, accusing. Above, below, in the light and in the dark, in her head, in her heart. Everything was black but the eyes, the eyes, the eyes…

The world was full of eyes, and Ell could not look away.

“You killed me, Ell. Now say you’re sorry, say a prayer… and die with me, dear, dear, darling Elinor.”

Finally got done slacking off working very hard, so I was able to finish this up for y’all! 🙂

Chapter 6

The thing that had been Ell’s mother rose from its seat, wrapping its cold fingers around Ell’s neck, staring down at her with bloodshot, lidless eyes.

“You’ve lost so much, Elinor. Your home, your mother, your sanity. You blocked it all away. You hid in your fantasy. You coward.”

Ell let out a strangled gasp as its grip tightened .

“It’s your fault. You made this happen. I would have loved you forever, dear. You were my precious little girl, my baby girl. And you paid me back with this.”

Bones shrieked as the Whisper tried to move its head, succeeding only in further tearing its decomposing neck muscles.

Ell struggled to draw breath, rasping out words in short bursts. “I… didn’t…”

“You did. You did, you did, you did. The knife was sharp, but your wrist was weak. You left me like this, to drown in my own blood, to die on the floor! Can you imagine the pain as my life leaked away? I couldn’t even scream. All I could do was lie there as you stared at me, waiting to make sure I would die. Do. You. Remember?”

And Ell did remember. She remembered forgetting something, purposely cutting it out of her mind forever… and she never, ever wanted it to come back.

As if sensing her thoughts, the Whisper increased pressure, shaking Ell like a rag doll. Its voice grew more menacing with every passing second, turning slowly from human to monster.

“You don’t deserve this, Elinor. I loved you, yet you are the one still alive. I cared for you, but in the end you get a warm home and I get a little box under the ground, with no light and no air and no one but the worms to talk to. You hateful little creature. You should be the dead one.”

“Stop… please…”

The school was peeling away, the walls stripped to bare boards, the floor rolling like the ocean. The roof tore away, whirling up into a cyclone of eyes turning in the Whisper’s black pupils. Its mouth opened, stretching grotesquely, wide enough to encompass Ell’s whole head as it slurred out words. Every syllable seemed to drag, as if played from a wind-up music box that had run down.

“Die for me, dear. Show your remorse. Show me that you love me. Join me here. Join me in this pretty little grave. A quick stab would be enough, plenty of glass and sharp wood around you. Or a jump through the window. The power box has loose cables; a little shock, a minute’s pain, and you’ll be with me. We’ll be together, Ell. Together forever.” Its voice became a shade more human, “I miss you, Ell.”

Ell felt hot tears running down both cheeks. She couldn’t breath. Her head hurt. It was taking all her will to stay sane this close to the Whisper. And the sad truth was, she really did want to die.

She had lived all this time in her own world, alone, safe, happy. Mei was there if she wanted a friend, a friend who never left, who would never disappear, who would always listen, always care about her. But now she saw how things truly were. She thought she had been rescued, but in truth she had never left that little white room. Inside there was pain, but the pain was familiar. Outside there was chaos and terror and new ways to hurt. For all these years, she had shut it out. And now this thing, this monster in her mother’s skin, stood before her, stood inside her unbreakable fortress, and there was only one way out. An awful, unthinkable way, a freedom from the guilt that ate at her, from the past she had buried.

She looked up, and the Whisper was no longer there. The room had filled with a wispy fog, hiding whatever lurked near her, but she could still feel its stare. It was there, wrapped in the mists, waiting. Watching.

A breath of wind wormed through the cracks in the roof, toying with Ell’s hair as she approached the closest wall. Her limbs felt stiff, her eyes glazed and unfocused. The gym’s paneling was intact; the destruction of the room had been a figment of her imagination, a nightmare brought on by the sudden madness.

Ell rapped her knuckles against the hardwood, testing its strength. Sturdy, but weather-beaten. There were weak spots, mildew-eaten patches. One such section was about her size, waterlogged and sagging inward. She lifted a leg, lashing out with her heel.

The first kick hurt her foot; there was a support beam behind the wall. A drop of white-hot anger fell in the emotional void consuming her heart, and she struck the wall again, this time with all her strength. The wood bucked and caved with a crack like a gunshot, tumbling outward into the empty night.

It landed moments later, splintering on the pavement far below.

Ell peered out the opening, observing the outside world with disinterest. From where she was, it was a two-story drop down. At ground level was the school’s entry road, cracked and old and full of potholes. To her left, the road lead around to the front of the school, back toward the direction she had come from. To the right, it twisted off into the blackness of the forest. Everything was shades of shadow, colorless in the night.

The fog had grown thicker, curling up around her, creeping across the street below. It smelled odd, too, a familiar acrid scent. She ignored it, focusing on the task at hand. Two stories wasn’t far, but if she did it right and landed on her head…

Or she could fail, and break her legs or back instead. No one would find her here, and she could never drag herself to civilization with a broken bone. The prospect of slowly dying of starvation was not an appealing one. The thought of dying at all made her eyes begin to tear up again. Father would never know what happened to his little girl. No one would ever find her body. And poor Mei…

Then she finally saw it. Something that, until that point, been hidden in the low fog. Her eyes widened briefly as realization slowly dawned on her, and her mouth turned upwards in a surprised smile.

Mei was there on the ground, arms stretched wide, waiting to catch her if she fell.

Footsteps clattered behind her; the whisper had felt her mood change, had grasped what was occurring. Ell turned slightly, saw it lunging at her, its face contorted in a rictus of hate… and, with a smile still on her lips, she let herself drop.

