CHAPTER 21
IN THE DARK
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A scream escaped my body and then I realized I wasn't in my room anymore. I was in a place where it was dark. It was the first time I knew eigengrau can be so threatening to break your sanity. All the silence was getting louder and louder. All I could hear was the breath of the ghost. It was strange that ghosts had breath. I was on the icy floor somewhere, and I knew the ghost was near me, blended with the ominous darkness. I couldn't stop the trembling. I was so close to giving into convulsions. Suddenly, the knifelike breath was not there anymore. Maybe the ghost moved away. Maybe it went away.
Could I run? But where to? Could I turn on the lights? But where were the switches? Could I scream? But who could actually hear me? Could I stretch my hand and feel my way through the darkness? But what if I touched the ghost? The questions were answered by questions. It was as if I had two voices. The shivers were getting stronger, that even my head began trembling. It was the kind of darkness to which the eyes would never adjust and see what was around. The shivers were the only thing that kept me thinking that I was alive.
I stood up with the leftover courage and walked in a random direction. I stopped as I hit on something. I guessed it was a wall. I stretched my shaky hands to feel what was on the wall. I thought I had touched a handle or a door knob. I didn't know what it was and I pulled it thinking it would open, but it didn't. The breaths returned and I froze. I leaned against the wall with my face pressing against the icy wall, closing my eyes tight that my eyelids ached. It touched my neck and my screams were scratching my throat.
It voiced my name a million times in a threatening whisper with a bloodcurdling cadence. I screamed as loud as I could, but it didn't take its fingers away. I eventually stopped the screams that could have torn my throat, but the fingers were still very still on my nape. My body drained from all the screaming, shaking and sweating. If it did succeed in possessing me, I knew my friends would know that I was not me. That was the only hope I hung onto.
It retracted its fingers and the breath, and I was free to move again. There was no use pulling and twisting the knob or whatever that was. I moved my involuntary body, trying to find the switches or door. The breathing and touching returned and this time, I didn't scream. I just froze there, but my shivers gave away. It left me again. It was playing a game of hide and seek with me in the dark. A game I could never win - not against a ghost. I held to the last fiber of hope that my friends would find me, but I had to try my part. It had to be two hours in the dark. Alone and cold with draining hope, stumbling and stretching my hand only to find darkness lacing around my fingers. I still couldn't find a door. I heard a faint screeching of a door. I turned toward the sound, and a light flashed straight at me.
"Margo?" came a familiar voice; loud and luminous.
Aiden had his flashlight pointed straight at me. Elec and Irsia helped me get out. I didn't know who the fourth figure and the fifth figure were behind them. I assumed one of them was Verena. I was taken out of the room and my guess was right. It had taken me to Auroville Villa. I was in one of the rooms upstairs. As I got down the stairs, I saw a sixth figure outside. I saw it through the window. Something wasn't right again. As soon as we rushed out the gates of Auroville Villa, I turned to see the fifth and sixth figure. I couldn't find them.
"Margo?" Aiden called out.
He pulled my wrist so that I would come to my senses. I shook free from his fist and was still searching.
"Walker? What are you doing?" came Elec's voice.
"Margo, we need to go," Irsia yelled.
"Margo Fawn, snap out of it and come with us." That was Verena.
"I saw someone..." I muttered, still not looking at them, but looking at the front door of Auroville Villa.
"Well, we know," yelled Elec and Irsia.
"We need to go." Again, Aiden tried to grab my wrist as if I would run away into the Crossburn woods.
"What are you doing?" I yelled at him and I pulled my hand away. "Let's go..." I muttered under my breath.
Elec drove as fast as she could. Irsia was with us. I didn't even wave my hand to Aiden or Verena. I had a lot to think about. As soon as we reached Elec's home, Irsia pulled me by my hand inside and I saw that Aiden and Verena had followed us. Oh! No!
Elec dropped into the chase lounge next to me. "My mom would be home any minute. Start from the beginning. Tick Tock, Walker."
