Fading Out

Chapter 4

I can honestly confess to myself that it nearly broke my will to leave. How could I ever expect myself to make it through if any sort of help was wrong? I was no omniscient. But I am also glad to announce that there was a part of me that didn’t give up. And I screamed that at her. “I AM NOT GIVING UP!” I had a pretty good suspicion that she could hear me. I wanted to make a point that she didn’t scare me. That though she was unfair, I wasn’t anymore.

The intention to make a point died a tragically hilarious end as my first step turned out to be on a rotten floorboard. Let’s restart. My brain offered a helpful out and I grasped it. It must have taken me an hour, or more likely two, before I finally figured out a way to get out of the room. As I gripped the door once again, I momentarily feared that something bad would happen again but thankfully nothing happened. I opened the door and stared outside. Then I had to control myself from shutting myself in the dark, but safe, attic.

Outside of the attic, in the small room that contained the stairs to the first level of the building, was one giant spider web. There isn’t any need to explain what sat on it, now is it? Daisy must have some serious mental damage to even letting things like that breed in her house. Who kept a pet spider as big as a room? I can, once again being honest, confess that THAT sight made me seriously consider giving up.

Then logic kicked in. She can’t have a spider as big as that. She must be playing with my head. It isn’t real. It’s an illusion. Reality is what we choose to believe in. And I chose to believe that the spider in front of me was not real. Now for a terrifying, not-at-all-fun fact, I can tell you that my spider-that-didn’t-really-exist was a scary black thing. When it saw me approaching confidently, okay, I think I am walking at a level slightly above from that of a scared person about to have a panic attack, it opened its – mouth? – at me. I swear, the nightmares of every arachnophobic is made out of this sight. And all my beliefs that it wasn’t real fled into the darkness of the night. I really wish I behaved in a composed way and walked back for another plan but in honesty, I ran back to the door with a scream that would have made a banshee hang her head in shame.

That…spider…is…REAL! Even my brain had to take pause to declare it to the rest of me. I could feel a full-body shutdown approach and I needed a plan, any plan to kill the beast, before I passed out. Because I doubted I would wake up before the night ended. And then my eyes fell on the thing next to me as the giant spider beast still bared its fangs at me. An idea struck me as I realized that I didn’t need to kill the beast, and hope the necklace wasn’t in either of these two rooms, but simply get away from it. And knowing Daisy, she wouldn’t put something like this in a dirty place like this.

So, feeling glad that no one could see me, I grabbed the abandoned broom and shook it at the spider. “Go away! Shoo! Shoo!” Honestly, this moment would forever be in my list of most embarrassing actions. I could hear Daisy’s disbelieving laughter as I worked on getting this spider away.

Surprisingly - yeah I am of that little faith - it worked and the spider retreated. I ran under the web, staying far out of the reach of the spider, and onto the stairs. I tried to stop on the first stair and slipped, falling down on my rear as I held onto the shaking stair below me for balance. As soon as I felt the coldness though, I knew I was in trouble. Because Daisy couldn’t even leave the poor stairs out of her game, I now stood on slippery frozen stairs with a layer of ice thick enough to ensure a nasty fall.

The masochist part of me looked down and my heart stuttered. It is another one of Daisy’s illusions that made it feel like the one or two feet height at which I am standing is actually a hundred feet. I knew I had to play by Daisy’s rules and so I barely controlled my urge to jump down and just get this over with.