CEM Book Five: DARK WATERS

Joseph

Her eyes were buggy, she was dazed and confused. She felt like she had been hit by the train she was on. She found it very hard to focus her thoughts, they kept fading in and out of clarity like she was in a lucid dream that was still kind of fuzzy on the outside. Where was she? She was lost in a myriad of emotion, fear leading the way. She found it impossible to breathe without pain, each breath burned and seared as it moved down her throat and into her lungs. Her head was full of ringing and beeping, her eye hurt, her whole head ached, her neck was stiff and refused to move when she tried to turn her head to look around. She couldn't move her arms more than an inch before they were stopped by a magical force that wrapped itself around her wrists and refused to let go no matter how much she struggled. That same unseen force stopped her hips and legs from moving. She lay on something cold and hard. In her mouth to go with the burning sensation, she got with every breath she took was the acrid taste of her own bile and the copper salt of her blood. She wanted to struggle against that force that was holding her down, fight the din and cacophony of sound that was rushing at her, closing in with each passing second. She wanted to scream and fight and rage, but all she could do was lay there and not resist. There was no use. Who or whatever had her, had her. There was no escape.

***

Sleep was a lot more difficult for him than he thought it should have been. He woke for perhaps the tenth time in as many minutes. He looked at the clock and groaned before pulling the covers over his head and turning on his side. It had only been three minutes since he last looked at it. Rayne's soft clean scent lingered in the bed next to him and filled him with a longing he found very difficult to suppress. He craved Rayne's hot body and warm heart next to his. He wanted to run his fingers through her hair and let them dance over her tender skin. He craved the taste of her kiss and hungered for her touch. He needed the soft soothing tones of her warm voice on his skin and the tenderness in her eyes as she looked at him. He wondered if she saw him as clearly as he saw her. He wondered if she knew her heart was still healing, its wounds slowly closing and mending as it swelled with a growing love for him. His mind drifted and slowly touched on the idea that he was just a replacement for a love that had been lost. His heart tremored with blinding fear as he began to battle his own demons. They cast a dark shadow in his mind filling him with momentary paralysis. His heart froze in his chest. His lungs seized. Nothing in him moved. Was he someone else to her? No! He heard his name, gentle upon her lips, saw her eyes as they held his and the truth dropped over him like a warm blanket, offering him the warmth and comfort that he needed to feel safe and secure.

Confidence like he'd never known rushed in and surrounded his heart and soul. His heart started and his lungs greedily pulled in air as it reminded him that the heart and mind were much more resilient than that. His heart warned that he would never be able to replace that lost love. He didn't need to and he would never try. The place where that love lived in her heart wasn't gone, it wasn't scared or broken it was still there. But, the place in her heart where her love for him lived was very much alive and growing. There was more than enough love in her heart for him. He pushed the fear aside like the garbage that it was and settled in.

He relaxed and snuggled down under his blankets wrapping them tight around him, they smelled just like Rayne. He closed his eyes and welcomed the dreams of his body in hers that filled his sleeping mind.

***

The pain he felt was ridiculous. It surrounded him in a darkness that was more complete than he had ever known and filled him with a misery so powerful he struggled to see straight. He fought for breath and struggled to remain standing. He put his hands on the sides of the sink in the grimy little bathroom. Slowly he turned and prepared to leave the room. It was a struggle to walk back across the small empty space he had already traversed to find his phone and all that he needed to take care of himself the way he needed to.