Shadow & Smoke

Chapter 2

In my nightmares, I'd heard that voice.

For three weeks, I'd tried to convince myself that my nightmares were only dreams. I kept trying to rationalize that it was all in my head and the stresses of life were creeping into my subconscious.

For twenty-one and a half days, I told myself that I needed to get it together. I reiterated that there must be some logical reason why I was having repetitive nightmares—no, night terrors—every single night without fail; continuously waking up in a cold-sweat at 3 a.m.

I wasn't surprised when I hit the ground. I was just thankful that it was just my legs that gave out out, which resulted in me falling on my ass. That was better than fainting and breaking my head open on any of the many sharp corners around me.

My vision blurred and my ears plugged with the loud beating of my racing pulse. It thrummed like thunder as I gasped for air—the oxygen seemingly knocked from my lungs entirely.

The minimal light in the loft had been extinguished and I searched frantically with blinking eyes to identify anything around me. Unfortunately, nothing further than my outstretched hand was visible.

Panic rose like bile in my throat. My chest heaved as I fought back the urge to hyperventilate. All rationality left me completely and my mind was as jumbled as my knees were weak.

After a few minutes that felt like an eternity, no other voices called out to me from the pitch dark abyss and I finally began to gather my bearings. Carefully, I thought back to the distance between where I sat hurdled in the corner in a near fetal position, and to the ladder that was my escape.

Could I make it?

"Probably not." The brooding, disembodied voice responded from the void.

Without another word or another thought, I swept across the short distance on all fours, the rough wooden floors cutting up the palms of my hands and both of my knees. I ignored it and followed the only source of light I could see from the office below.

Diving for the ladder, I didn't give a single fuck that I was going to tumble down to the bottom and likely hurt myself. The alternative was a big fat fuck-no in my opinion.

As predicted, I lunged for railing and barely grazed it with my arm before I smashed abruptly into the ladder itself and skidded down the remainder of the rungs with my elbow and ribs.

"Fuck!" I snapped but even as I landed at the bottom, injuring my tailbone painfully, I forced myself to scramble as far away as the room would allow.

Clinging to the furthest wall, I scanned the room for my belongings. Not in arm's reach, getting to my purse atop my desk would require crossing back under the opened ladder and whatever the fuck that was up there.

I didn't think I could make it down the ladder but I did—albeit, completed scathed and badly injured. Should I take another risk and try to get my purse so that I could get the fuck out of there?

No one else was in the store at that point and no one would be back until the following morning. If I let myself stay frozen in terror, the sun would set and I would be stuck in that place and the darkness.

The thought sent a chill up my spine and I started to cry.

Pull it together, Ellie!

I had to try. Sitting there all night wasn't an option.

Letting myself whine against the wall a little longer—asking God why I was stuck in that position and what the hell was that thing up in the loft—I finally decided to make a run for it. I just needed to get up from the crouched position I was in so that I could get a good start and run my fastest.

Sliding up the wall slowly, I braced my weight on my back leg.

The sudden creaking of the loft's ladder caused me to freeze mid-step.

Oh, fuck no!

On even higher alert, I tried to scan the ladder up into the darkness even though I was terrified of what I might see. The shadows and the general darkness danced around my imagination but I saw nothing tangible aside from what I knew—without a doubt—was hiding up there.

I didn't make a run for my purse because before I could move, the heavy, wooden ladder began to pull upward, folding nosily as it slid inch by inch, creek my creek back into place.

That was impossible.

I knew firsthand how heavy the ladder was and what it took to open and close. I would have had to lift the ladder from the office below until it reached a halfway point and then use a worn string to hoist it the rest of the way via a pulley system. If I wanted to close it from above, I would have needed to pull the pulley system using a separate string.

Considering I was the only person in the entire store and had done neither, I was absolutely ready to piss my pants.

Thankfully, the same fight or flight adrenaline that had propelled me painfully across the floor and down the ladder, lit yet another fire under my ass and before I knew it, I was hauling ass across the room to snatch my purse.

I left everything else and didn't look back.

It took my less than a minute to make it out the front door of the bookstore.

And crashing directly into what felt like a brick wall.

"Holy shit, Dork—where's the fire?"