Deep Dark Blues

Chapter 24- Phantom

"What?" Reed heard herself speak as if her soul had detached from her body. 

Isabella continued to show no emotion, the only telltale sign of hurting being the tears streaming down her face. Not even a muscle moved, her features remaining still like a statue.

"He is gone..." she whispered.

Reed propped herself up on her elbows, fighting the dizziness.

"H-how long? When did it happen?" she stammered out, eyes glued to Isabella's form.

The woman curled into herself more, her face disappearing behind her knees.

She wouldn't answer any more questions.

Reed stared at her for a minute more, trying to gauge anything she could from her reaction, but she was proven fruitless in her endeavour. She dropped back onto the bed with a sigh, eyes staring at the ceiling.

Reed was familiar with loss... Perhaps more familiar with it than most, but the sudden feeling of emptiness felt crushing.

Alex... She didn't know him very well, perhaps not at all and yet a twinge of sadness still stung. Alex... The man who tried to save them... He was gone...

It was a strange revelation, realising that Alex was in fact first to die out of the crew... It certainly didn't feel like it... Not after what happened.

Alex felt like just another victim...

Maybe it was better that way?

She didn't know.

It must have been a few hours that she stared at the ceiling, unmoving and stiff while she thought about... well, everything...

Alex's death.

The walk to the Submarine.

The bloodbath aboard.

Everything... 

Everything felt blurry as if the memories were merging into one mess of screams and faces. Had all of that even happened?

Reed was prone to hallucinations after all... Maybe it was just a dream? Maybe she would wake up soon? Deep down she knew that wasn't the case, and yet, the naive part of her hoped for it to be true.

She glanced at Isabella, who had remained seated in the corner. She was biting her nails, little clicks of keratin tissues breaking under her teeth. There was no trace left of the well-maintained manicure she would wear, her cuticles raw and skinned from the incessant biting.

Isabella was fading... and Reed could do nothing about it.

"Stop biting Isa... You will hurt yourself..." she tried in a soft voice.

But her request flew over Isabella's head, the woman completely ignoring Reed as she continued to chomp on her fingers.

The almost mechanical sound of Isa's skin breaking under the force of her bite echoed through Reed's ears, like a drippy faucet in the dead of night.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold back the irritation.

Leave her alone... It's not her fault...

She would whisper to herself, but with every little crack, the itch under her skin would become more unbearable. The sound would crawl under her skin, tickling and biting like a cockroach. It felt as if the world had been swallowed into a vacuum, the only sound disrupting the silence being the telltale little...