Halapatov

Chapter Fourteen

We arrived back at Riowyn's house as the night ticked over to the next day. We moved groggily through the doorway, feeling the effects of the evening's stress and fear and running. We hadn't talked much on the transport trip home. I'd yawned a bit. As we entered the room we didn't even turn on the light; Riowyn turned to us in the glow from the streets that reached through the window.

"It's probably a good idea to get some rest. Then we can work on all these things in the morning." She said tiredly, then glanced around the dark room at the lack of furniture. "You'd probably be more comfortable going home and coming back in the morning, but you're welcome to stay here."

I knew what she meant but I still felt like laughing at her wording. Home. I couldn't even imagine going back to Flauraan, sleeping in my own bed, as if none of this had ever happened, as if this was just a fun holiday and nothing had gone wrong, as if the ghosts didn't exist, and nobody had died, and Sophie and I weren't in some way involved, and we didn't feel obligated to, desperately need to ensure everyone was safe, do something about it. To return home and give my parents hugs and go to my classes and study my books and talk to my friends and act as if nothing in my world had changed. I'd never in my life intended to become the character that ends up in schemes to 'save the day', even if I had anticipated the Weraynian scare on Flauraan. Yet here I was, struggling in the dark with two aliens to stop a force we knew next to nothing about, and there was no possibility of going home until all of this was over.

"What do you want to do?" I turned to Sophie and murmured.

Sophie seemed to stare distantly for a moment. "We can just stay," she said. "Might as well."

"Okay, that's fine." Riowyn said, and I nodded.

We settled in for the night on the floor. Each having blankets in our bags, Sophie and I lay down with the provision of pillows from Riowyn. The ground was soft, and as unimpressive as the lodgings may be, I was exhausted and knew I'd sleep well. Beside me, Sophie curled up under her red blanket, and faced the wall away from me.

"Goodnight Abi," she said, muffled by her position.

"Goodnight Sophie," I replied. After a moment, I felt the compulsion to offer some sort of encouragement and added, "I'm sure we'll be able to work out the source of this soon. Hopefully the ghosts can be stopped."

She didn't answer, ignoring me. I understood, I guess. I shrugged and rolled over. My eyes were heavy and I fell into sleep.

My dreams were fraught with visions and voices and ghosts. My fears had condensed into some horrifying amalgam that was impossible to describe. I was suffocating in my own mind. I couldn't handle this. I couldn't stay asleep. I awoke with a stifled gasp; eyes open to the depth of the night in Riowyn's front room. I sat gently up. Sophie was no longer beside me. My eyes roamed the room until I saw her sitting by the window, reflected in the glass. She was still, silent, mouth set, eyes like glass, eyes gone. As much as my empathy called me to go over and comfort her, I also knew from observing her – I understood – that she wanted to be left alone, thinking things through.

Considering how early in the morning it still was, I lay back down, to sleep once more. This time, however, I focussed on relaxing my mind, on shutting it down so that thoughts weren't racing through it; I wanted a dreamless sleep for once. Within a few minutes I achieved this, and I drifted off into nothingness.

The next morning we packed everything up, talking little, and Riowyn sat at her table for a long while concentrating on flicking through her files she'd brought back from work the day before, and switching between looking at that and a page on her device. When I glanced over her brow was furrowed; she seemed to be concentrating intensely. I recalled that she'd said she might know what the machine is that the ghost was referring to the previous night (other than the teleport watch of course). Hopefully we could work out something that would be able to help, shed some light on everything that was going on.