All that is Darkness

CHAPTER TWELVE: HER OTHER LIFE

I awoke with a start to a blast of sound so shrill and ear-piercing that I'd have bolted from the bed had I not been entangled in it. Bleary-eyed and anxious, I struggled to sit up and free myself from layers of pink linen as the high-pitched buzzing continued, repetitive and insistent and incredibly annoying. When I finally thrust my head from beneath the sheets, I spotted the culprit immediately: a razor-thin rectangle of what appeared to be metal and glass sitting on a nearby nightstand, the glass lit up with a picture of some boy I didn't recognize and numbers that insolently proclaimed the time to be 6:30 AM.

Staring at it a moment, bewildered, I reached out tentatively and picked it up. It looked exactly like the thing Nurse Anderson had spoken into that first time I'd dreamt of being Samantha, and as I studied it the numbers changed to read 6:31. The annoying buzzing continued, but beneath the numbers were two images that looked like pushbuttons of some sort. One said "Snooze" and the other said "Dismiss."

A sharp knock on the bedroom door drew my attention, and a woman called out: "Samantha, are you up yet?"

My heart skipped a beat. Samantha again?

"Sam?" More knocking. "Hurry up, honey. This is your special day."

"I'm up," I blurted out, immediately cupping a hand over my mouth in shock that the words had come so instinctively.

"Well, turn off that infernal alarm and get showered and dressed," the woman on the other side of the door said. "We have to be at the studio before eight."

"Okay," I said, still holding the metal and glass thing like it were something alien—which for me it was. I stared at it dumbly, watching the numbers change again, now reading 6:32. I fumbled with the device and recalled how the nurse had touched the glass and so I pressed the tip of my finger to the "Dismiss" button and watched in amazement as it seemed to change, brightening for a moment, and then vanishing as the room fell silent. I sat there, confused, staring at the glass, at the dozens of strange looking little pictures now arrayed in rows across it. But before I could even catch my breath, it spoke to me.

"You have fourteen messages," it said.

I jumped and dropped the thing onto the bed between my legs and gaped at it, astounded as the picture on the glass changed yet again. It was like magic, and I kept thinking it was the weirdest thing to have in a dream. A bit uncertainly, I set it back on the nightstand; then I just sat there a moment, trying to come to grips with where I was.

Where and who.

I'm dreaming again, I told myself. But when I glanced back at the nightstand, a shiver passed through me.

How can this be a dream?

"Sam!"

"Yes, I'm getting up," I cried; and I got out of bed, stood up, and promptly fell over.

What the hell?

It took me a moment to pick myself up and stand again, and when I did I swayed a little uncertainly. I felt awkward, and my body felt weird. My arms and legs were alien appendages, as though they weren't a part of me. Or was it that I wasn't a part of them; that I wasn't a part of this body?

I looked around, overwhelmed by my surroundings.

Samantha's bedroom was huge, dominated by an enormous four-poster bed, the floor littered with piles of books and clothes and stuffed animals and a ton of other things. Posters were pinned to the wall, large color photos of teenage boys, some with weird looking guitars, some just looking sullen or moody. One in particular sent a chill up my spine: a pale-skinned youth with piercing black eyes and gleaming fangs. A drop of blood trickled from his red lips.