The Writer

Chapter 1

Kyla gasped and shot straight up in her chair. For a second she did not breath, but as another second passed her shoulders fell and her chest began to heave in and out once more. Her green eyes did not blink, yet they could not see as the darkness had swallowed all the light around her. But she did not have to see to recall the horrors seen in her dream.

She took one deep breath, squeezed her eyes shut, held, and exhaled slowly feeling the desk for the lamp switch. Once her fingers had found the switch she pressed it once and waited. She opened one eye tentatively: she was still surrounded by darkness. Kyla scoffed and rolled her eyes, both open. The globe must have blown when she was asleep. She opened her drawer on the left-hand side and grabbed two stubby candles that had rolled to the centre. She placed them next to her lamp and grabbed a box of matches from her silk dressing gown pocket. 

She felt very carefully where she was striking the match and where she was holding it so she didn't burn her fingers. Then holding her breath she made one forward stroke which made sparks that lit up her fingers but died in the dark. Once more and she had a flame which roared to life and then flickered steadily on the top of the match.

Kyla cupped the flame with her hand and lit the candle wicks. Blowing the match out, she threw the match in the bin. She took the glowing pieces of new writing in her hands and read over her words.

Trash she whispered harshly to herself.

Whenever she read her writing she could always tell if it was her or her dreams that scribbled on that paper. And her dreams were always better. Kyla cursed, she should have waited for that dream before she started wasting ink. She crumpled the paper in a ball and threw it at the bin. It missed, bouncing across the floor.

Kyla set to work. Her writing was always too gentle. Literature should never be gentle. She set her dreams down on the fresh paper. Her mutilated, twisted dreams. Yes, they were dreams. Her nightmares were much more horrific than she had just experienced...

She lifted her pen for a moment only to realise her hand was shaking. Kyla was used to it all by now but bloody hell it always traumatized her, even when she had become numb to those emotions. 

Her dreams had only become stronger as she grew older, no one was capable of helping her. She'd tried everything, called everyone. But he was always there, whispering things into her ear. She had learned to live with his words. But whenever she saw him... she just lost it.

Although he ruined her mind, she could see the beauty he created in her writing. She was grateful for that. She had always been told to find something she was grateful for in any situation. It did help her cope.

Kyla's ears pricked as she heard footsteps in the corridor that echoed beneath the carpeted floorboards.

Her eyes flew to the clock on her wall to the right of her desk. Damn! It was 2:00 am. Peter would be doing his early morning patrol. A light switch flicked and light streamed in from under the door.

Kyla flung off her robe, blew out the candles and dived into her unmade bed. She struck her normal sleeping pose, making it as natural as she could and relaxed her body.

The door handle rattled and the hinges squeaked as it swung inward shedding light on all the dirty laundry strewn across her floor. Kyla waited anxiously in anticipation before Peter-satisfied she was asleep- closed the door again. The light switched flicked off again in the passage and he walked back to bed.

Kyla exhaled in relief and lay in bed with her eyes open. Slowly she sat with her knees folded next to her, staring at the door with the crisp morning breeze against her back shifting her moonlit curtains.

Kyla hardly got any sleep. Whenever she had a dream, she had to write it down. She couldn't wait till the next morning, by then it would have run away from her. But Peter, her caretaker, was very strict about her getting her sleep. It had become harder for her to remember dreams after her parents had died. Most of the time her eyes were circled with dark rings. Peter called her "panda face". 

Peter never did anything bad to her. He was the sweetest guy she knew. He was a detective on the case of her parent's death and offered to look after me when it all ended. Kyla didn't have any other relatives. They had been living together for almost a year now.

Kyla hugged her shins and rested her chin on her knees. She stared blankly at her white cupboard door covered in news articles about her success over the years. That had been a happier time in her life. She had been popular in school, not that she hang out with a lot of the people most of the time. There were lots of book launches, ceremonies, nominations, trophies. Her parents were still alive...

She knew it would all end one day. But she had never expected him to do it. Kyla remembered curling up in the corner of her room when the disease was announced, she saw so many people in panic, such pain, such... fear. She had been crying for ages. 

Why did you do that? She had asked him. Why now? Why couldn't you just stay in my head? Leave all these people alone! They don't deserve this! You're torturing them! She pleaded. Then in a moment of dreaded awareness, her heart dropped to her stomach.

...Did I cause this?

He laughed at her. Do you really think I'm dependent on you, dear mortal?

Now, she was a wreck. Her parents were dead and maybe she was the reason. Her books...

She had to keep writing to keep sane, but never would she let anyone read her, his writing again. She wouldn't risk it, she always feared that maybe her stories had infected these people. However unlikely it was there was still that one chance. And she couldn't risk it. 

She couldn't let anything go.

So she bottled it all up and carried on watching people die.