Silver Lining

28. Glass walls

10 days after

I had been having nightmares every single night, and even though tonight was no exception, it was different to the other nightmares. I knew that I had the same nightmare every night, and that the nightmare had something to do with Michael, but I could never remember exactly what happened. I remembered parts of the nightmares as soon as I woke up from them, but by the time I had thought 'Oh, it was only a nightmare,' or 'I should write what happened down so I don't forget,' I had already forgotten what had happened. But tonight wasn't the same nightmare. The events that happened were different, more realistic, more horrifying.

Tanya and I weren't the only ones who he kidnapped, there was also Laurel, Zoe, and Quinn, Theo's sister.
We were all chained up in the room of eyes, except there was photos of all of us.
You'd think it would be better going through it with other people, but it was worse, so much worse, because now he was hurting them and it was my fault.

He wrapped each of us in chains, and then put us in cages and hung us from the ceiling in the room of eyes. The ceiling had some how gotten higher, and now there was about ten meters in between the cages and the floor.

I could feel the panic attack coming back. "Madison! It's going to be okay! You're safe," Zoe yelled at me, but the confidence in her voice was gone. Even Zoe herself knew she was lying. "Just breathe in and out, okay Madison? In and out, in and out."

I tried to slow my breathing down, but I couldn't. The air filled with the smell of blood and I gagged with every breath.

Michael pulled on a chain that was wrapped around my chest, and the links of the chain dug into the cut going from my left shoulder and diagonal across my chest. I screamed in agony, and he moved onto one of the others. Since the others didn't have cuts, he climbed up a chain hanging down from the cages to make incisions in their skin. He climbed up those chains so fast he was a blur, like Edward in Twilight.
That thought made me laugh. Watching Twilight seemed stupid, now that my world consisted of torture and captivity. The captivity seemed more normal than being free.

I stopped laughing when Laurel screams pierced through me. Instincts told me to look at her, check to see if she was okay even though I knew she wasn't. Michael was kneeling beside her, and dragged the knife all the way down from the back of her neck to her heel; one long cut going down her back and the back of her right leg. Tanya vomited and then fainted a few seconds later. I felt really nauseous myself, which then reminded me of panic attacks and the drowning feeling came back.

The world blacked out.

***

Waking up wasn't much better than blacking out.

While the cages and room of eyes were gone, the new surroundings weren't any better. I was standing in a thin corridor filled with swirling black fog. The corridor stretched out further than I could see in each direction, and the ceiling was also too high to see. The walls were black and glossy, but when I looked at them more closely, they were just tinted glass. I pressed my face up against the cold glass to see if I could see what was on the other side.
Faces stared back at me, and I jumped back with a scream, nearly hitting the other glass wall behind me.

The tint on the glass seemed to lighten a little, and I could clearly see the faces. I recognized them, their names on the tip of my tongue. There were four girls in their late teens or early twenties, standing behind the glass, shivering. My side of the glass was hot and humid, the warm mist swirling around my legs making the long white lace dress I was wearing damp. The four girls were pale and skinny, their skin clinging to their bones, and they had cuts so deep you could nearly see the bone. Their eyes were haunted like they had seen too much, and they clawed at the glass and screamed, although I couldn't hear them through the sound proof glass. One of the girls wasn't hysterical like the others, she simply stood behind them and watched. I tilted my head, wondering who she was and why she looked so familiar. She took one huge step towards the glass right in front of where I was standing, and placed her hands on the glass. I wished I could take a step back, but I was terrified, and my legs refused to move.
She mouthed my name at me. Madison. She whispered it, not even that. The glass was soundproof and yet the familiar voice echoed around in my head.
Laurel.
It was Laurel behind the glass. And the other three, Zoe, Tanya, and Quinn.

"Who did this to you!?" I shouted at them, the fear rising up inside me. "Why are you here?" I sunk to the floor, crying. Tanya, Zoe, and Quinn still clawed at the glass, and Laurel watched me, her glassy eyes closely following me.

"You."
I snapped my head to the left, where the voice had come from. It was Michael, but he didn't make me more scared, in fact he had the opposite effect. With him, I knew what I had to do, just make sure he didn't hurt anyone.

"You?" I repeated, and he nodded.

"Yes, you. You asked them why they were here, and they're here because of you."

"It's not because of me," I said, and Michael laughed. The doubt in my voice was obvious.

"It is because of you, Madison," he told me amusedly. "You see, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be interested in them. I only have them here so that you won't get lonely while I'm gone. Gosh, I really am a thoughtful person." He grinned at me, a sick twisted grin that was so creepy and disgusting it shouldn't be legal.

The whole corridor jolted and faded white, like someone had turned up the brightness. I stumbled, and when the floor stopped rolling under my feet, I turned to where Michael had been standing to ask him why he was doing this, but he was gone. I spun around in a full circle looking for him, but he was nowhere to be seen. Zoe, Quinn, Tanya, and Laurel were also gone, their tinted glass cell empty.
I was alone.

Staying where I was seemed like a terrible idea, so I started running. I didn't know which way to go, both looked identical and the end on both sides were so far away they disappeared into the swirling mist. My bare feet made echoing noises as I ran, the sound bouncing off the glass like a bouncy ball.

I was starting to get a small stitch in my side, and was breathing heavily when I ran straight into Michael. Correction: seven hundred and thirty four Michaels. I don't know how I knew there was seven hundred and thirty four of them, I just did. All the Michaels stretched out into the distant mist swirling in the corridor, and they all had the same amused look on their face. "What are you doing here, Madison?" All the Michaels asked, perfectly in sync. I turned around to run in the other direction, but my legs were too wobbly and I was frozen to the spot. Not that there was anywhere to run anyway, because there was another seven hundred and thirty four Michaels.
I screamed, but no sound came out. The Michaels all tilted their heads at the exact same time, staring at me, and they started to march towards me with their steps perfectly in time.

There was only about five meters between the two groups of Michaels in the hallways, with me in the middle of the gap. I lay on the floor curled up into the fetal position, silently screaming and my arms wrapped around my head as the Michaels closed in on me, enveloping me.