Aalborg University in Copenhagen - Today
Celeste Balslev sat in her dormitory room, wrapped in a blanket and staring at lines of her biology textbook that were now merging in a fuzzy, unfocused mesh of e. e. Cummings and Greek. She had read the same line four times and still had no idea what it was saying. She had 40 or 50 pages to go before she could even begin to feel ready for the exam tomorrow, but at 2:30 in the morning she was exhausted. One of her roommates, an exchange student named Sai Jien, had come in from partying thirty minutes ago and passed out sideways in her bed. How she kept up her grades was a mystery to Celeste.
She had been studying and sacrificing her social life for the past year, and had only one A to show for it. The rest were B's and one C. The C she was proud of though, in Mendelson's class people were just happy to pass. She looked over at the clock one last time to make sure it was set, then pulled the covers over her and drifted quietly off to sleep.
Alarms ringing.
People screaming in the hallway.
Panic.
Celeste threw off the covers and looked over at Sai, both of them wide-eyed and confused. There was smoke in the room. It was only a light mist, something you might open a kitchen window for if you had forgotten something in the oven. But one thing was certain. Something was on fire. Sai hopped up and slipped on her shoes.
"Come on Cel', move it," she barked at her friend.
Celeste moved like a drunken sailor on the high seas, her leg still asleep and her mind exhausted from being jerked out of her dream state. Sai grabbed her book bag and a trinket from her table and made for the door. Swinging it open, Sai stood in the doorway yelling something at Celeste that she couldn't follow. She was grabbing her blanket, the one her mom had sewn for her as a child, and her pictures, and the computer had all her-
"Celeste! Now! I can see the fire! Now, let's go!" screamed Sai.
There was even more smoke in the hall. She never realized until now how many things she had that she didn't want to let go of.
"I'm right behind you! Go!" yelled Celeste. Sai took one last look at her and bolted down the hallway.
The screams in the hallway became louder. Footsteps down the hall. People running. Yelling outside, maybe from passersby or maybe from people already in safety's arms, watching their belongings go up in flame. How bad was the fire? Celeste's arms were full. She ran for the door.
Then stopped.
She was only a couple of feet from the door. She had no idea why she was stopping. She simply was not moving forward. She couldn't.
Celeste could hear the roaring of flames down the hall. This wasn't a small fire. Something that could be put out with a couple of extinguishers. This was an inferno. She was on the third floor. She had to move and move now. She began to invoke all of her will power that she could muster. Her left leg inched reluctantly forward a few inches. Her body did not follow. Her brow creased in concentration. What was wrong with her? This was ridiculous.
Move, Celeste! Move your ass!
Now she was screaming at herself. What was holding her back? She had a thought. She looked at her hands, full of things from home. Things that she had taken with her. Maybe that was holding her back. All those years of tradition and beliefs. All those antiquated practices. All the lies. She looked down at her things and then turned around and threw them to the floor. A flood of guilt hotter than the fire washed over her. She had thrown things away that were dear to her. She had thrown away part of her life. Part of her family, what of it she had left. But she had to escape. Had to get out of here.
She would find new things with a new life. She would break free of the fear and faith and find a new life with some cute boy, if she could ever stop studying long enough to find one.
Celeste stepped forward, almost even with the doorjamb, and stopped again. This time it was more forcible. Like a giant, invisible hand had grabbed her by the chest and held her in place. Her blood ran cold and her thoughts scattered. Her heart felt constricted. The blood in her veins, an ice cold syrup, clogging everything up and freezing her into an immobile, concrete statue.
From the corner of her eye, she could see the flames making their way down the hall to her left. Only four rooms down, the center of the hallway looked like the middle of a campfire. Still, Celeste could not move. She looked down and recoiled in horror.
At the threshold of the door, where there should have been a piece of aluminum or brass, was a line of dirt and dead grass. A line she knew well. A line she and the other kids used to dance across all during the year, all except for three days. During those three days, no one passed the line. No one.
And what time of the year was it after all? Wasn't it about that time? Of course it was. She knew it was. Like other people who grew up in the village, she didn't need a calendar or watch to tell her when it was time. She could feel it in her bones. Now the flames were only two rooms down. She felt a coldness on her wrist. Looking down, she saw a large chain hanging from a shackle attached to her arm. She followed it across the room and saw the familiar piece of over-sized, spiked iron driven into the tiles of the dorm room like they were sand.
"No!" Celeste screamed.
One door away now. The flames were relentless, indifferent. She was sweating profusely and tried to use the sweat to slide her wrist through the shackle. It was too tight. There was no way out. Then something made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She could feel it's presence in the room, somewhere behind her. Something whose gravity of simply existing in proximity to Celeste threatened to shut down all of her faculties and drag her in to its abyss. She couldn't budge. Could not move a muscle, not even her eyes.
The searing heat from the fire was now directly in front of her. Engulfing the doorway as it would soon engulf her. Then a voice behind her. The vibrations from its words moving through every cell in her body with a malicious and mocking virility. Its tone so deep that it shifted the fire in front of her after it passed her by.
"I AAAAAMMMM WAAAIII - TIIINNGGG FOOOR YOOOOUUU."
Tears streamed down Celeste's face. They sizzled on the way down from the heat. She could not move. Only burn.
The pain was intense. Overwhelming. It was too much to bear. Her only consolation was that she would surely pass out in a few seconds and it would be over. But as her hair caught fire, she realized that the thing behind her was not going to let her die right away. It was going to keep her alive and watch her burn to a crisp. Perhaps it would never let her die. Perhaps it would let her live forever. Roasting in the fire like a pig for all eternity.
And as if to echo her thoughts, the voice reverberated again, filling the room, the building, filling the whole of the universe.
"WEEE HAAAVVVVEE EEEETEEEERNNNIIITYYYYYY."
The flames licked her unmoving eyes, searing the moist cornea and melting it onto the pupil. She was blind. Celeste could not even move to scream, the pain unbearable. She could feel the front part of her T-Shirt explode in flames. The voice rose in deep undulations behind her. A guttural chasm of laughter. How could there ever be so much pain in one body, in one soul.
It was only then that Celeste thought of God.
She awoke screaming.
Sai had her by the arm with a look of concern on her face.
"I'm right here. I'm right here, Cel'," she was chanting reassuringly.
Celeste was drenched in sweat. It took her a moment to come around; to scan the dorm room and make sure that the Thing was not there, that the building was not on fire.
"My God, girl. That was the worst one yet."
Celeste said, "Sorry Sai." She wiped the sweat from her brow with the pillow case. "I'm, uh... I'm okay. You can go back to sleep. Sorry."
"You're fine? Look, I don't want to be pushy, but you really need to see someone about these. They're a little more frequent . . . you know?"
Celeste knew she was right. Once a month was bearable. Twice a week was too much. After this week of tests were over, she would head to a doctor or shrink. Maybe she would talk with professor Haslund. She had heard talk that he had done some research in sleep studies during his grad years an eon ago.
"Thanks, Sai. Sorry again."
Sai looked at her clock. "Well, test's at 8:00. It's only three hours away. Why don't we head down and get a coffee. Sprint the last mile. Whaddya say?"
Sai was right. There was no use in trying to go to sleep again, not that she could if she wanted to. And if she did, it would just be harder to wake up in two hours.
They got ready and headed down to the café.
A few more tests.
A few more years.
And she would be out for good.