Out of the Darkness

80

He stared at the amulet around my neck, and chewed his bottom lip, while his blue eyes seemed to almost burn a hole where the necklace hung, resting on my upper chest. "So, how do you connect with the spirit realm then? What do you do?" He asked, after a moment. I started explaining everything that I could remember about what the witch had told me. "So, that's it. I tried, before you came in, to meditate, and I'm pretty sure that I heard her call my name, but I can't be sure that it was real or all in my head, because I wanted to hear her, ya know?" I knew my words were coming out rushed and melting together, almost, but I really hoped that he could understand what I was trying to say. "What happened after that?" he asked. I shook my head, and looked down at my hands. I started twisting my rings nervously. "I don't know. I woke up, I guess. I hadn't even known that I went to sleep. I looked at my phone and 3 hours had passed." "Hmm," I heard him say. I looked up to see him rubbing his chin like he did when he was pondering something. Sam had a different way of thinking. He looked at things differently than most everyone I knew. "What if you were meditating? What if the dream realm is somehow connected to wherever Anna is? I mean, think about it," he said, holding his hands out, palms up. "We have no idea what we're working with here. Is Anna actually a spirit? If so, who is trying to hurt her? And why? None of it makes any sense. You said that you saw where she was. What did  you  mean by that? Let's try to break it down." "Okay," I said, wiping my damp palms up and down on my jeans. "I was talking to the witch. To Amethyst. I was about to leave I think. It's kind of blurry now, for some reason. I looked into her eyes, and then I was drawn into this empty, black void. There was literally nothing there. No light, no sound, no movement, nothing. I couldn't see my body. I don't even think that I had one. Just my consciousness...or my subconscious. I don't know. There was another person there. A girl. She's the one that told me that Anna had been there. That there was this powerful being, the Dark One, that caused them all pain, until they disappeared one by one. I think that her and Anna had been there a long time. She said that usually they were alone, but sometimes they could hear one another, and talk a little. There was pain Sam." I inhaled sharply, remembering how it had ripped up my body. "So much pain. I thought that I was dying. I wanted to die. It was that bad. Then I was shoved back into my body. Maybe it was my soul, traveling to the some form of the afterlife. Maybe it was Hell. It felt like it could've been Hell." I shivered, remembering the despair that I had felt in that place. Was Anna there now? God, I prayed not. "Okay," Sam replied, nodding his head a little. "I have no idea what this could be or how to go about figuring it out." My head hung in defeat, knowing that he was probably right. "But," he continued. "We know what started it, right? Or rather, WHERE it started." My head jerked back up and I met his gaze. "The house?" I asked hesitantly. That place still gave me fucking nightmares. "The house," he confirmed, his lips set into a determined line. "You have to figure out if you want to go back. I know that you already said that you did, but maybe that was an emotional answer. You remember how dark that house was, Colby. Is it worth going back for Anna? For someone who is already gone from this world?" I thought about his question for a moment. I tried to be logical about it. To remember that what he was saying was right. We wouldn't be able to bring Anna back to life. Her time on Earth was over. At least physically. "Yes," I answered. "I couldn't live with myself if I knew that I didn't at least try to help her soul escape that place, Sam. It was horrible." He furrowed his brow and stared at me for a second. "Okay then. I'll go with you." I shook my head vehemently. "NO. No Sam. I'm not putting your life in danger for this! This isn't your fight or your problem." He rolled his eyes. "Stop being so dramatic. If you go, I go. You'll need someone to back you up, IF anything crazy happens. If we die...well, we die together. I'm not going to leave you to do it alone, Colby. You're my brother." I didn't say anything for a moment, the lump in my throat choking me up. I cleared my throat and nodded. "Thanks Sam," I said, my voice a little scratchy. He leaned in and wrapped his arms around me in a tight hug. A couple of seconds later, he pulled back and we both stood. "Guess it's time to see if there is anything online about a crazy ass situation like this," he replied, walking over to my desktop. "Are you sure?" I asked, pulling my footstool over beside him, so that I would have somewhere to sit as well. "It's pretty late man. You can go to bed and we'll start tomorrow." He just looked at me and raised his eyebrows. "Are you  gonna sleep, if I go? Or are you going to take this seat and start doing research?" I pursed my lips, cursing the fact that he knew me so well. I sighed in defeat, and waved my hand towards my desktop. "That's what I thought," he replied, turning back to the screen. We scoured the internet for a couple of hours, researching things about the afterlife, alternate realities, how to get in touch with someone from these planes of existence, and even going as far as reading up on dream walking, or astral projection.