Trapped

"Stomp Box, voice of fear, pour the poison in my ear

Kill kill kill kill

Kill me now

Free the demon, hear the ceaseless screaming

Little Stomp Box

Tear it from my heart"

-Stomp Box by They Might Be Giants

Daria Morgendorffer was sitting in a chair.

The chair, she would have assumed, should have been in a room.  Or somewhere outside.  Or at least somewhere.  As it was, the chair - and, subsequently, Daria herself - was located precisely nowhere.

A sourceless globe of light seemed to hang around her and the chair, but beyond that was pure darkness.  There didn't even seem to be a floor, though she was certain that there was something holding her up.  She could feel it under her boots, and the chair didn't appear to be floating.

Something seemed to move in the darkness.  She couldn't see it . . . it was more as if she had felt it shift around.  A soft clicking noise came from behind her, but when she twisted around in her seat, there was nothing there.

Another sound, indistinct and strange, pulsed quietly and continuously right next to her left shoulder, causing her heartbeat to quicken.  There was nothing sitting in the air next to her, but when she placed her hand in the area the sound was coming from, she could feel a slight disturbance there, a light throbbing movement of the air.  The feeling gradually ebbed, as did the accompanying sound.

Then the whispers started.

Daria's heart had started to slow as she'd gotten used to the low-level thrum, but being surrounded by what sounded like human voices in the darkness caused it to jackknife wildly in her chest once again.  She could still hear them over the blood thundering through her ears, but she couldn't make out what they were saying.  Some primal part of her brain insisted, however, that they were talking about her, and that what they were saying wasn't at all pleasant.

Her knuckles went pure white as she gripped the surface in front of her.  Despite her rampaging terror, she recognized that the chair she was sitting in was actually her desk at school.  This information was quickly drowned in fear as the whispers seemed to press in on her, filling the air around her with a feeling of intelligent malevolence.  They grew louder and even closer, but she still couldn't see anything or anyone around her, nor could she discern any coherent language amongst the static.

Something brushed against the side of her face.

She screamed, and the world rushed in around her, leaving her sitting in the middle of a classroom full of other students.

Through the tears that had been forming in her eyes, Daria expected to see everyone staring at the girl who had suddenly freaked out in the middle of class, but such was not the case.  The gaggle of teenagers did indeed look bewildered, some even outright frightened, but only a few were looking in anything even resembling her direction.

Chaos suddenly reigned as other people began to cry out, slap at the air around them, or otherwise panic in some fashion.  One girl fell out of her desk completely and writhed on the ground, holding her arms across her head and body as if to ward off a blow.  Another student, a boy, seemed to wake as if from a dream, then launched himself from his seat and didn't stop running until he hit a wall.  He bounced back and hit the ground, stunned.

This behavior continued for several moments until a furious bellow of "QUUUUIIIIEEEET!!!" echoed through the room.

The howls and screams of panicked teens gradually subsided until the only sound that could be heard was that of choked sobbing somewhere in the back row.