The fall was a short one. A sudden rush of air, a blur of stone and fog as the walls rushed past, and Ell landed squarely in Mei’s arms.

The impact jarred them both, and Mei staggered a bit, half-dropping her human friend. Ell regained her footing as quickly as she could, wincing slightly as her feet struck the solid earth. Her heart was pounding from the adrenaline rush, thundering in her ears, but as far as she could tell, she had remained uninjured from the fall.

The Whisper had jumped, too. Ell didn’t realize it until the thing came crashing down a yard away, its tortured lungs letting out the most hideous scream she had ever heard in her life.

Bones snapped, something squished, and the Whisper lay still.

Ell blinked, taking a step back. She half-expected it to spring back to life, to lunge up and strike at her, but it did not. The grotesque creature remained where it was, slowly melting into the concrete.

A gust of wind shook the trees around the girl, sending a chill rattling up her spine. The hole she had jumped from seemed an eternity away, a great darkness high in the wall. It was only from below that she truly realized how long a drop it had been. If Mei had not been there to catch her…

“Thank you, Mei… I thought I was going to die.”

Mei nodded weakly, shrinking back down onto the pavement. Shadows weren’t supposed to be three-dimensional, but this wasn’t the first time she had left the flatness of the planes she usually occupied. Doing so wore her out, however, and she didn’t do it much. Ell generally discouraged it for fear that the shadow girl would overexert herself, but this time she was very glad for it indeed.

She took a tentative step forward, wincing as her foot came down. The landing had hurt, but at least she wasn’t…

Wasn’t dead. She let herself think it, and the thought made her feel ill. She could have really died. She could have vanished from the world, just like the others she had seen back home. Her body would have stayed, but her mind would be a big black hole, with no Ell inside.

“I… I don’t feel well at all. I think… I think I need food. I haven’t eaten for a bit now. Not that I’m complaining, you see. Just daddy says I need to eat, or I… I won’t… ugh…”

She bent over and vomited on the pavement. She hadn’t eaten in almost twenty-four hours, so it didn’t take long to empty her stomach. Dry heaves followed, one after the other, until she was left curled in a ball, arms around her knees, shaking.

Mei curled around Ell, conforming to the human girl’s silhouette on the pavement. Her head pressed against Ell’s, her round eyes arched upward in worry.

“It’s… okay. I’m okay. Just feel a bit… sick. Need to eat something soon.”

A cloud of cold fog rolled over the pair, blown by the light wind. The breeze also carried the sharp, stinging smell of wood smoke.

Ell lifted herself up on one arm, scanning the woods for the telltale flare of a campfire. The possibility of encountering other people out in the wilderness didn’t even register; the light was all she needed. A glow to pass the night under.

Glancing about she found the source of the smoke, and her heart sank.

The school was on fire. Smoke was curling from the first-floor windows, and an ominous orange glow radiated through cracks in the wall. The blaze was spreading, too, tracing a slow but steady path through the bowels of the building. The muffled crackle of burning wood became the roaring crash of a floor collapsing, and flames began to curl about the second-story window frames.

Ell rose slowly to her feet, carefully avoiding the mess she had left on the road. “Fire… but the wood was soaked. There was nothing to burn…”

Mei signed a few words, her outline growing more distinct in the increasing light of the fire. B-A-D W-I-R-E-S.

“Wires… oh, electrical wires. I guess that could start a fire. I wonder why they left the power on? No one’s been here for forever. All the books have been moved out, too. Daddy said that regular schools have tons of books, and I didn’t even see-”

A man rounded the corner of the school, and Ell nearly jumped out of her skin.

He was not a short man, but he didn’t seem unusually large, either. A dark-colored mask of some sort covered his face, the firelight reflecting off the round glass eyes. Aside from the mask, his build and looks culminated in the sort of ordinary that people tend to ignore, right down to his battered leather jacket and worn jeans.

The man saw her immediately, freezing in his tracks. He was holding a plastic canister in his left hand, an object Ell instantly recognized. Marylin, the gardener back home, used one to refill the lawn mower when it ran out of gas. A fuel canister. But why would he need that…

It was the other hand that worried her more. She new little of guns, but even so, she could tell that the weapon the man held was somewhat more sophisticated than a standard hunting rifle.

A gun designed for hunting people, not animals.

With great care, the man set down the gas can, moving his weapon so that his body partially obscured it. His voice, when he spoke, was largely muffled by the mask he wore, but Ell was still able to make it out.

“Are you… Ellie?”

Ell didn’t answer.

“It’s okay, Ell. I’m Roy Morwin, I work with Lakewood Search and Rescue. I’m here to help you. Are you hurt?” He took a step forward, the gun clicking against something metal in his back pocket.

Ell took a step back. “How did you find me?”

The man hesitated. “We found the train. There weren’t many people on board, so we figured out you were missing pretty quickly. I’ve been tracking you all night.”

“Will you take me home?”

Another pause. “Yeah. My car’s a bit far off, but if we go to it, I’ll drive you right home. I’m sure they miss you, Ellie. Let’s hurry now, okay? Everything is okay.”

He was lying.

She didn’t know how she knew, but there was no doubt in her mind. The way he said the words, the way he held himself, the smooth, calming tone he used, like how one speaks to a cornered dog. She didn’t trust him at all.

“Why do you have a gas can?”

