Reflected sorrows

Chapter 8

This foreboding mass of stone that writhed under the gaze of grief was now her home, she realised, but even as she told herself, sternly as a mother's harsh tone towards children she had once loved, she knew it may be in vain- she wanted to go back to that melancholy lapse into malady from the sheer weight of the paranoia she felt. She wanted to feel the nighttime chill and sense the raindrops falling sleepily from the sky; she knew the feeling of their weight upon her like tears of a lover as they breathed deep, unrelenting breaths of sorrow. She knew those things and even at the thought knew her eyes were yearning, staring into the gloomy abyss she resided within. Yearning for something other than hollow curiosity. And now she simply wept, but not for herself; not for herself but for the place she now knew so well; for it now was no longer brooding. She had awoken a monster from its slumber and now she only felt guilt- remorseless, vile disdain pouring upon her from within her mind. She had cast this horror upon herself. She picked herself up, pity cast aside like charred coal across the floor. The door still stood, looming ahead like a lurking threat of death and yet never disappearing; it was strange to see such a plank of wood. Yes, it was rotting. Yes, it was decayed and stank of forgotten memories. Yes, it may have been so innocent- but something about it unnerved her. So, she moved away tentatively. It was a struggle, but she somehow broke free of those chains that held her in the arms of a cruel and merciless puppet master. Without a glance cast behind she hastened away from it, though the stench of death never quite left, instead lingering round every corner and under every shadow.

The hallway was an icy hand laying its grotesque touch of stalactites over her shoulder, its voice unrelenting. A call in her ear. There lay nothing in the bare wasteland of a hallway, and her voice echoed through an icy mist that hadn't been there before. It seemed odd- she should remember this hallway; her soul trembled with a sense of dread, and she righted her poise. She could not be a coward; she must push on. Then something emerged; the gloom was interrupted by a sharp tang of threat in her mouth that lingered long after it had struck. Celeste... All of a sudden, a single finger seemed to twirl in the air, and yet she could not see it; it moved, phlegmatic despite her calls for it to stop- and then it careered toward her shivering form, inert as she spoke: "Get away! I don't want your filthy-"

But it did not hold a hiatus for her desperate pleas. Instead she watched in dread as it crept closer to her, swift as the hand of a murderer. Light as a feather it wandered on through the lingering fog and crept right up close to her. It could see her. She moved aside, a shudder engulfing her as she tried to move away. But it did not relent- it swelled and throbbed and sometimes stopped as if to search for her. It was a hunter, and she was its quarry, the sharp insidious gaze piercing her unstable sense of safety. It called her forth and she could do nothing but watch as, though she dragged her body away from it, a stale sense of dread in the air she breathed, heaving and short of breath as she saw the looming threat coming closer through her veil of melancholy. And though she tried to fight back against the merciless force, and writhed on the floor, even the strength of a placid face and emotionless gaze could not protect her from the hand that reached for her through the gloom. And there it stood; the puppet master's strings were swift to find their quarry once again, and she was plucked from her perch right above the stairs. A surreal sense of flight engulfed her mind and she fell inert among the jagged corners. Terror flickered. That face once again, a grim accompaniment among her waking world, haunting every moment- there lay those hollow eyes. And as her head hit the corner and she knew a sharp pain should have been falling upon her, she only heard a few rasping sounds;

"Wake up, Celeste."

A fever dream. Simply a fever dream. Simply a moment of panic followed by a rush of calm as one plummets into the world of the waking through a thin line. A veil. A curtain of grief that you can fall through into infinite places; a childhood home, a park with a rocking swing that eternally rocks as if complying to an unseen force that she could not fathom. So many worlds, and yet you always fall back to the applause and hollow roses. Always back to the dreary world of yellow skin and barely open eyes. A half view of a world full of so many layers and concepts; chains holding you down, that's all the swing in the park is. A chain to keep you asleep in a vile slumber, already stale and unbearable within a moment. And yet she walked around, and she felt no relief. She could feel nothing. She could hear no panicked bird calls and see no joy in the writhing mass of viridian. She saw only her room, as it had been. No charred stone. She saw once more the dripping water like a viper calling her name in a rapid, sinister tongue. She saw once more the floors all rotting through. And she walked once more through into her office, footsteps a cry in the room as blood is sprayed out. And all was how she had left it; all neat and tidy apart from the bookshelves, some hollow and with their inhabitants splayed out like entrails onto the ground, and some full and with not a single bit of space to breathe. Everything was how it had been. So, yearning once more to travel that dreary distance through the fog, thunder and rain, she glanced around and grabbed her coat from the banister as she precariously tumbled, almost falling, toward the door. And the door was open- she walked through, a dull monotony thrumming in her ears; this was familiar. But not. This was uncanny. Yes, that was the word. She recognised the dull rhythm. And all was silent as she slipped on her coat and left without closing the door behind her.