Dose of Darkness | Tom Riddle |

Chapter Nine: London Calling

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"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. It's also what it takes to sit down and listen"
-- Winston Churchill

9000 words guys. Get ready.

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The floors and ceiling were black, tiles extending as far as her eyes could see and they all reflected off each other from the dim lights in the ceiling and her eyes saw the hallway twist into a myriad of lines and angles, disorienting to the sight of those who wandered.
It was so silent, a pin could be heard dropping on the floor, if Eleanor could hear for that matter. The deafness she experienced felt like being underwater, unable to hear a sound except when it came to her other senses, she felt the coldness of the atmosphere around her, even as her bare feet stepped along the tile.

"Hello?" Eleanor called out, clinging her silky blue robe around her shorts and shirt.

Part of her mind was wondering how she got here. An even smaller part was trying to get her to realize it wasn't real.

But she kept walking, her molasses like movements beyond her control and nothing being what it seemed.

"Hello?" Eleanor called out again, feeling like her voice was stuck in her throat.

"Boo."

The air came down on her lungs, sucking all the breath away as she turned around.

There stood Grindelwald, with his Jack Frost features clad in black with a glare so evil it pained her to look into his eyes.
Yet she still did and it woke a fear in her she never knew before except only the times she was in his presence. But was he really here?
That was what triggered the nerves in her body to come to a screeching halt.
However, there was multiple kinds of fear.

Sometimes fear made you go absolutely comatose, standing there like a blank slate because you're so terrified you forget everything else.
Sometimes fear erupted every function in your body into overdrive, sending you into absolute madness.

For Eleanor, it was often both in one excruciating combination.

"You're not real. You're not really here." Eleanor said to the man before her, the monster. She more or less said it to herself, feeling her mind tear itself apart trying to put the pieces together.
If he was here in her mind the same way her mother was in previous times, she was doomed.
She felt vulnerable and mortified.

"Am I?" Grindelwald asked, a spark of amusement in his eyes that only someone psychotic would have. "The mind is a peculiar place when magic is factored in. You could be so unconsciously scared of my return that you are imagining this all now, particularly the last time we saw each other. Or I'm perhaps right in your very room."

Eleanor shook her head, feeling her stomach twist into pain that she felt more real than anything.
She grunted, trying to contain herself as the sharpness didn't end.

"Impossible. You were seen in Hungary two days ago--or what's left of it." she snapped in between heavy, pained breaths.

"Anything is possible if you're capable of imagining the worst case scenario of it." Grindelwald smirked.

Suddenly, the pain made her gasp.

"Perhaps, I should refresh your memory on just how cruel this world is Eleanor and how no one can protect you for long." Grindelwald added.

Eleanor's eyes had stars dancing across them, blinding her at the edges and she was begging herself to wake up. She wasn't sure what part of that was in her head though.
But when her vision returned and her doubled over body became aware to her, she shakily straightened herself only to find her heads were smeared with crimson.
The source? It came from the pool of it leaking through the fabric below her stomach and suddenly, Eleanor backed away from him in horror.