Permission to escape - The Rogue Pack

Chapter 5 - Haunted

Silently Sam stood in the corner of the room, peering up at the looming walls surrounding her. With every rasping breath, they seemed to close in on her. Their cold steel lit the room in a haunted glow and was unforgiving on her bare flesh. She winced as she was forced to back up even further, her back coming into contact with the icy surface. Suddenly, a movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. Whirling around, she noticed a small black segment in the corner of the room, where the steel seemed to disappear into darkness. She sprinted towards it. But her sudden movement increased the speed of the walls, now closing in faster and faster. They were getting closer, and Sam had to stop herself from panicking, her fear of confined spaces threatening to overwhelm her. 

A grinding noise rang out, and suddenly the ceiling was moving, threatening to crush her as it dropped towards her. 

She focused her attention on the gap and renewed her efforts. Her muscles screamed as her feet pounded the steel surface of the floor. The gap remained in front of her, just out of reach. She could feel the tickle of the ceiling on the top of her head, menacing to push all breath from her body, just as she felt the wall behind her softly threatening the back of her shoe. She held her arms out by her sides as she continued running, holding the walls away from her body. Lungs bursting. Mouth like sandpaper. She couldn't think straight. She couldn't see. The fear and panic of being crushed gripped her. She wanted to scream for help, but who could she call? No one would come. Her eyes filled with tears and she closed her eyes determined not to cry. 

With her eyes closed, she could feel her body, could feel the pain in her muscles and the heartbeat in her chest. Taking a deep breath she used the steady rhythm of her heart to ground herself, forcing herself to keep her eyes closed despite her surroundings. When she re-opened them they glowed red, her Alpha eyes reflecting off the stainless steel walls. Her feet pounded on the floor as the walls continued to close in, the gap never nearing, creating a long corridor along which she ran.

The ceiling and walls suddenly jolted inwards, knocking her to the ground. She scrambled on hands and knees, trying desperately to shift into wolf form. But she couldn't. She desperately scribbled inside her mind, trying to find the soft barrier between her and her wolf, yet it wasn't there. Her mind was blank and empty, and she could feel herself losing touch with who she was.

She swallowed the panic that rose in her throat and focused on the gap, the only glimmer of hope. She knew she wasn't going to make it. But she wouldn't give up. She wasn't a quitter and would never be one, even to her dying breath. The walls squeezed her body, grounding her to a halt. She could only just see the small gap, her last slither of hope, far off in the distance. The ceiling squeezed her down, flattening her to the ground. She screamed in frustration, pushing herself forward with her feet, trying to slither through the narrow gap. Her breathing came in rasped breaths now. Her bones threatened to snap with the weight of the world above her. She gasped, tears streaming down her face, trying to suck in as much air as she could. With her last breath, she roared. A roar of frustration and sorrow. It resonated through the walls. She could almost see them twist with its force as the reverberations travelled along them towards the black slit at the end of the corridor.

Abruptly, the gap seemed to shift. It shot towards her, covering the impossible distance in mere seconds as the corridor shrank. Sam could feel it approaching and tensed herself, waiting, but for what she was unsure. As she passed through the gap, or as the gap stretched around her, she couldn't tell which, she instinctively closed her eyes. The sudden lightness of her limbs felt strange, almost alien after the constant pressure of the walls. Opening her eyes, unaware of when she had closed them she peered around.

***

Wooden walls stretched up around her, covered in pictures. Soft light streamed in through the small windows, giving the room a cosy glow that was both comforting and joyful. She was back in the treehouse.

She used the room around her to ground herself, watching as the rays of sun played on the opposite walls, looking at the colourful spines of the books on their shelves. She could hear the faint whisper of the wind in the leaves outside. A heat beside her distracted her and she glanced down to see Liam stretched out on the sofa next to her, snoring lightly. 

Sam knew this was getting out of hand. The same nightmare had plagued her night after night for as long as she could remember. And every time, she never felt as though she ever woke up from it, it seemed to meld into reality, making Sam's sense of what was real and what was dream blurry and disconcerting. Worse of all, every night the dream felt new and unfamiliar. It was only once she escaped that she remembered the other times, remembered who she was. The difference between knowing and not knowing helped ground her, steeling herself against the uncertainty of what was reality. 

Every night the dream started the same, those four silver walls closing in on her. But they didn't always end differently. She didn't always survive, but then again she had never actually died in any of them.

Don't they say that dreams were meant to reflect your innermost fears? She couldn't remember. But in any case, it was definitely an internal reflection. She just couldn't work out what the dreams were trying to tell her.

Liam shifted in his sleep, and as if sensing her unease, wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a soft embrace. Her back moulded to his chest as his breath tickled her ear. Contentment washed through her and she snuggled down. The nightmares didn't affect her as much any more, even though the experience of them was just as haunting as it had always been. The realisation that reality allowed her to remember her previous dreams had come a while ago, and it had helped her deal with her nightmares. In his arms she felt safe and protected, wrapped in his pine tree scent and distant from the world around her.

Liam was definitely more of the dark, brooding, protective type. Where Aiden was light and mischievous, Liam lived through his emotions. Not that he was the type to wear his emotions on his sleeve, on the contrary, he hid them from the world. But they defined him. He loved with all his heart, lived with all his soul. He would never do something he didn't believe in. Sam always felt safe when she was around him, as if he protected her from the outside world. Snuggling deeper into his embrace she drifted off to sleep.