Roy stopped again. The only sound was his breath hissing softly in and out of the mask’s respirators. Inside the school, the fire had almost reached the second floor, and the muted roar of the inferno blended with a cacophony of snapping, flaring wood.

“Ell, listen to me…”

Ell inched back a step, and Roy moved like a striking snake, whipping the rifle up, locking the bolt in the same motion. Ell tried to duck out of the way, knowing that it was futile; Roy was only fifteen feet away, a point-blank shot, even with a rifle. A novice could have hit her at that range, and there was no way Roy was a novice. He had clearly done this before.

In the end, he never pulled the trigger. A deafening crash from the now-skeletal remains of the school turned his head; it also saved his life. A massive beam, engulfed in roiling flames, had come lose from the wall, tipping outward, descending on the two like a heaven-sent sword of fire. Roy hurled himself backwards as the building continued its collapse, showering him with live embers and bits of burning material. The gas can he had been carrying was mostly empty, but there was still a small quantity left, enough to ignite with a dull thump under the sudden firestorm.

Roy batted away a burning chunk of drywall with his forearm, swearing as something burned his leg. He brought his rifle up to face-level, aiming blindly into the cloud of sparks and smoke.

Something moved beyond the blaze, and he squeezed off three shots in rapid succession.

He thought he saw his target stagger slightly; then the cloud of smoke consumed him in choking, churning blackness.

As the wall peeled away, falling in fiery ruin on her assailant, Ell didn’t waste a single moment. Pausing only to grab Mei’s hand, she turned and ran up the road, away from the school, away from Roy and his black mask, away from the memories now burning in that great funeral pyre. It did not matter that she ran into the darkness. There was no thought now but flight, escape from the immanent danger of the hollow orange light. Her feet pounded on the pitted pavement, drumming out all other noise.

A sharp crack sounded behind her, and an old tree to her left splintered, wood chips stinging her cheek. The second bullet missed as well, passing her at incredible speed, thudding against something far ahead.

The third shot struck her shoulder, knocking her forward. She almost fell, but righted herself quickly, still running, not comprehending what had happened.

The pain came an instant later, a crimson wash of agony that ripped into her brain with deadly ferocity. Her arm went numb, flopping uselessly at her side, sending waves of pain hammering into her skull with every step. The stars grew black above her; what little light there was faded away.

Her knees struck the pavement, her leg muscles still twitching, trying to propel her onward. With the last of her strength, she reached out, grasping at the air, searching for something, anything…

And Mei was there, standing before her, gripping her hand with a soft strength no human could hope to muster.

“Mei,” she whispered, and her thoughts became tiny bubbles, popping one by one, until all that remained was a dream floating in the darkness. A quiet dream, comforting in its terror.

A dream of a white room…

This fella’s a big one!

Apologies for the long, long wait, the holidays are awful for writing.

Warning: Definitely adult content ahead! Though, if you have read this far, you’re probably used to it. 😛

Chapter 7

Joseph Marlin took a shaky sip from his coffee, compared the time on his silver watch to the time displayed on the dashboard stereo, and returned his attention to the road. He had grown to love the early-morning road trips, despite his initial dislike of the long periods of car travel. The flat gray of the sunless sky, the dim shapes that grew into deep-green coniferous trees and rocky hills as distance shortened. The solitude. The long emptiness of the highway.

Just him, nature, and the dull rattle of the old pickup’s engine.

The radio coughed out static, and he reached over to adjust the volume control. The radio was as old as the truck and worked sporadically, occasionally offering up ten or fifteen minutes of music or talk radio before lapsing back into silence. He wasn’t poor, far from it; but between house payments and supporting a three-child family, buying a new radio was fairly low priority.

It was almost 5am. If the radio would work now, he might catch the news or a weather report.

After a solid minute of dead air, a male sportscaster’s voice found its way to the speakers.

“…wraps up the Lakewood Tiger’s championship, and it looks like they’ll be taking home the gold again this year. You know, Mike, I’ve seen some great plays this year, but I think you’ll agree that…”

Static collapsed the sound, and Joe twirled the channel knob, trying to get the most out of the radio’s brief period of functionality.

Higher up on the AM band, he found another station, this one a news report.

“…thought to be a tragic accident, it is now possible that the deadly train wreck just outside of the county’s East district was actually caused by an improvised explosive device intentionally placed on the tracks. The catastrophic crash resulted in the deaths of all thirty of the train’s passengers. The train operator was in guarded condition at Lakewood General’s ICU until late last night, when he finally succumbed to his injuries. Police have no suspects at this time, but the investigation is ongoing. Chief of Police Harold Irving is asking that any person who may have…”

Gone again. Joe twisted the knob halfheartedly, but the station was lost.

He had heard about the crash a few days ago. A whole group of people from the mental rehabilitation ward had been on-board, along with a bunch of doctors and a few therapists. The worst accident Lakewood had ever seen.

And now, they were saying it wasn’t an accident… he would have to look it up on the internet when he got to work. He took another sip of his coffee, squinting out the window at the trees blurring past. What would it have been like, inside that train? Peace and quiet, like how it was now inside the pickup’s cab… then suddenly, noise, fire, and finally, the cold blackness of death.

He chuckled dryly to himself. How morbid. Not the best thoughts to start a morning.

Something caught his eye, coming up on the right. At first, he thought it was trash, or maybe a dead animal, lying in the shallow culvert beside the highway. It was large, whatever it was, bundled in white cloth, roughly the size and shape of a…

It was a human, sprawled lifelessly in the dirt.

