Born of starlight and shadows

~Part twenty four: Stella~

For a split second I believe I'm in that sort of in-between space between reality and dreams where I have been able to contact Midnight before. It's the same sort of white, blank room that occupied my dreamspace.

Except, I know this is real.

I am utterly alone in my mind, for better or for worse. I suspect it's the latter.

That odd connection with the mysterious boy only ever seems to occur in situations where my emotions are crazy and...and my level of pain is high.

I felt plenty of things prior to this scene I'm living. Confusion ranked pretty high on that list, for sure. It took me some time to establish what was happening after shaking off the remnants of the latest maybe-dream encounter.

And I had to come to terms with the reality I found myself in-again.

Had the man-who, as far as I could figure, was another guard, not the same one I'd seen before, dressed in the same uniform, however- taken less time than he actually did to enter that tiny, tiny prison cell I had found myself in once more, I'm certain I would have spent much more of my life trying not to freak out about it, think about what the future might bring, worry about my family, worry about Hannah, wonder yet again who Midnight was and how we managed to communicate, and try to fathom what the purpose of me being here was.

The same thoughts as before, I suppose. But now, everything was tinged with a sort of urgency. And, I think, anxiety. Yes, that was definitely a huge factor.

There was also the fact that I was feeling a dull sort of pain throughout my whole body. Was this an aftereffect of that clear stuff that had been injected into me?

Probably, my mind said.

Probably.

I didn't even think I would have remembered that if it hadn't been for Midnight.

My mind, it seems, was elsewhere then.

Part of me wants to continue dwelling on it, wonder what it means.

But I need to live in the present, now more than ever.

The very same man who had taken me out of the cell for the first time came in once more. He led me to this room.

Well, I say "led." By that I, of course, mean "forcibly taken."

Until we came to this oddly blank room. I was pushed roughly inside, and after what I guessed was about a minute or two, I was joined by someone else.

Hannah.

How? My mind immediately wondered.

Then I realized someone had shoved her inside here, too, just as someone has shoved me inside.

Why?

There weren't any cuffs on her wrists or chains anywhere on her body, nothing restraining her.

Or me, for that matter, I realized, oddly surprised to find that my wrists were bare when I glanced downwards.

For a moment we just stared at each other, an assortment of emotions gleaming in her eyes, and, undoubtedly, my one.

Hannah was the first to break the silence.

"Stella?"

I pushed myself to my feet, too, just as she had done a moment previous.

"Yes..." I said uncertainly, scaring myself with how hoarse, how weak my voice sounded.

Hannah shook her head. "I-I don't understand..."