Guardians

Chapter Three: An Empty Heart

My eyelids opened abruptly as I laid on something soft. My head was propped on something fluffy. A bed was clad in pure white linens to match the ceiling, which I found myself staring at. The white light was so pure, so vibrant. No one could ever gaze at bright colors under the twilight. Our eyes are not adapted for bright colors and lights. Sunlight is so scarce that our eyes never needed to adjust.

Yet, the room was blinding, but I did not feel the need to squint my eyes. This light was intense, but nurturing. I was able to open my eyes wide and take it all in. A distracting light it was, as it made me forget all of my troubles, all of my woes.

But where was I?

I scanned the room for a way out: a door, hatch, window, anything. The room lacked an exit, throwing me into a panic. How would I leave? Where was Wyatt and the rest of the class?

A creaking sound entered my ear amidst all of my panic. Finally, a sound to cut through the emptiness, something to make me feel alive again. I looked directly in front of me to a slit of darkness on the far wall. Surely it had to be a door, and that assumption invigorated my thoughts. Blood rushed to my bones as I casted anchor to the floor.

I grabbed at one of the adjacent walls of light to see if I could grab a door. I managed to clutch a handle, and I pulled it towards me, widening my view of the outside. It was a hallway—short, maybe fifteen feet across, with a staircase at the end. It was much darker than the room I woke up in, but the bright beige carpet offered enough light for me to see my way.

While the bedroom was too bright, the hallway was too dark for my eyes. In the twilight, there was enough light that we could see anywhere, excluding bedrooms, which were built to keep the twilight out. This obscuring hallway reminded me of the times when I needed to navigate my bedroom while Wyatt slept.

I reached the stairs in a matter of seconds and began descending them. I couldn't see the bottom because of how somber it was. With each step I took, I felt like I was getting farther and farther away from the bottom, like I was going down a forward moving escalator at the shopping mall.

Crash! About twenty steps down, I heard a horrific sound past the wall beside me. I assumed it came from outside, because the noise resembled thunder. It startled me, and I lost my balance. Had I not caught the rail as soon as I launched forward, I would have fallen.

However, tumbling down the stairs was the least of my worries. A sudden pain smacked against my rib cage, bringing me to my knees. The thunder had to be the cause, but I couldn't descend the stairs to investigate. The pain left me petrified, leeching away all of my strength. My heart thumped harder and harder, until I was sweating profusely. My whole body tensed and I could only inhale short bursts of air. When would it end? When would the pain go away?

In my desperation, the sweating subsided, and my muscles relaxed again. My heartbeat slowed, and my strength returned to me. My entire body felt revitalized, all except for one piece: my heart.

My heart did not fully recover. I couldn't place a finger on it, but something was...taken. There was a hole somewhere in my heart. A vacuum of nonexistent space, where before my heart felt complete. Something was missing, and that emptiness was somehow present. It was there, but it was not there.

I tried to forget about it, but it lingered as I finally reached the bottom of the staircase. I took a couple more steps, feeling the carpet between my toes. This room was just as dark, even with windows. However, there was a natural reason: a storm. A downpour was crashing against the earth outside. Dark clouds obscured the twilight, trapping all the light in the stratosphere. That also confirmed my suspicion of the thunderous sound being actual thunder.