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Logically, I know I shouldn't have another breakdown so soon after my last one.
"What the fuck?" I demand. "What the fuck? What was that? What - I just saw - it moved. The mannequin moved. Was it alive? Was it a robot? No - no - I - it couldn't be a robot, could it? No. It was alive. All of them were alive."
On my hurry to get away from the room, I slip on the hem of my new dress. My foot slides out from underneath me. Raphael grabs my elbow and steadies before I can fall. He doesn't let go, even as I regain my balance. Instead, he rotates me so that I'm facing him directly and lowers to one step below me so that we're the same height.
"Breathe," He reminds me. "Unless you want me to pin you to the wall again."
I suck in a painful breath, blow it out. My pulse has gone haywire. It beats quickly, unsteadily, against my skin, like a train about to go off its tracks.
He brings me down to his step. "Better?"
"Yeah," I shrug both of his hands off. "Better."
"For what it's worth, I thought it was creepy as well. You were right about it being strange - it couldn't have been a robot, or a hologram. Its movements were too fluid, its body too alive."
Alive? I repress another shudder.
"You're shivering," He steps closer to me. "Are you alright?"
We're so close. Raphael takes up my entire vision. I can see my reflection, and each one of my reflections, in his colorless eyes. They blink. They look down at my lips. Something soft and sweet and seductive wraps around me, urging me to lean in.
I blink.
And I back away. Confused, and a little bit fearful, I continue down the stairs. "What do you think it was then?"
"Depends," He follows me with ease, letting his fingers run over the spaces between the bricks as we go down. "Do you believe in the supernatural?"
Long ago, Raphael's question would have made me laugh. Now, the thought of the supernatural makes my heart fill up with dread because it's too accurate. Too real. Too horrible to think about. I don't want that to be the explanation for this.
I let out a breath. "Like ghosts?"
"It could be anything. The supernatural is a vague and terrifying entity that we don't have the tools to measure," He says. Golden and blue lights dance across his face as we walk down. "Fools fear it. Skeptics laugh at it. Nobody truly knows it."
"Until right now," I mutter.
"Until right now," He agrees.
"So," I try to shift my mindset to match his. "The mannequin that chased. Those chandeliers that trapped you - "