Joe slammed on the brakes, ignoring the old truck’s squeal of protest, craning his neck to see out the passenger-side window. A sportscar that had been tailgating him for several miles swerved around him, the driver of the other vehicle leaning on the horn as he tore past. Joe ignored him, bringing his truck to a stop in the gravel beside the road. He fought with his seat belt, dialing on his cell with his free hand. Nine, one, one…

A ‘No service’ message blinked at him from the tiny screen. Angrily, he tossed the phone on the passenger seat, throwing open the truck door, scrambling out into the cold morning air.

“Hey! Hey, you okay?”

No reply. He could see now that it was a girl, barely more than a child, lying on her face in the ditch. The white uniform she wore was streaked with mud and grime, and seemed to be burned in several places, as if it had been pulled from a fire.

She didn’t seem to be breathing.

“Hey… stay with me, okay? You hear me? Hello?”

The ditch was slippery, and he almost fell on her trying to reach the bottom. With some effort, he rolled her onto her side, trying desperately to think what he should do next. A pulse. Check for a pulse. He pulled her limp wrist from the mud, noting with alarm the freezing coldness of her dead-white skin, and pressed his thumb into the artery just below her hand.

Nothing.

He tried another point, closer to her sleeve. Still nothing. His hands were starting to hurt from the frigid air and the damp of the grime coating the body, his breaths coming in short bursts as panic rose in his chest. He had never seen a dead body before, not in real life.

Help. He had to get someone to help. Someone who knew what they were doing. He felt bad about leaving the girl where she was, but he needed to get back into cell range, call emergency services. One last time, he tried for a pulse, trying a blood vessel in the neck. He had no idea what he was doing. He was a business manager, not a doctor. If she was alive, her heart wasn’t…

Her eyes were open, staring at him through the soggy strands of hair matting her face. Joe lurched back, the sudden motion almost sending his feet out from under him. She was definitely alive; her eyes followed him as he moved, her chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. Beyond that, there was little motion; she was in bad condition.

“Oh Lord… can you hear me? What happened?”

Her mouth moved ever so slightly as a single syllable slipped from her lips: “Mei…”

Then her limbs convulsed, and she curled into a ball, her body wracked with violent shivers.

Without further thought, Joe stepped forward, scooping her up into his arms. She was heavier than she looked, but he didn’t care. His only thought was to get them both to the warmth of the truck cab, and from there to a hospital.

“Don’t die on me, now… hold on… just hold on…”

***

Ell’s dream was slow to form, but form it did, building itself with a calm familiarity grown from years of repetition.

First to come were the walls. The White Room rose around her, painfully bright and pale in the light of the solitary bulb swinging in slow circles on its cable. The air had been cold for the longest time, a numbing cold, the walls glazed with an icy sheen. Snowflakes drifted through the walls, slipping in and out of sight, sometimes sifting to the floor, sometimes rising up through the sheet-white roof.

After the longest time, the chill left her, replaced with a feverish warmth. The snow melted, became raindrops pattering from wall to floor to ceiling, and eventually became steam, fogging the light bulb and making the tiles slick beneath her feet.

The door stood before her, its outline barely visible. It had appeared long ago, tempting her, drawing her towards the inviting darkness outside. For the first time in a long time, she was hesitant to go. Eventually she would have to. There was no other way out, from the room or the dream.

She reached out, pushing open the white wood panel.

A long hallway stretched before her, its wooden walls lined with picture frames, its floor lined with decorative carpeting. Small chandeliers glistened golden above, bathing the passage in warm light.

The dream had changed. It had never changed before, not in all the years she had been forced to endure it. Always white, then black. Never another room. Never.

The hall had four exits. The White room was the first. Further down, two oak panel doors stood parallel to each other, identically shaped, with matching brass knobs.

The last door was of solid steel, a flat gray slab affixed to sturdy hinges several inches thick. It surface was scarred and worn, its latch secured with a heavy padlock. Ell knew, in that odd knowing that comes in the macabre depths of dreams, that the door was somehow… alive.

Not in the sense that it could move about, nor breathe or think or speak. It was simply aware of her, watching without eyes, sensing through the strings that wove the walls of sleep around it. And in the same knowing came a calm shiver of violence, a predator waiting in silence for the prey that must inevitably pass before it.

Ell no longer wished to look at it, turning her gaze to the nearest wooden door. Her hand moved of its own will, grasping the handle, turning it, drawing the door open…

A mirror stood before her, leaving her staring at her own reflection. She was somewhat startled by how disheveled she looked; her uniform looked as if it had been buried underground for a month or so. A dull reddish stain on the left shoulder drew her eyes, almost unnoticeable beneath the filth coating the previously white fabric. Something must have cut her. It must have been some time ago, as the wound did not hurt. Nothing to worry about, then.

When she turned away from the mirror, she found that the hallway had changed again. It was a subtle change; the colors were different, some lighter than before, some darker. The walls looked less and less like wood paneling, and more like stone painted to look like wood. The light had grown pale and harsh, cold and unfriendly.

The hall wanted her gone. It wanted her to leave.

Ell reached for the final door, but it was already open. The hall shifted, and she dropped through the opening into a white fog.

Slowly, the mist sifted away, lost in the forgetfulness of dreams. She was somewhere else now, lying on her side. A vehicle of some sort; a big one. The wheels thrummed and bumped across smooth pavement, rocking her gently on the seat. A bobble-head figurine mounted on the dashboard nodded to the rhythm of the engine, smiling at her with perfect plastic teeth.

