CLOUD NINE

Chapter 15

AILEANA

Aileana came back to an empty home and moved almost mechanically to the kitchen. Filling the saucepan with water, she threw in the instant noodles and tossed the spices, stirring it into a lumpy mass. She wondered how the others must be eating real food at their workplace. Unmindfully she touched the pan and jumped back as the hot metal burned. The pan upset itself, almost pouring the hot liquid on her. She managed to dodge in the nick of a second or she'd be scalded.

"Aaagh! There goes my dinner," she screamed, before throwing it all into the dustbin. Dejected, she opened the overhead chamber and dragged out a packet of Cheetos and moved to her bedroom, flopping down lazily.

Her phone rang just then. Without looking she picked it up and put it to her ear.

"It's a video call, ninny!" a cheerful voice said at the other end.

"Ahh, Nina," Aileana rolled over, wedging a pillow between her chest and the bed, and propped up the phone.

"How was your day, sweets?" she chirped.

"Work is tiring and the teacher is a bitch!" Aileana commented, throwing another Cheetos into her mouth.

"Cheetos for supper? Bad habit."

"This is dinner."

"Wait. Didn't you guys cook anything? Alizeh can put up a three-course meal in fifteen minutes."

"Well, Alizeh isn't here," Aileana rolled her eyes.

"What?" Nina sat up straight, "Where is she?"

"On Cloud Two. She has a full-time job now and only weekends off."

"Lucky beech!" they both groaned together and burst out in laughter.

"On a serious note," Nina asked, "when did she leave?'

"Today morning."

"Should we add her in the video call?"

"I guess she'll be busy adjusting to her new place."

"Damn straight," Nina groaned.

"You tell me. How was your day?" Aileana encouraged. Because if Nina spoke, she would continue to talk and Aileana wasn't in the mood for more conversation.

"I completed one whole room," she beamed, "It was so much fun. Like we had an interior decorator on our team and he taught us more about the colour combinations, wall stickers and a thousand other damn ways..."

And she continued babbling about how the other servants were mean towards her and how the men ogled at them all. Aileana yawned loudly, covering her mouth a fast as possible.

"Are you even listening?" Nina sounded hurt, "I won't call you then. Bye."

"No wait..." but Aileana's words were stuck in her mouth because suddenly it was pitch dark.

"It's a power cut," she said to Nina but she had already cut the call. Fear gripped Aileana. She should call Nina and chat all the way. Maybe then...But she wasn't really interested and Nina may think that she was really selfish because she calls her only in need.

She swiped down the menu bar to switch on the torch but her home screen dimmed suddenly, making the darkness press down on her further. In a panic, she looked at the battery icon. Three per cent! Her phone was practically dead and she had no other source of light. The gloom seemed to whisper to her as she clutched her head and curled into a ball in her bed.

The whispers grew louder in her head till it was a painful buzz, "Come on," the darkness crooned in a male voice, husky with need.

"I don't like it. Don't touch me," the blackness whispered back in a sob.

"Trust me honey." the thicker darkness chuckled.

Aileana pulled up her pillow and stuffed her ears to block out the sound.

"Please don't hurt me..." a voice cried out from the suffocating shady haze, muffled by a huge hand.

"No!" Aileana screamed, sitting up on the bed. She was panting and her flimsy dress was sticking to her body with sweat. She tried to get the images out of her head.

A black hand, red... so much red and pain.

The images swirled in her mind, taking control. She could feel her sanity slipping up, just like it did the other day. She picked up her phone to dial Nina — ego could wait. But her phone was dead.

She didn't have a seizure disorder. She had lied to her friends. What she did have was worse. It was PTSD. Her past didn't leave her behind.

She was frantic by now. She had to make them stop. Alizeh had trusted her to be able to stay alone. Had she known the fear of the dark was actually Aileana's demons of the past, would she have left her alone?

But now she was alone, truly alone and she needed to fight — to fight back. Those memories couldn't ruin her chance at a normal life anymore.

"Stop!" she commanded to her thoughts, gathering up all her strength. Nothing happened. "Stop!" she screamed into the hollow. Suddenly her mind went blank. No trace of those horrid recollections of her being raped in the past. She scanned her mind cautiously for the onslaught of the second attack but it seemed like that part of her had been shut off. The painful memories of the assault were forever locked. She had won. Won against her fear of the dark.

Aileana lay back down. Thinking back to her aversion of men. She couldn't look at one without imagining meaty hands on her thighs. With time she had switched over to girlfriends and before she knew it, she had labelled herself gay. No man would ever get near her in the future.