labyrinth Δ harry styles

Door Thirty-Two: Lights

WHEN INDIRA OPENED her eyes, all of her surroundings were consumed in darkness. Even after a few seconds, she expected her eyes to adjust, but they never did. She tried sitting up, but her body refused to budge. Panic coursed through her as she felt like she was being tied down by ropes and gagged with a wrung up shirt. She was limited in all but one sense: hearing. The sound at first came like a low hum of a bass guitar being tuned, then again like the sound of a train rushing over the tracks, and finally a pitch so shrill it sounded like white noise. Her heart was racing at an incredible pace, too frightened to understand what was going on. Suddenly, she heard the shrill sound start up once again, but this time, she was able to identify some of them as words.

Her head swarmed with dizziness, feeling like whatever surface she had woken up on was spinning like a top. The only thing she could do was focus her attention on the words she heard before. They were slowly beginning to sound more and more coherent the longer she listened.

"Get the hell off of me!" Her heart skipped a beat as the familiar voice pierced through her eardrums as if she had been standing right next to the person.

Indira still couldn't move, but her world began spinning around her until it stopped, the image of a young girl appearing in front of her. The child could not have been more than ten years old with wild curly hair bubbling atop her head from sleep. She watched as the child peeked through the crack of the wooden door, revealing two other figures much taller than hers. The light source only outlined the people, the white light concealing any other surroundings. It was then Indira knew exactly what situation she had found herself in. Even in the dream, she subconsciously knew she was watching herself, like she had been so many other times before.

She tried again to move her body, but it lay still against the strange surface as her vision forced her to focus closer on the two other figures. Strangely enough, she heard the loud click of a camera and then a bright flash, illuminating the two people.

"You don't think I'm trying to do what's best for us, huh?!" He boomed. That voice she quickly realized belonged to Victor. She had seen this memory many many times, but it had been a long time since the memory came crashing again, paralyzing her in her sleep.

"Victor, you're hurting me!" Her mother exclaimed. Indira only watched as Victor grabbed her mother by her arm and squeezed until she yelped. "Victor st—!" she cried, but it had already been too late. Her step-father's fist had already connected to her mother's eye, sending her falling to the ground and silently crying so as to not wake up her young children. The bright flash followed by the click of the camera sounded again, almost as if someone had been trying to capture the moment.

Indira was screaming in her mind, but her younger self just stood there with a gasp locked in her throat so she wouldn't be heard.

And then suddenly, like a defibrillator to the heart, Indira shot up in bed, fighting to catch a breath from the intensity of the dream. She clutched her throat, which was about as dry as the desert, trying once more to level her breathing. Her head found her clammy hands as frightful tears fell from her eyes, begging to forget the memory she thought she had escaped.

Trembling from the nightmare, Indira fumbled to rip the sheets off of her, but it was then that she realized that wherever she was, was not familiar. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness of the room, the only light source barely emanating from behind what looked like shades. When her hands touched the fabric of the sheets, they felt smoother than the sheets of her own bed.

Clearly, Indira wasn't in her apartment like she thought she was. Her hands rummaged the bed spread for her phone, but all she felt was silk. She tried recollecting the events of yesterday, and it quickly dawned in her that she had fallen asleep...on Harry.