Moving as little as possible, she tilted her head, peering down at the driver’s seat.

No driver. Of course not. A dream car had no need for drivers. The wheel spun back and forth on its own, guiding the car as it continued its journey into the gray morning.

“Mei…?”

No answer. The shadow was probably unable to enter dreams, and even if she could, she was unlikely to enter Ell’s Whisper-filled nightmares. Ell felt a pang of sadness. It was so lonely without the round-eyed apparition.

“Nevermore…” something whispered, and Ell stopped breathing.

“I see eyes…”

“Who…?”

“All around, around and around…”

“Lies. Lies and liars, liarsssssss…”

A whisper crawled into sight, a terrifying monster-shaped hole in the air, bubbling over the windshield like black tar. Its teeth dragged across the metal roof, a slow, keening shriek that set Ell’s hair on end. She forced herself to relax, taking a deep breath. The dream would end when they got her. They always got her in the end. Maybe they would be nice and eat her whole. Once, before, they had cut her up first… and even in dreams, pain hurt.

“Hey, you awake?”

Ell twitched, and looked again at the driver’s seat. There was a man there, dressed like a lawyer, his thinning hair and uneven beard exaggerating his apparent age. He was blurry, hard to focus on, as if she were looking at him through murky water. She pulled away from him, drawing up against the vehicle’s door.

Humans didn’t belong here. It was her world. He didn’t belong.

“Just lie still. We’re going to get you help. You’re safe now.”

Why wouldn’t he go away? Why couldn’t he just shut up and vanish? She wanted daddy…

“Screams…”

“Cold as rolling, thin and small…”

The Whispers were speaking. Real words. Understandable, definitive words. Before, they had been barely audible, a quiet hissing of the “s” sound, a soft breath forming the “wh”. Mesmerizing, even calming. Now they were loud, jagged words, harsh and broken, hissed through slimy mouths and deformed teeth. It was all wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong…

The whispering monsters heard her thoughts, and took up the chant;

“Wrong, wrong, wrong wrong wrong…”

“And tall and long…”

“Wrong song… burn swan…”

Ell wanted to wake up. The dream was too real. Everything was out of control. She needed light. She needed to go to a place where it was all white; complete, total blankness. No color and no people and nothing at all..

“Hey, stay with me! Hey!”

Abruptly, the man’s voice dropped in pitch, becoming a guttural, gurgling rattle. Ell’s eyes found his face, and it was no longer a face; now a bubbling, rotting mask, set atop a thousand gleaming teeth.

“Hey… are you hungry? Is your stomach empty…? Let me help you… I’ll just… eat… your… insides!”

That said, the Whisper abandoned the wheel and lurched at her, its jaws gaping wide enough to bite her whole head off. Ell had barely enough time to scream before the Whisper’s mouth gnashed shut… inches in front of her nose.

The monster struggled, worming about, trying to free itself from whatever it was caught on. Its teeth clicked together as it bit at her, its rotten breath flecking her face with saliva, but it was unable to reach her.

At first, it seemed the Whisper had become entangled in the vehicle’s seat belt. Black bands coiled about it, somehow gaining purchase on the murky slime of the creature’s skin. It took Ell a minute to realize the bands were moving; tightening on the Whisper’s neck and body, crushing bones in its ribcage with audible snaps. Then she realized…

The bands were actually arms, wispy arms of shadow, belonging to a girl as black as night, with wide eyes as bright as a full moon.

“Mei?”

Mei did not reply, too preoccupied with holding the Whisper at bay. The shadow was clearly terrified, her empty, jack-o-lantern mouth gaping in a silent scream. Still, she held fast, wrenching the possessed man away from her human friend, her arms stretching longer and longer as they wrapped about the Whisper.

The monster seemed to grasp what was occurring, and bit down on the nearest strand of its bindings. Mei’s frame erupted in jittering bulges and spikes as she recoiled violently. The bite had hurt her. A lot.

“Leave her alone!” Ell shouted, and, driven by a sudden surge of bravery, drove her heel into the Whisper’s jaw.

It was like kicking a rotten pumpkin. The monster’s head exploded in a mess of oily slime and metallic teeth, splattering and clinking against the driver’s-side window. Mei pulled herself from the mess, curling around Ell, flattening across the human girls skin, preparing for the next attack.

One down, seven to go.

The remaining Whispers were slow to act, muttering and hissing at each other, apparently confused by their brother’s demise.

Then, as one, they abandoned the vehicle, crawling out of sight beneath the windows.

Ell crawled up to a sitting position, looking about in confusion.

“Why did they…”

The dead Whisper’s foot was still on the accelerator. Ell noticed the trees flying past outside, a split second before the truck left the road. A brief moment of weightlessness followed, oddly familiar…

The truck went from seventy miles per hour to dead stop, compacting the hood and sending the engine block right through the middle of the cab. Had Ell been buckled in, she would have found her legs separated from the rest of her body by the sudden appearance of the front axle, which was driven up through the floor and out the back window by the force of the crash. As it was, Ell was thrown through the front windshield in a shower of glass fragments, rolling painfully on the rocky ground.

Something was broken. Maybe several somethings. In her arms for sure, maybe in her legs. She had to fix it, quickly. Before it started to hurt.

“Mei… I broke a bone again. Can you fix it?”

Mei wasn’t in great shape herself, curling into complex shapes in the shade of the oak trees. Her edges were rough and uneven, and her facial features swam about, like flowers floating in a black puddle. Nevertheless, she drew herself across the ground, running a hand across Ell’s arm.

