Ethereal: Trials of the Damned (On Hold!)

Chapter Four: Breaking Free

She caught a glimpse of him during the intermission.

Her mind had been playing one long movie, projecting all the horrors she had seen and been through during her short lifetime. Each nightmare was vivid, rich in depth, packed with emotion, and painful beyond belief. Much like the memories Opal had restored, as each flashback played through, Eira experienced the pain attached to it all over again, as though feeling it for the very first time.

Needless to say, the night had not been kind.

So when she saw his face, the warmth in his eyes, the affection in his smile, she memorized every single detail in that short-lived encounter, and engraved it within her mind. It was in that moment that she felt like she was worth something, that she was important, that she was wanted–needed.

He was unreal, his angular face completely symmetrical, with well-defined cheekbones resting above a chiseled jawline. He radiated an infectious energy, a mix of boyish charm–with a lopsided smile that stretched over his luscious lips, and brown, shaggy hair that effortlessly fell over his forehead, and deep seduction–with his herculean stature, wide neck, and broad shoulders. His deep-set eyes, sweet like milk-chocolate, its colour accentuated by long lashes, overshadowed by thick brows.

She recalled how she felt when she'd laid eyes on him. Every bone in her body wanted to run into his embrace, have his big arms wrap around her waist, and pull her in close. She wanted to run her hands over his clean-shaven face, cup his soft cheeks, pull him into her, and have him whisper sweet nothings into her ear.

She didn't understand this feeling. Never in a million years could she have fathomed such thoughts. But there was something about him she couldn't shake. In the brief moment that she saw him, she noticed how he made her feel with just one look. That feeling was something she craved during her lifetime. It was more than comfort, it was security. He made her feel safe. And that left her feeling speechless, enthralled, but above all, sad.

Sad because she knew he was nothing more than someone she'd created to escape her new reality.

Eira sighed.

She tossed and turned in bed, unable to fall back asleep. Everytime she closed her eyes, she could see his face beaming at her. The more she saw of him, the more upset she felt. So she stayed awake, staring at the beige ceiling, trying to tune her thoughts out. Whenever a question about Ethereal or her trials would rise to the surface of her mind, she'd flush it out with mental humming. Eventually she'd filtered through the entire list of unanswered curiosities and struck them into oblivion.

As a mortal she had the tendency to obsess, to stress, over the smallest of things. Things would be different now, she decided. She would be different now.

Eira wasn't sure how long she'd been staring at the ceiling for. But the sound of a fist hitting against glass shook her from her insomniac state. Wide-eyed, she slowly rose from the bed, holding the blanket against her chest as a childish barrier.

She waited anxiously, doubting what she had heard.

She had to have been imagining the sound. She was in limbo, this wasn't the real world. To even assume that this place could have burglars, or even murderers, on the loose was insane. She didn't own anything, and she was already dead. What motive could there really be? If she wasn't so afraid, she'd have laughed at herself for being so easily spooked. What was there to really fear?

Eternal damnation, she remembered.

She listened patiently, searching for the noise. Instead, she was met with an unsettling amount of silence.