I wiped the sweat off my face with the back of my palm and I swallowed before I began. "It appeared from underneath my bed."
"You defied my instructions. Didn't you?" Verena growled.
"Not on purpose." My voice went up a notch with her accusation. "I dropped my pencil when Irsia was on the other side of the call and when I looked down my bed it was there. It... it pulled me inside the dark and the next thing I know I wasn't in my room."
"What exactly were you thinking when you dropped your pencil?" Verena was terribly obstinate in making me feel guilty. She asked me to shut down and block any and all thoughts of the ghost or that I'd be in danger. It very well happened just as she said so.
"I was thinking about the ghost. I started trembling and I dropped the pencil." Great... my voice was shaky now.
"Are you joking? That is exactly what I told you not to do." Verena used the top of her lungs to shout.
"Can you keep your PSB voice down? My mom will be home soon." Elec chided.
I looked at the unevenly shaped wooden clock. It was ten minutes to 7PM.
"Is it pointing the correct time?" I pointed at the clock.
"Yeah... why?"
"I thought I was in there for like two hours, Elec."
"Margo, you were there like 20 minutes." Aiden looked at me with that frown again. "Thanks to Irsia, we figured out soon."
"What?" I was so confused that everything began to blur.
"Margo...?" Verena's voice snapped me out of the blur. "What else did you see there? Take a deep breath. Think it through."
I took a moment to regulate my spasmodic breaths. I was thirsty from all the screaming, but I needed to tell them the story before I took the time to gulp down the water. I told them about how it kept touching me and how I felt its breath over me. I told them about how it kept saying my name in a threatening whisper. The thing was, just by hearing all this, Irsia looked very spooked. Spooked than me who had the first-hand experience. Elec was her usual self. Aiden looked worried, and Verena... Verena looked curious and puzzled as well. I also told them about the fifth and sixth figure.
"There was a sixth figure?" Irsia asked, making her green eyes bigger. She wasn't wearing her blue contact lens. I missed seeing her real eyes.
"What do you mean?"
"I saw a hasty silhouette by the window."
"It was Aiden who came into the room first, right? Then you both rushed toward me." I pointed at Elec and Irsia. "Verena was behind you both but there was someone behind you, Verena."
"The fifth one behind me must be the abductor phantom," Verena predicted.
"Striking," I fretted.
"So who was the hasty silhouette by the window? One of your phantom friends?"
"No, Margo. I just sensed one phantom. The one by the window must be human."
"Who could it be? Could it be some trespasser?This time a real one?" Irsia vacillated. She was holding her palms together. She might be the type of person who kept a schedule for everything and exceled in studies but she wasn't the type to spend twenty minutes in the dark. She always had a little lamp beside her when she slept. That's what pissed Elec and I when we had sleepovers.
"I couldn't sense anything if it were supernatural but there might be one dead on reason for that. I don't want to get into the details of that." Verena said, looking at Irsia. Bravo, Verena. "But why didn't you tell us when we were there?"
"I told you and you didn't listen. You were trying to load me into the car. Remember?"
"Girls... stop fighting. This is so stupid." Aiden was suddenly the referee.
"How did you know I was there?" I asked.
According to Verena, she had an intuition that this was going to happen and she didn't leave town. According to Irsia, she thought I was in danger as I last screamed on the phone. According to Elec and Verena's intuition, I was in the Auroville Villa. Brainiacs! Aiden kept his steadfast eyes on me as I listened to them explain their part. I heard Elec's mom in the driveway.
"Should we leave?" Aiden asked.
"Yeah, if you leave suddenly... she'd get suspicious. So, act cool." Elec laughed in a snippy way. "I don't have to tell you that. Acting is your second nature."
I knew Elec knew about Aiden's crush on me, but she didn't have to be mean like that. I stared at Elec for her mean comment, which she decided to ignore. When I turned my sore neck back to its position, I saw Verena looking at me with a knowing smile for my defend stare. I scoffed and brushed it off. I prayed that Aiden didn't look at what happened. I didn't have the courage to look at him if he had seen and decoded what had just happened.
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