Parallel

7. I can't see you, you can't see me

Eve skidded to a stop, nearing tripping on a loose cobblestone on the floor.

"Riddle!" She hadn't expected to see him there.

Riddle didn't flash his usual smile at her, and Eve felt an unfamiliar sense of dread and fear crawl up her spine. She tried to shake the strange uneasiness off—it was Riddle, for god's sake! Being in the dark really did amp up her nerves. He was probably just coming back from a late-night study session or something.

"Eve Laurence," he merely said, acknowledging her full name. He looked down at her with an unnervingly-blank expression on his face, and Eve found herself struggling to maintain eye contact.

"That's me," she said with an unconvincing laugh. I should get out of here. "A-are you heading back too?"

"No, not yet." Riddle turned his head so that he was staring at the tapestry of an intricate garden that hung on the wall next to them. "Come look," he said simply, gesturing at the cloth, before lifting one side of the fabric upwards with his arm, holding it up for Eve to look into the alcove behind it.

Eve blinked, stepping forward despite the fact that every single nerve in her body was lit up and screaming at her to run in the exact opposite direction, away from Riddle's strange behavior. She peered cautiously into the alcove, seeing only dark stone walls. "Um, what exactly am I lookin—"

She yelped in alarm as an invisible force slammed into her back, pushing her into the alcove. She barely had time to spin around before she saw Riddle step into the small enclosure behind her and flick his wand. Eve's own wand flew out from underneath her robes before she even had a chance to lift a finger, soaring into Riddle's waiting palm. Another flick of his wand, and the cloth of the tapestry fell forward suddenly, cutting off any light from the fire pits outside and effectively trapping Eve and Riddle inside the alcove.

"Riddle, what are you doing?" Eve asked, unable to stop the panic in her voice from rising exponentially as she rushed forward, but Riddle blocked her path, his tall figure looming over her in the narrow space.

"Don't bother screaming. If anyone walks past outside, they'll hear nothing."

Eve tried to quell her suddenly-racing heart, alarm bells ringing in her ears. From their close proximity, she could see that Riddle's eyes were burning with a bright intensity, his pupils dilated like he was a predator that had just cornered a very vulnerable, delectable prey.

How could she have been so stupid? She knew this was coming, knew it, yet she still let her guard down, and now she was cornered by teenage Voldemort in a dark alcove deep within the castle in the middle of the night, and she had no way out.

"Riddle, let me out!" She was breathing very fast. "What do you want?"

Riddle stalked forward, a shadow sliding onto his face, contorting his features into something foreign and dark. Eve couldn't help but shrink back in fear. She'd never seen Riddle with such an unbridled expression on his face, a far cry from his usual pleasant smiles and polite appearance.

This was Tom Riddle, unmasked—Eve knew that, and somewhere deep down in her heart, she recognized she was finally about to come face-to-face with him.

"You're hiding something," he hissed, each syllable a sharp grate against Eve's eardrums. "What I want to know is what."

"I-I don't know what you're talking about." Her voice quivered; in any other situation she would've hated the fact that it did so, but right now she would've been concerned if it didn't quiver.

Riddle stared at her for a moment before leaning back, his face suddenly a perfect blank canvas once more. "I see." He straightened. "I do suppose I should give some sort of introduction into my thoughts, seeing as I am springing—" he spread his arms, gesturing at the alcove" —this onto you quite suddenly."