Let's Play A Game

Chapter 3 - Cat

"So, what are you planning?" Cat asked, turning her attention to Brianna who now smirked at her.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she replied.

"Come one, Bri. No one knows you like I do. You might call Ansyl your best friend but I'm the one who knows all your secrets," Cat said, taking the cigarette from Brianna's hand.

"Oh? Is that so?" Brianna smirked, her eyes watching Cat in a way that she couldn't explain.

The look in her eyes almost made shivers run down Cat's spine.

"What's going on in that conniving mind of yours?" she asked again.

"Just a little something that'll rattle Ansyl's bones," Brianna whispered, looking back at her friends who now sat beyond the glass door.

"I think her bones are rattled enough," Cat pointed out and a sadistic smile spread across Brianna's face as she moved closer to Cat.

Then bracing her arms on the railing behind Cat, Brianna leaned in, smiling in a way that honestly scared the blue-haired girl.

"It's not enough," Brianna whispered, taking the cigarette back from Cat and crushing it beneath her boots.

Then without another word, she walked back inside, leaving Cat shivering with fear. She didn't know how long she just stood there, feeling the goosebumps on her arm when Sia finally came to call her. It was time to head home and Cat couldn't be more ready to get out of the apartment.

On the drive home, Cat didn't say anything as her eyes watched the city pass by. Her mind kept going back to Ansyl and Nathan's situation and then finally Brianna's words. For a minute she thought that she had been talking to someone else and not her friend.

As she was leaving Brianna's apartment, Cat couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched by something other than the cameras that lined the walls. She wondered if she was just being paranoid after hearing Ansyl's story but no matter what she did, fear stuck to her like an unwanted shadow.

"What's wrong?" Sia asked, breaking the silence that filled their car, looking at Cat from the rearview mirror.

"What do you mean?" Cat asked, looking at her flatmate.

"You've been silent this whole time. Not like you," Sia answered as she pulled into their apartment parking lot.

"I was just thinking about what happened with Ansyl and Nathan. It's all so strange, you know. Everything was normal this morning and now they may or may not be stalked by an absolute creep. Makes me shiver just thinking about it," Cat said, wrapping her arms around herself.

"Because it would make you feel chained down knowing that someone is constantly watching you?" Sia asked and Cat gave her a weary smile.

"You know the answer to that better than anyone," she whispered and Sia asked no more questions.

As a child, Cat was just a normal person until one day she found herself sitting in a car that seemed to be crashing into another. While her mother died instantly, Cat survived but barely.

She remembered being hooked to an IV, she remembered the voices and screams of pain as she struggled to fight the darkness that always came to put her to sleep. Most of all, she remembered being watched constantly, if not by the doctors then by her father, afraid that if he took his eyes off her, she would leave him behind.

She spent months in the hospital, recovering and dependent on the people around her because her body was so weak she couldn't lift a finger without assistance. She felt like a bird without wings, chained to a wheelchair.

Things were supposed to get better when she was finally able to stand on her own two feet but then her father began to restrict everything she could do, afraid that she would end up like her mother.

Then started the fights between Cat who wanted to live her life and make every moment count and her father who wanted to save her from herself.

"That was a long time ago," Sia whispered, gently pushing back Cat's hair.

Cat nodded and then smiled at her friend. Then the two stepped out of their car and headed into the building before them. As they walked on, Cat decided to tell Sia about the strange feeling she had about Brianna.

Maybe together two of them could figure out what Brianna was up to and bring a stop to it.

However, before the words left her lips, Cat found herself gasping for air. Her vision grew blurry as she leaned on the wall for support.

She no longer saw the hallway before her. Instead she saw herself strapped to a hospital bed, screaming and struggling as everyone she knew watched her. The smell of medicine overpowered her senses as an icy wind settled on her skin.

A certain darkness, pulsating like a beating heart loomed behind her trapped body. In and out, its tendrils moved slowly, consuming everything inside the room. Brown eyes watched the darkness with fear as the sound of her own heart began to fade, her blood freezing within her veins.

Cat knew that her time had come but before the darkness could consume her, a hand reached out to her. With one touch, warmth ignited on her cold skin and she soaked it up almost as if she had been frozen forever.

When she awakened, her eyes stared into Sia's brown eyes, watching Cat with worry. The girl gently traced Cat's cheek with her warm fingers making her sigh with relief.

Under her watch, Cat felt all her fear disappear as warmth spread through her bones.

"You're free," Sia whispered as Cat buried herself in her arms.

As long as Cat was in Sia's arms, she would be alright.

"No one can chain you down," Sia went on.

And Cat knew that the blonde-haired girl was right because Sia was all she needed to be truly free.