Reflections of Light

Phantom

The night air was warm and balmy, suggestive to the seasonal change that was approaching.

Nyx's sleep was restless, to tired, to awake, physically exhausted yet she felt like she had energy to burn.

Blindly, she tossed and turned atop her mattress, seeking a more comfortable position, her eyes glued shut with sleep.

Her mind was skittering all over the place, exhaustingly busy but hardly lucid enough to string together a cohesive train of thought, painting a strange patchwork landscape of thoughts stitched together in her mind, many different directions of thought leading down long, winding mental rabbit holes that carried on, spiralling off wildly.

Sleepily, she pounded on her pillow with her fist, squashing it up into a lumpy shape under her head, pushing her head further into the soft material, willing the black void of deep sleep to take her.

Images flitted through her mind like a film on fast forward, everything seeming to be on a double dose of adrenaline.

People, places, objects, happenings, suspicions, stories, secrets, lies, truths, the past, the future...

She felt something ever so softly trace down her cheek...

Immediately, she snapped upright, a reflex action, snatching at something she couldn't see before she'd even opened her eyes.

Catching nothing, she froze mid-movement, not coherent enough to decide what to do.

Peeling her heavy eyes open, she blinked, eyes watering, to clear away the sleep-filled fog that blurred her vision.
Her head lolled slightly, her heavy arms making an uncoordinated attempt to wipe the sleep from her eyes as her gaze flicked aimlessly around the room, taking in the dark shapes without really registering them.

Then, something clicked in her brain, sending her eyes wide, resisting the urge to turn and look again.

This had been preying on the edge of her subconscious, creeping in like a spider, crawling out from the corner she'd squeezed it into in the back of her mind.

It was a dream, wasn't real, but like all dreams it appeared so in the moment.

Resisting no longer, she turned to look again at the phantom.

He seemed as if he were half blended with the shadows, the monochrome of the darkened room painting quite a surreal image, which she felt possessed an even more illusory quality than any of her more technicolour dreams.

They both stared at each other, deer in the headlights, evaluating the other warily.

The silence hung heavy in the air, almost tangible, neither seeming to want to be the first to break it.

For a second, Nyx wondered if she'd gone mad.
She certainly could believe it, crouched at the furthest edge of her mattress, appearance in a stressed disarray, eyes thrown unusually wide open.

Swallowing repeatedly, she attempted to coordinate her vocal chords enough to make words, mouth hanging partially open as she sucked in silent breaths of the still night air.

"What..." She didn't know what to say. Didn't know what she wanted to say, even though knew she had so much to.
"What... What?"

Was aiming for a kind of dreamlike quality to the writing of this chapter, which I'm honestly not sure I achieved, but hey, I think it's pretty good.
Please feel free to leave your thoughts and opinions, I love hearing from you guys!