The Pain in My Heart [Completed]

Chapter Twenty-Nine ~Crista

Pounding and shrieking in my head makes me double over in pain. Axil's shouts scream over the screeching in my head. Like nails on a chalkboard the cries and pounding continue until I feel I'll pass out any moment.

And in a low gravely hiss, a voice rings out, "Stay away from the man with the answers."

The man with the answers, I question. But I can't dwell on the question too long because my vision fades to black and my mind slips into a dark slumber.

***

"Where am I?!" I yell, but my voice does not ring out. I try again. "HELLO!" But still, no sound comes out of my mouth.

I gasp for air, feeling as though I'll pass out again. Please... I think. Please get me out of here. Please take me away from here...

"Why would I do that when I can finally talk to you?" says a voice bouncing back and forth from all directions.

"Who's there?" I try to say, and this time I can hear my voice, but it doesn't sound as it's supposed to. Instead, my voice too, bounces all around and rings in my head like an echo that lasts far too long.

"It's me. Don't you recognize me? I must say, I don't know you all too well, but you surely know who I am, or you surely know what others have said about me."

"Who are you?" my voice echoes again.

"I'm no other than the hauntings of your dreams," he pauses. "What a pleasure it is to actually speak with you."

I stay silent but my mind starts to float into a dreamlike trance, open and vulnerable.

"You don't wish to speak to me, yet you want to know all the answers." His voice levels in on my left ear. "And I can give them to you. Everything you've been longing to know... but you must help me."

"How?" is all I can say.

"How, what? Do you wish to know how I can hear your inner thoughts? How I can speak to you in your sleep and draw you to me in your dream? How is it that you have been having the same night terrors night after night?... I asked myself all the same questions, although I think I've finally figured them out."

"Figured what out?"

"One question at a time." His voice laces around me like whisps of smoke after a candle is blown out.

"I need you, Crista."

My heart drops. "You don't," I say my voice confident, although my fingers are shaking. "And how do you know my name?"

"I know your name very well because you were the one that ruined my plans."

Eden, I think. But no that can't be right. The voice is way too low to belong to Eden.

"Ha," the voice laughs. "Good guess, but you'll have to think harder than that. You are not a dumb girl. Eden has taken everything from you. Your mother," the voice stalks around in circles, "Your magic... your life...

For a moment my heart drops. "Am I dead?" I ask not sounding nearly as confident as I did before.

"Not yet, no. But..." the voice hisses. "I am no stranger to the marks that are plaguing you and your friends."

My heart keeps skipping around. "How do you know about that?"

The voice sighs. "Another question I would love to answer, but unfortunately, I'm going to need a 'yes' before I tell you anything."

"How am I supposed to trust and help you if you won't answer any of my questions?"

"Indeed, not a dumb girl. It seems you were more than the sparkle of your magic all along. You dear, have a brain."

I stay silent, waiting.

"Trust me on this. Without me, you won't get the answers you've longed for before it is too late. Only I can tell you, and I will only tell you once we can sort out a deal. A yes or no, that's all I need."

"No."

"So quickly?" the voice says surprisingly. "Maybe you're not as bright as I thought you were."

"Answer me this, and I may reconsider." Spitting his words back at him I say, "A yes or no." The voice doesn't answer, so I continue speaking into the echoes. "Why can I suddenly talk to you now?

"Why am I finally out of this mind loop? Do you have anything to do with it?"

The voice doesn't respond, the silence swirling around both of us. I can't see anything, only an abyss of darkness. Coward, I think to myself.

The voice scoffs. I had forgotten whoever this voice belongs to can also hear my inner thoughts. I hang my head, embarrassed, even though it's the truth.

"Yes."

The voice goes quiet again.

Yes... I think. Okay.

"So," the voice asks a bit weaker.

"What would I have to do to help you?" I bite the inside of my cheek. "I'm already in enough trouble as it is."

The air around me seems to whirl. "It is not what you must do but what you must choose to do," the voice sings.

"And that is?"

"Keep returning to me. I will give you your answers, but if you leave... if you decide to walk away and never look back, the answers to your questions go unanswered and I cannot help you defeat Eden or help your friends survive the venom that is slowly poisoning them."

I shake my head confused, all the thoughts swirling through my head.

You shouldn't be doing this. You're talking to an invisible voice in a dream. Don't go making deals with strangers, and listen to what you heard right before. 'Stay away from the man with the answers.'

He could be my only hope, though. We all need answers and we need them as quickly as possible. You need to do this for Lucy. She has to survive.

The air around me goes still, the voice patiently waiting for a response.

"Yes," I say, though I wish I could sound surer. "Yes. I will continue to come back to you, though I don't know how that possibly helps you."

"Just as you have questions, I have them too." I hear the air whip around me. "Hold your hand out."

I raise my hand into the darkness and I can feel the other hand that brushes my own and a light of glittering gold outlines our hands and they meet. The glow only goes so far and I can't make anything out a foot in front of me.

"I will help you," I repeat. The voice pauses before saying. "And I, the same."

The glow swirls from my hand and encircles my wrist. Snaking its way up my arm it soon makes its way towards my chest and lands right at my heart.

The figure before me is still just a shadow of a human. A colorless form. Even the glow doesn't illuminate any hint of who this voice belongs to.

"One question. One before I send you back," the voice says.

And I ask the question that's been burning my brain for months. "Who are you?"

"Crista," the voice draws. "It's me. John."

And the golden glow vanishes.