Charlotte sat bolt upright in her bed, the darkness of her room pressing against her eyes, the memories of her dream, of James' nightmare flooding back to her. His warning echoed in her head, his angry, pleading voice rattled about her thoughts void of meaning in her waking confusion.
A slice of moonlight fell through the window and across the bed, allowing Charlotte to discern the furniture and casting gruesome shadows across the walls. Icy clouds formed as she exhaled unevenly, her heart pounding in her chest. It was with a sudden wave of nausea she realised the iciness of her dream had followed her to the real world, haunting her waking hours and clouding her mind.
Her heart hammered in her ears as she searched the dark shadows of her room for what had awoken her. Her body convulsed, trembling violently in the freezing air. With each barefoot step across the frosted floor she felt the world spiralling towards colder and colder temperatures. She grabbed the jeans and sweater that had been slung over her chair with shaking hands, pulling them on with as much haste as her shocked body could manage. She shoved her icy feet into her boots desperate for warmth. Her coat was an afterthought, but she couldn't yet shake the grip of the plunging temperatures. She shoved her hands deep into its sleeves, unable to attempt to fasten the zipper with her quivering fingers.
She staggered to the door, her movements clumsy. The ground was treacherous, ice covering every surface. She tried the light switch, but the power was gone, the house steeped in darkness. After a few laboured moments she somehow managed to jar open the door, its hinges choked with ice. The cold air hurt her throat and lungs as she struggled to steady her breathing.
The moonlight that lit her room did not extend to the long, windowless hall beyond. It was swamped in darkness and shrouded in a deathly silence. It was as if she had entered a nightmare again, but this time it quickened her pulse and made her head swim. It didn't calm her as James' nightmare had. This wasn't something to entertain her; this was something she already knew to fear.
She staggered out into the darkness knowing her only way was forward. Her footing was unsteady on the slick floorboards. She tried to shrug off the numbing, drowsiness that accompanied the cold, that made her feel tired and weak, but it wouldn't abandon her. Her senses were disoriented, the darkness and the cold dulling her surroundings and her thoughts. She swallowed. Every little movement or noise made her jump; the tick of the clock in the hall, the crack or squeak of the spreading ice, a student's cough, her own breathing and uneven footsteps.
Charlotte frowned, gritting her teeth to keep them from chattering. This wasn't right. It wasn't normal. She held her breath, listening to the stressed ice spreading across the house like a disease. The temperatures were continuing to plummet. She realised with a sickening twist in her stomach that if they didn't move soon they would soon freeze to death.
With a deep breath and growing panic Charlotte focused on her only unencumbered sense, a last desperate attempt to understand what was happening. The darkness shimmered a moment, her alteration coming to life, searching for an answer, for the source of the penetrating, unseasonal cold that had taken the house firmly in its grasp.
Her world came to life. Her alteration didn't need light to see. It was guided by fears, by minds of potential victims. The house seemed silent. Sleeping students lay bundled beneath duvets, bed after bed, room after room, just as they would have been any other night. She searched for James, but he too remained sleeping, fitfully, but unroused by the icy winter that had the house in its grasp. He had managed to throw her back into the waking world, but not himself.
Nothing stirred. Nobody wondered why the electricity was gone or why the house was steeped in arctic temperatures. Yet Charlotte knew that this anomaly wasn't all that unusual, for her kind anyway. James' panic returned to her. They had come for him. Were they under attack?
YOU ARE READING
Feared
Science Fiction'Play the game, she thought, remembering the only three words that had helped her to survive at Kingston. Only back then she had known the game, she had known what they wanted her to be, what they had wanted her to do - this man was different. She d...
