Bane Academy: To Run From Fear

Chapter 23

Becca

I wake to a brilliant pain in my shoulder, accompanied by the screech of breaking wood and followed by another thump as the rest of my body completes its decent into the ground. Pain blossoms in my torso, uncurling its delicate petals. It takes a couple of seconds to gain my senses. A deep wood-like smell fills my lungs, dipped with expensive varnish and smoke. I haul myself to my feet; pain pushes itself around like leaves in my ankles.
The room I seem to have 'landed' in is spacious, yet cluttered with dark furniture and darker shadows - they fill the empty spaces with imaginary eyes, watching with imaginary menace. I shiver.
I force my mind to clear and focus on the situation. I need to find my friends.
With a taught mind, I stumble blankly towards the door and push against it until it opens.
Immense pain erupts from every side; I scream and yell and bat at the flames as they melt my skin. I can feel it blistering. My mind fills with smoke and I can't see anything.

                   *       *       *

A fleeting moment passes. A moment of clarity. An image opens up against my inward eyelid - sunward facing leaves on distant trees, snatching greedily at the golden afternoon light. A papery voice.

                   *       *       *

  "Becca!" Shae is yelling. "Snap out of it!"
I instinctively reach for my face and find it unmelted under my fingertips. A quick glance shows me more varnished wood and an endless corridor, dabbed at perfect intervals with golden doorknobs on both sides. A child's voice is screaming from the wood. My mind is reeling with the impossibility of it all.
  "What is that voice?" I ask.
  "I don't know," Shae replies. Her face is taught and tired. "But we need to find Fade and Dale."
I nod and we move down the corridor, trying every door.
  "They're all locked," I say after a good forty doors. My hands smell of metal when I wipe the sweat from my forehead. It had gotten suddenly hot. The constant muffled screaming turns into white noise, subconsciously putting me on edge. I clench my fists.
  "This isn't working!"
  "What was your first clue?" Shae says, stopping at a door and shouldering it like we'd learnt in Mortal Instruments class. The door creaks but doesn't budge. "Come help me with this."
I stand behind her and line up my shoulder with the door. I plant my foot in the way Sam and Dean had taught me a couple of weeks ago. On three, we slam into the door together and it bursts open with our combined strength, the top hinge flying off, sending us into an unceremonious crash landing. Before I can take a breath, a pale, familiar hand is helping me up.
  "Fade," my lips mutter instinctively, the rush of breath pushing the word out involuntarily.
His dark eyes dance with flames I can't see. His face is closed, tightly guarded. Forehead creased in anticipation.
  "My brother died in a fire," he says quickly to Shae and I, his face contorting slightly as if he's physically forcing the words out of his mouth. "A couple of years ago. I was twelve, he was seven. I couldn't save him, I was too late." His words are so rushed it's hard to process them. A brother? A fire? Why hadn't he told me?
  "What??" Shae says, frazzled. I just stare at him; a deep, gaping hole of grief for him had opened up in my chest. Then, without thinking, I embrace him quickly, throwing my arms around his neck. His hands go to my waist to balance me.
  "I love you." I whisper against his ear, pushing against him, making sure he heard it. It was all I could do.
  "Look!!" Dale's voice yells. The embrace is over.
Dale, who had materialised beside Shae, was pointing down the room, towards a shadow in the distance. I squint hard, and make out the figure of a small child. Six or seven. Snowy skin and a sensitive frame. He looks terrified. A ring of fire erupts around him, followed by an immaculate scream. My body jerks forward towards the child. All I see is Fade in front of me, sprinting full out, skinny arms outstretched, diving for the screaming child.
As soon as his fingertips brush the child's skin, he crumbles into ashes. By the time I come to a halt, Fade is on his knees, holding charred bones in his hands. Small charred bones. Tears are running free down his face. I don't know what to do. I just stand there. Shae and Dale come up behind me. The world begins to shift and move, reshaping, as if going on to the next landscape.
  "This is enough!!!" I scream at the now spinning walls. A gale has picked up, sipping up the ashes from under Fade's torn jeans. "Bring it on! I'm not scared of this anymore!!" Anger seethes through my veins. I feel it making my hands shake. A manic laughter coughs through the spinning walls. Something wet sploshes against my ankles. Looking down, an unnaturally blue water had begun filling the room. Spiders had begun crawling across webs that disappear into the slosh of wood, going against all physics I'd ever been taught.
  "Becca," Shae says nervously. I look back at her and see she's looking down at a spiral of blood in the water, appearing to emanate from her. There's a slight chanting audible. She looks scared. A tired fear. "I can't do this again. Please stop yelling at it."
The walls had caught fire. Ravens duck in and out of the flames, screeching like maniacs. Dale's gone a sickly pale. The fiery walls begin to draw closer, pulling the four of us together.
  "The only way out is to conquer the fear." I turn back around. "Bring it!"
Shae turns to face the walls. She takes a deep breath. "I'm not scared of you! You're just a fucking wall!" Then, to the blood, now at her knees. "And I didn't kill anyone. I know that." I beam with pride. Back to back, we each face our fears. I take Shae and Fade's hands, and, even against their better judgement, they take Dale's. The water reaches my waist, but I ignore it, letting it rise, smiling. Suddenly, the room begins to spin violently, as if we were all falling. I grip Shae and Fade tighter, clenching my mouth shut, forcing my mind to clear. The spinning becomes irrelevant, and I smile again. The widest smile I can.
Then, it goes dark.