Her fingers found a lump, and Ell winced.

Mei moved around to Ell’s face, signing out a complex series of motions that translated to a rather simple phrase; T-H-I-S W-I-L-L H-U-R-T.

“I know. It’s okay. I’ll be all better when you’re done.”

Mei hesitated, then shrugged, drawing herself together. She moved like a liquid across Ell’s body, finding bruises, fractures, cuts from the glass. Then, lifting her head one last time, the shadow looked Ell in the face, her eyes filled with worry.

“It’s okay, really. I’ll probably scream, but I won’t move. I promise. Go ahead.”

Mei began, and Ell managed four seconds before the screaming started.

Chapter 8

A lonely snowflake drifted from the pale sky, turning softly as it fell to earth, a displaced star in the cold wilderness.

Ell paused to watch it drift past her nose, following it with her eyes, taking care to not disrupt its passage with a careless breath.

The crystalline flake rose on the wind, pirouetting like a white-clad ballerina. It reminded Ell of a woman she had seen once before, years ago, standing in Elm Hope’s foyer. Her dress had been as white as the snow, swirling about her ankles as she walked. Though she walked with elegance and grace, she had reminded Ell of a wilting flower, drooping ever closer to the floor, still holding great beauty even as, with infinite slowness, it passed away.

Father’s voice joined the memory, soft and sad; “I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am. Anna was doing so much better. I had very high hopes for the new treatment, but… well, everyone reacts differently. The good news is, the damage is reversing itself, albeit slowly. She will return to how she was, and we’ll be right back where we started with her.”

The woman nodded, her exhaustion visible even to younger Ell. Ell had seen father speak to many newcomers, there in that foyer. Some had been in tears; some had threatened him, shouting and cursing. The woman did neither, accepting his words with a quiet calm. When she spoke, her words were like fragile glass, almost swallowed up in the silence of the empty room; “I know how hard you work. All of you. We are grateful. Anna is grateful.”

Ell’s father adjusted his glasses “At least she’s responding now. The treatment’s woken up her mind. Whatever we do from here on out will have a much more, ah, noticeable effect. Positive. A positive effect.”

The woman bobbed her head again. “Thank you. Can I… can I see her?”

“Not today, I’m afraid. She’s sleeping off what we gave her. Tomorrow, for sure.”

The old clock in the corner had chimed then, ancient gears and pulleys drawing tiny hammers against bronze plates, sounding out the hour. Ell could not remember how many times it rang, only that it had gone on for a good deal of time. Father and the woman had stood, heads bowed, until the final echoes were lost through Elm Hope’s corridors.

With a small sigh, the woman in white turned to leave, drawing her purse over her shoulder. Father did not follow her, staring off into the distance, a look of great sadness on his face.

At the door, the woman hesitated, one hand on the latch, as if she did not have the strength to turn it. Then she turned back, and there was something in her eyes Ell had never seen before, an emotion that, even looking back on it now, she could not place.

“Does she… does she ever ask for me…? Does Annabelle… remember me?” Her voice had cracked when she said ‘remember’.

Ell’s father had not spoken immediately, but Ell had seen his hand tighten almost imperceptibly on the pen he had been holding.

“…No, ma’am. The numbers Anna says are entirely random. They have no meaning. Your daughter is just… lost inside her head. Don’t worry yourself, there is hope. We will get her back.”

The snowflake touched the pavement, lingered briefly, and wafted down the road, taking with it Ell’s memories of days past and bringing her back to the bleakness of reality.

As evidenced by the snow, the air had indeed grown colder. The warm spell had passed; the grass lining the broad road was pale and brittle with morning frost. Ell stuffed her hands into her pockets against the chill, hoping to find warmth there, but the fabric was damp and cold. With a small shiver, she put her hands under her arms instead.

“It must be nice to be a shadow. You can walk forever, and you don’t have to breathe, and you don’t get cold…”

A thought struck her, and she looked down at Mei. “I guess I never really asked you that. Do you get cold?”

Mei shrugged, tipping her head back as far as she could for no apparent reason. The shadow girl seemed to be fully recovered from her exertions earlier that day, walking beside Ell with no visible discomfort. Mei had helped Ell with her injuries before, a feat which had badly confused Dr. Hurie on several occasions. The healing was an ability Ell greatly valued, but one that came at a cost. Cuts and scratches were easy to wipe away, but broken bones took great effort, sometimes causing the shadow pain, and the last thing Ell wanted for her only friend was pain.

“So… cold? Yes? Is that a yes? No?”

Mei stuck out her tongue.

“Fine, you goof. I hope you are cold. Or maybe you like it that way…”

She likes whatever you think she likes…

Ell blinked, glancing about for Dr. Mortimer. Of course he wasn’t there. A memory of his voice, then. He really had been gone a long time… back home, and even at the city hospital, no matter how well she hid, he would always find her; pestering her about her pills, hurting Mei’s feelings with his blunt mannerisms, jotting notes in his stupid notebook.

Something on the tracks… I hope the driver sees it…

“But there aren’t any tracks here.” Ell said out loud.

Mei glanced up at the sound of her human friend’s voice.

“Sorry. Talking to myself. Daddy says crazy people talk to themselves. Maybe I’m crazy.”

The shadow grinned, signing something with great speed.

“Slow down, I can’t figure you out when you do that.”

With exaggerated slowness, Mei signed E-L-L I-S S-T-R-A-N-G-E.

Ell gasped in mock horror. “And you’re a fruitcake. Meany.”

