In the Eye of the Storm

28. Enlightening Darkness

Dark is a strange thing. In the dark things happen that you could never have imagined.

'What's that?' a voice asked. Or shouted. Or whispered. It was difficult to tell in this world of deafening, roaring silence. The voice sounded a little like my own.

'That's me. My neck.' Another voice out of the dark. Another shout. Another whisper. His.

My hands clenched tightly around his neck, pulling him close.

'No, I mean that smell. Has the camel had something bad for breakfast?' Although the odour wasn't actually that bad. It didn't smell of camel at all. A bit harsh, true, but also... interesting.

'I don't think so. That smell might come from the fact that you have your nose buried in my armpit.'

'Oh.'

A pause. The storm roared on.

'Um... It's a nice armpit.'

'Thanks.'

'Feels good.' The voice in the dark that sounded like mine hesitated. Then, lower, so low I almost couldn't hear it myself, it said: 'All of you does.'

Silence. But only for a moment. Then his voice came out of the black nothing.

'So do you.'

Suddenly, the unseen force of the black wind around us slammed a fist of sand into me. The voice that sounded like mine cried out, and strong arms tightened around me. I sagged back, breathing hot air and dust.

'Oh God... I... I'm scared!'

'So am I.'

Mr Ambrose? Scared? That couldn't be! Not to mention sweet little me! I was never scared, out of principle!

I knew there had to be something wrong! I knew it all along: these two voices whispering and crying in the dark – they couldn't belong to us! Not to Mr Ambrose, and certainly not to me! Someone else had to be saying all those strange things.

'Come here,' I heard the him that sounded like Mr Ambrose say. 'Let me hold you.'

Bloody hell! Now I was two hundred and fifty per cent sure someone else had to be talking! That could not, under any circumstances, in this or in any other universe, have been Mr Rikkard Ambrose talking!

'Yes! Please!'

And that most certainly could not have been me answering! And yet, I felt myself being pressed against a lean, hard body in the dark, felt my face glide over cloth and sand, until my cheek was touching another face. An angular face it was, chiselled and hard in some places, soft in others. Like his lips, for example. His lips were soft. Familiar.

But how could they be familiar? After all, this was not Mr Ambrose I was feeling against me, and this was not even me doing the feeling. Those were two phantoms in the dark who dared to say things we could never say, do things we would never do.

'Rick?'

'Yes, Lilly?'

'I'm glad you're here.'

Not me. Not me talking.

'I'm glad you're here, too.'

Not him talking either.

'Really?'

'Well...' A touch of sarcasm entered the voice of the phantom man. 'Not glad that you're here in the sandstorm, in imminent danger of suffocation, obviously. I meant here with me.'

'Yes. I meant that, too.'

'Good.'

'Yes.'

A moment of silence. A moment of roaring storm winds.