Eclipse

Chapter 9

Time: Early Evening

Place: Hospital Depths. 

The rumbling finally stopped, but her weeping didn't. Her breathing was heavy and irregular. She wanted to scream again but couldn't muster the energy.  Silence had gripped the area. Slowly her breathing evened out and she opened her eyes. 

Ahead of her, the two tunnels, one going right and one going left. 

"There's nothing to do but to just choose" She tried to coax herself. "All of this is random, it doesn't make any sense."

She choose left hoping it was the right one, the correct one rather. Tamara continued to scurry down the tunnel as fast as she could but the small enclosure allowed her little freedom of movement.  Crawling became a challenge as she finally found herself laying flat on her chest. 

Her muscles ached as she crawled like a caterpillar, muscles that have never been used in this manner were being pushed hard. She was athletic, she had joined the cheerleaders and could do some amazing acrobatic things, but crawling was never on the list of duties. 

Tamara's world was always open, friends everywhere, liked by many and extremely popular. Always surrounded by people, always surrounded but never suffocated. She was in control and could leave and move on when she wanted. Now she was surrounded, but she couldn't leave. She couldn't even turn around. 

Her body scaped against the floor, elbows becoming bumped and bruised on the cement walls. There wasn't much dust on the ground as if this place was regularly cleaned, or merely just created for the purpose of entrapping her. 

She crawled and crawled, pushing back multiple panic attacks. Her saving grace, the space no longer shrank. Finally, she noticed a change in the tunnel. There was carvings of pictures, circles within circles, triangles and squares, mathematical writing of some high level calculations she couldn't begin to understand. 

She ran her fingers over a few and they began to glow a deep aqua color. She felt a tingling sensation run through her, then disappeared in an instance. What was left was the feeling of exhaustion. Her eyes began to close and her head laid on the floor. 

The floor gave way and she fell into a black voice, fell down into the vastness of space, her stomach churned and she closed her eyes again. It helped to relieve the falling sensation and we it completely went away, she opened. 

She found herself in school between classes, surrounded by a few cheerleading friends. 

"Are we all ready for the competition tonight?" One of the girls said in a cheerful voice?

What's going on, Tamara thought. Her mind swirling in confusion. 

"Tamara,  get your head in the game, I need to know if you're ready.  Do we need to practice anything? 

They were in the gym in their school outfits. Townview didn't have any sports teams but they did offer some athletic competitions including cheerleading. 

The 5 girls had surrounded her, moved in and all started staring, the weight and pressure of the upcoming event. She put a smile on her face, "Yup, I'm ready". 

Cut to that evening, the gymnasium was full, their turn coming up. Tamara stood with her team on the side lines. She scanned the crowd, several from her school, including Vahn. 

Vahn? I never noticed him until now. Was he always there? His head was in a book waiting but when they called Tamara's squad down to the center stage, he lifted his head. His attention was fully on the team. 

There were 15 girls in total, she was nervous, wasn't sure of the moves but then her body started moving. Was she in control, was this real or was she dreaming?