Mei crossed her arms and pretended to pout, rolling her face around until her features were completely upside-down. Ell giggled, brushing a tangled strand of hair back over her ear.

“We should sing a song. That’s what other people do on long trips. Well, I’d sing, and you can pretend. What one should I do? I don’t know very many…. hm…”

After a minute of thinking, her eyes brightened.

“We could do that one father used to sing us, when we were little. How did it go… it was about the baby, and the mother would buy her all these nice things so she wouldn’t be sad… I’m pretty sure I heard it a bit ago, though I can’t think where. How did it go?”

“‘Hush little baby, don’t you cry’, is the one you are thinking of.” said Dr. Mortimer. Ell jumped, turning to face the doctor.

The older man was sitting beside the road, leaning against a weathered metal signpost. His clothes were quite disheveled, and his tie was unpinned, dangling off to one side. Both lenses in his spectacles were cracked, and the metal frames were noticeably bent. A thin line of blood was working its way from his forehead to his chin, oozing from a small cut near his hairline.

Something about him unnerved Ell. It wasn’t the blood; in small amounts, the crimson liquid was actually quite fascinating to look at. Something about the doctor’s position… The way he sat like a broken doll, unmoving except for his glassy eyes, one arm resting on his chest, the other twisting at an unnatural angle behind him. Ell almost, almost, wished him away, but at the same time, she found it comical that he would sit contentedly in the cold, soggy dirt with no obvious discomfort.

“Dr. Mortimer, your head is bleeding.”

The doctor’s eyes slowly crossed as he attempted to examine the bridge of his nose. “Hmph. Never mind it, dear, I’ll put a band-aid on it later. Right now, I’m more worried about you! You haven’t been keeping up with your mediation, have you?”

“I only have one pill left, so I’m saving it. Do you have more?”

Dr. Mortimer laughed. “I’m not real, Ell. How can I give you any?”

“Hasn’t stopped you before.”

“Hmph. Well, I don’t have any, regardless. You know it’s dangerous to be out here, all by yourself.”

Ell drooped a bit. “I didn’t mean to. Daddy’s train broke, and there was no one around. I looked for you, but-”

A flash of something, a dead, bloody face staring at her. Rain pouring down in sheets, twisted metal, the smell of fire.

“But?” the doctor prompted.

Ell blinked, and the images of carnage were gone.

“But you weren’t around, and the train tried to float away, and I fell in the water, and there was a school-”

A Whisper with golden hair. Fire. A man with glass eyes and a black metal gun…

“Ell? Ell, are you feeling okay?”

Ell wasn’t. She felt dizzy, and a bit sick to her stomach. “N-no. I think I’m… missing bits. In my head. There are spots where I know something was there, but now it’s all jumbled.”

The cut on the doctor’s forehead was bleeding a good deal more than before, dripping from his nose and chin onto his shirt-front. “You need to take that last pill, Ell. I’m serious, you cannot keep on like this. Do you want to make yourself ill again?”

“No. I will. It’s just… I need to get home, and I don’t know where it is, or if I’m going the right way, and I want… I want to see daddy again.” She could feel her eyes starting to tear up.

Dr. Mortimer took his notepad from his breast pocket, scribbling something illegible. “Ell, look at me.”

Ell did as she was told. The doctor’s head-wound had grown again, but he showed no signs of pain. His calm eyes met hers, and he smiled reassuringly.

“Everything is going to be fine. Take your last pill. Don’t wait until later. And whatever you do, don’t worry. You’re almost home.”

With some effort, the doctor turned his notepad around, holding it up in front of his face. The page was flecked with red, but Ell could still see what Dr. Mortimer had drawn: An arrow, pointing up towards the sky.

Her gaze lifted upward, and she saw for the first time the sign on which the doctor had been leaning. In bold type, it read: ‘WELCOME TO LAKEWOOD, HOME OF THE LAKEWOOD PACKERS’

And below that, in slightly smaller writing; ‘ELM HOPE INSTITUTE, 7 MILES’

Ell looked down again, and found that the doctor had vanished. Perhaps he had wandered off, or gone back into her head, or maybe he had never been there at all. She didn’t really care.

Her hand dug into her pocket, coming out with the final pill. She popped it in her mouth, wincing ever so slightly at the rubbery taste, and swallowed hard. Slowly, she looked down at Mei, who looked back at her with eyes like twin moons.

Then, with a joyous noise that was half-laugh, half scream of pure happiness, Ell took off running as fast as she could push her legs to move. All terror, all sadness, all madness forgotten, she ran as she had never run before.

Before her now, distant but growing ever clearer, lay the familiar rooftops, the old roads and driveways, the realm of knowing that had been her home since her mind had begun its tired record of life.

Seven miles to Elm Hope.

Seven miles to Home.

And now, a brief break as a new plot twist emerges…! :O

Sorta short, so… sorry. I literally wrote, re-wrote, and re-re-wrote about eight pages of material to get this. Couldn’t get the “angle” right. 😛 Anyways, it’s time for our latest addition to the insanity… John Reeves!

Chapter 9

In the distance, somewhere far beyond the forested hills, a siren’s sombre tone rose above the cicadas, only to fall again below nature’s ambience.

John Reeves blew a cloud of smoke into the cold evening air, listening to the fire horn’s last echoes. Absently, he crushed his cigarette stub beneath his heel, glancing briefly at his watch without actually noting the time. He had seen his fair share of carnage in the six years since he had entered the field, but this was a whole new level for him. Thirty-some-odd people dead. Twisted metal and blood on everything. The scrubs were still fishing body parts out of the creek below.

