The Virgin's Weakness

Chapter 13

(Authors note: I know, finally right? Still needs editing, and Im still debating on where I'm going with the story. Any suggestions? Because, no shit, these characters write the story not me. And I find myself needing direction sooo.... ideas? Vote, like, comment... but screw all that just enjoy :)

Blue fire. A single sapphire flame danced before her; hypnotising her, compelling her to do its will. It's icy temperature chilling her to the bone. Dread radiated from it and just like a sponge, it absorbed each of her emotions and replaced them with vile characters such as anguish and constraint but most of all, fear.

Alex couldn't peel her eyes away from it. Its lure had her fixated- a moth to light, only every time she reached out to it, the flame lingered just out of reach. She had no concept of place and time, like she was trapped in a bad dream or floating through outer-space. She tried desperately to wake up. She willed her body to do so, but it didn't budge.

The horrible feelings notwithstanding, her senses were cut off. Alex was left effectively numb. She couldn't see, feel or hear anything but the icy fire. She was unsure of anything and everything. She didn't know whether she was standing up, sitting down, indoors, outdoors, whether it was day or night. She merely existed within the insufferable, blue vortex.

Dread and more dread was the only indication that she was in fact, not dead. Death would be better than this, she thought. No fear, no pain, and all-consuming.

The only thing she could attain was her thoughts. She knew this nightmare had to end sometime. Morning would come for her and she would have to get out of bed, bathe, check on Mary, Tyler-

"No!" a ghostly snarl objected her thoughts so loudly that she felt the reverberations in her bones. It was the most frightening thing that she had ever heard and her first instinct was to scream, but instead her eyelids grew heavy. It became hard to breathe and the flame burned impossibly colder, the echoes ricocheting through her.

Suddenly feeling drained, Alex found it harder and harder to resist. She was on the edge of fatigue and the brink of submission.

"Sleep, my love..." a malevolent whisper this time. 

The potency of the sapphire flame was too much; it consumed her will, leaving behind utter misery...

Minutes, hours or centuries later, Alex began to stir.

Slowly, she opened her swollen, damp eyes and when she met the colour blue she silently sobbed.  She couldn't control the involuntary reaction and as her mind searched out a reason for the soundless tears, it came up with nothing. Alex couldn't understand it. She wasn't sad or happy or angry or anything. She felt nothing. She felt... nothing.

As the tears fell, she stared blankly at the expanse of colour and noted that it was more a dark navy blue rather than a brilliant sapphire. Alex had no idea why, but this calmed her enormously. And was the navy blue expanse shimmering?  She squinted, focusing on the silvery glitters. Stars. She was somehow looking up at the night sky. Her body sagged with relief.

She had no clue where she was. Alex brushed her fingers against something lush and bristly and knew it was grass; she was lying on the ground. This, she thought, was strange because as she breathed through her nose and smelled the rich earth, she felt detached; as if her body remained on earth, but her essence no longer did.

Alex kept her cool stare locked on the night sky. How did she come to be here? The last thing she recalled was the entrapment of a suffocating nightmare. And some sort of flaming vortex-a piercing headache had her groaning. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the vertigo to pass. She felt like she was having an adrenalin rush but her mind wouldn't register it.