You Can Run To Me

Thirty-Nine

Natalie was sat in the library in silence, bent over an incomprehensible black explosion of notes. She was sketching something in the corner of the page, but she couldn't have said what it was if asked. Suddenly a feeling of being watched grew in her, and she had to turn around. Putting down the pen, she scoured the room for watching eyes, but it was completely empty. Slightly uneasy, she stood, wincing at the soft sound of the chair legs scraping against the scraggy carpet. Where was everyone?

Some inscrutable urge drew her towards a particular book case a dozen or more feet from her desk. Her footsteps echoed against the laminate, deafening in the muffled room. A faint sense of wrongness pervaded through her, but her feet kept her going on forward despite her misgivings. There was something over there that she needed to go and see. She found herself unconsciously speeding up as the distance between her and the bookcase seemed to keep growing.

Finally and all at once the bookcase was right in front of her, and she paused there a moment, unsure what she was doing here. She gradually became aware of the sound of someone breathing, and knew instantly that it wasn't her; she'd been holding her breath ever since that sinister force had come upon her. She leaned closer to the books, as if trying to smell them, though they were conspicuously scentless. Helpless, she let her feet carry her to the right, following the shelf along.

Suddenly she came to a gap in the books and slowed, staying there for a second, breathless. Suddenly a bright blue eye blinked open behind the shelf, larger than life. She gasped and stepped back for a second. The only sound was their breathing. Slowly – tentatively – she crept forward again, pressing her eye up to the gap. The eye blinked languidly, and then looked pointedly to the right for a long time. Then it slid to the right followed by a brief plume of hair. She abruptly realized what he had been trying to tell her.

They were moving as one along the shelf, one on either side. He was surreptitiously pushing books out down the shelf, and it didn't take her so very long to work out that he was spelling out her name with the titles of the books; "Naiads and druids", "Anthropomorphism in the modern age", "Theology for undergraduates", "Advanced Electronics".... Her heart leapt every time she glimpsed him between books.

Just when she thought the shelf would never end, it did, and she was so intent on it, following it with both hands, she ended up stumbling when it abruptly disappeared. He caught her, wordlessly, though all she saw was those striking blue eyes. She moved closer to him, but he instantly stepped back, covering one of her small hands with his own warm smooth hand. He gently led her away from the shelves until after some indeterminable time they were somewhere else, her hand still hidden in his.

She smelt chlorine, but it was so dark that she couldn't see a thing. He kept leading her forward, still mute, and it wasn't until she felt the warm water lapping against her toes that she truly acknowledged where he must be leading her. She stopped, afraid to go on, but his hand tugged on hers insistently. "I can't-"she began, but she could see his eyes, bright and huge against the gloom, staring at her with unblinking persistence. Reluctantly, she let him pull her onwards, into the water. It was warm, inviting, and she found it ever easier to convince herself that he would keep her safe. The water kept rising, above her knees, then her waist, then coming to lap beneath her chin. His hand was still there, a calming tether to the world of the living.

Then his eyes blinked out into the darkness, and there was a soft splash. His hand pulled at hers urgently, tugging her down. Hesitating on the precipice, she hardened her resolve and ducked her head under the water with a deep gulp of cold air. There was a warm glow beneath, and somehow she knew that it was him; he must have a torch or something. She wasn't sure what to do with her limbs, but she awkwardly twisted herself in the water and tried to writhe down towards the light. The water was cold, and she began to shiver. Would she have enough oxygen left to swim back up again? She pushed the thought aside and kept on swimming down, except the light only seemed to get further away.