The blackened husk of the train engine sat several yards down the track, looking for all the world like a colossal insect, on its back with its wheels to the sky. Reeves trudged towards it, rubbing his hands together in a futile attempt to ward off the chill.

A uniformed police officer was making his way around the front of the wreck as Reeves approached. Reeves greeted him with a curt nod. “Evening, Sheriff. What have you got for me?”

The Sheriff squinted at him. “I’ve got plenty for you, don’t worry. You must be the FBI fella they were going to send our way.”

Reeves handed over the papers he’d been given. “Special Agent Johnathan Reeves. Are you in charge here?”

The officer nodded. “Yessir. Name’s Sheriff Warren. You’ll be wanting to see the cause of this bang-up, right?”

“It would be a good place to start.”

“Right. Over here then.”

As he stepped forward, the Sheriff caught his toe on a protruding bit of burnt refuse, barely avoiding falling face-first into the sooty soil. He caught himself and swore loudly, spitting on the frozen ground. “This place is an absolute mess. Techies think it was some kinda IED, set to go off when the train ran it over. Ugly mess of hardware, from what we can piece together. The driver should’a seen it a mile away.”

Reeves consulted his hand-held device. “Speaking of the operator… seems his name was Eren Maxwell. Looks like he’d been running the train for twelve years.”

The Sheriff squinted at something in the distance. “Yep, we used to be good buddies. Went to the same pub up in town, actually. Felt sorry for the old guy. His wife left him twenty years ago, took the kids and left town. Two weeks later, they were dead. Blind-sided by a semi, if you can believe it. Sorta ironic, ain’t it? Whole family ended up human pancakes!” He smacked his hands together and chuckled.

Reeves was not amused. He’d been hoping to speak with Eren, perhaps get more information on the crash. Maxwell had been cocooned in the cab of the engine when it flipped. It had largely protected him from the lethal carnage, but with six broken ribs, a punctured lung, and burns on ninety-percent of his body…

He had died less than twelve hours ago, without ever regaining consciousness.

“Here we are.”

Reeves glanced up, following the Sheriff’s outstretched hand. Despite the stress they had been put through, the rails themselves had sustained little damage, with the exception of the section the Sheriff had indicated. There, the tracks were massively warped and pitted, and the left rail had snapped apart completely.

The Sheriff was still speaking. “The boys at the lab are going over the trace chemicals right now, but whatever this was, it wasn’t your average homemade explosive. Tre-mendous force, but all in one place. One big bang, hop the train off its tracks, and momentum does the rest. With the rate of speed, and trees on both sides… pretty much paper in a shredder. Musta been military-grade stuff.”

“I see that. Did anyone other than the engineer survive the initial impact?”

“Doubt it. Some bodies still missing, but overall…”

The FBI agent seemed surprised. “Who’s still unaccounted for?”

“Two or three of the doctors, one of the patients, too. We actually just found, ah, what’s-her-name… Lianne! Yeah, that was it. Found her this morning, or, well, most of her. Forensics say that she was thrown right out of the window and into the ravine as the cars stacked up. She would’a been fine, ‘cept the steel wheel carriage came down on her as she tried to run. Cut her right in half. They’re still looking for her legs, actually.”

Reeves sighed. This was an unfortunate turn of events. His superiors had given him rather specific instructions, instructions he was now unable to fulfill. His next stop would be the morgue; recover the body, get it to the lab before anyone else had a chance to examine it in-depth… or worse, cremate it. The sheriff would be no help here. Time to leave.

Almost as an afterthought, he asked, “Do you know which patient is still missing?”

The sheriff’s brow furrowed. “No, um… no, wait, yes! Yeah, her name was… Elise or something. Lisabeth? Hm… dang…”

Very slowly, trying with all his might to force emotion out of his voice, Reeves said, “Elinor?”

The sheriff’s eyes widened, and his face broke into a grin. “Yeah, that was it. Elinor Lenoma.”

Reeves tried to think, tried not to show any sign of the impact the words had had on him. Blood was pounding in his temples, blurring the edges of his vision. It was impossible… one chance in a million… but if he was right, if his department was right, this was exactly how it would have played out.

“She’s still unaccounted for? No sign of her in the wreck?”

“Nope, nothing. Some of the guys think a wild animal got her body, dragged her off somewhere, or maybe she went in the water and the current got her. We’ve been all up and down the creek bed, though. Nothing. Took us a bit longer than expected, actually. Some of our guys had to go out to that big fire.”

“Fire?”

“Yeah, the old Montgomery schoolhouse burned down. It’s about fifteen miles north of here. Anyway, there’s a lot of ground to cover. She’ll turn up, don’t worry.”

As if on cue, Reeves’ cell phone rang. With a gesture of apology to the sheriff, he answered it.

“Reeves.”

“We got her.” The caller was younger, maybe mid-twenties. Most likely an agent from another division; this was a business-only line.

“Got who?”

“The patient. The girl, Elinor. We’ve got her. She’s back at Elm Hope. Just walked in the door an hour ago. Heaven knows how she got there, but she’s there now. Sullivan wants you on-site yesterday. What’s your ETA?”

Reeves was already running, his dress shoes clattering on the gravel-covered earth.

“Ten minutes. For the love of God, don’t let her out of your sight!” He clicked the phone shut, wresting his keys from his pocket mid-stride.

They had her. Alive.

Now they just had to keep her that way.