Into the Darkness Second Draft

Darkness

Doug opened his eyes and then closed them again. The effect was still the same. He opened them once more, but all he saw was darkness. His cheek lay pressed against something cold, a hand stretched out before him. It took a moment for him to realize that he actually saw the hand. A sudden thought occurred to him, and he flexed his fingers, watching the hand before him comply. It was his hand, dancing to the rhythm in his head.

He sat up, his head swimming. "Hello?" he called out as he looked around, taking in the absolute darkness around him. Not darkness, he thought as he looked up, a small pin point of white light above him. Black, flat black. With this new information, he looked closer at his surroundings, but could not discern any walls, let alone corners or even a doorway.

"Doug?" It was Sam.

"Samantha! I'm he- over- I don't know, but I can hear you."

"Doug," she sobbed, "where am I, where are we?"

"I don't know Sam, but I need you to be calm though." He said this even as his heart was racing, it wouldn't do for them both to be panicking. "We'll get out of this, I mean here. What can you see?"

"Nothing. It's so dark here."

"I don't think it is. Can you see yourself?"

"Of course I- Oh!" He could hear the sudden realization in her voice. "I- I can see!"

"That's a start, are you ok?"

"I think so. I'm scared though."

"Yeah, I am too. I'm going to stand up. Can you?"

"Yeah, I'm standing now."

Doug spun, trying to figure out where Samantha's voice was coming from, to no avail. "Okay Sam, I'm going to walk, I need you to tell me if my voice is getting closer or farther away." Picking a direction, one was as good as any at this point, he took four steps forward before he cursed. "Ow!"

"What happened? Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Doug said, running his hands along the wall that he had bumped into. "I just found a wall. I'm going to follow it." Walking with one hand on the wall to his left, and the other stretched out before him, he travelled about ten steps before his hand touched another cold surface. "Ok, I've found a corner."

"Me too, and I think you're getting closer. Oh! I found an opening!"

She was a sight to behold, her coppery hair, her dimples. Even though it felt like it had only been minutes since he had seen her last, he sprinted across the room to her, tripping over something that sent him sprawling to all fours, sliding across the cold floor.

Samantha cautiously approached him, timidly testing each step before putting any weight behind it. "Are you sure you're you?"

"Who else could do that?" he replied, pulling himself up to his knee, and checking himself over.

Sam smirked, "You got that right," she hugged him. "I'm glad you're here. Well not here here, but I'm glad that I'm not alone."

"Me too," Doug said as the overhead light flared, blinding them both.

Rubbing his eyes, he finally managed to restore his sight, and gasped as he noticed what appeared to be his backpack in the center of the room, directly beneath the hanging light.

Wary of tripping again, Doug made his way slowly to the bag, and cursed under his breath when he saw that it was open.

""What's wrong?" Sam queried.

"I don't know yet." He knelt down, began to look through the bag. The first thing he noticed was that his math book was gone. "Someone took my math homework... Yes!" He pulled out the box of colored pencils, the open space where the red should be still causing the wooden sticks to rattle against each other. He reached back into his backpack and pulled out his notebook. He closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief before he opened the book and flipped through the pages, afraid of what he would find.