This time, I don't run away.
The creature stands taller than I remember, and I'd almost forgotten how black its eyes actually were. My instinct is telling me to run a mile, to catch up with the group, to get the hell out of here, but I don't let myself. I don't know if it's because I've officially turned insane, but I feel an urge to stand here and stare back at it.
Despite being partly hidden by the shadows, its broad frown is immediately detectable, and its face is still a washed out grey colour. The headache is beginning to creep in, and I'm losing the sensation in my fingers, but I refuse to budge. The creature disappears for a millisecond, then appears a few steps closer. Holy shit.
"Felix? What are you doing?" Annabel. "What are you looking at?"
I shift my eyes to my side, and see her staring at me with furrowed eyebrows. Can't she see it? I lift my eyes back to the end of the hallway in hope that maybe this is all in my head, but nope. It's still there. My chest is becoming tighter, and the pressure in my head is increasing by the second. The creature turns its head slightly.
"What do you want?" I try to ask confidently, but I sound like a timid child.
It doesn't answer. It doesn't even twitch.
"What? Felix, what the hell is wrong with you?" Annabel questions.
"Can't you see it?" I ask her.
She gazes at me and stammers. I point to the end of the hallway, directly at the creature that's now inched itself even closer. Annabel stares directly at it, but turns back to me and shakes her head. How can she not see it? She starts talking to me again, but the pain in my head is too distracting for me to pay attention to her. The creature's gaze lingers on me, weighing down my entire body, and I just want to stop it but I don't know how to, so all I can do is stare back. It vanishes, then reappears again. It's barely five feet away from me now.
My mind is screaming at me to get the hell out of here and never look back, but as my eyes lock with the creature's, I'm frozen. Its leer presses down against me, and all I can do is push against it. God, my head hurts.
"Felix, answer me!" Annabel's voice sounds distant.
I fight against the heavy feeling in my chest, as if doing so will force the creature's eyes off me, and I don't know if it's just some kind of placebo effect, but my breathing becomes less shallow. Annabel calls my name again, but I'm so focused on the pain that I couldn't respond if I tried. I keep pushing and pushing, so much so that the pain circling my body is gradually replaced by a weak numbness.
The creature is inches away from me by this point, and at least two heads taller, but I can't avert my eyes from its own. The pain is almost non-existent now, and it feels as if every flicker of my energy is racing through my blood, while my body stands as a shell. I don't even know if I'm breathing anymore.
The creature has stopped nearing me now, the sensation of numbness is turning into light-headedness, and it feels amazing. I feel invincible. I've not stopped pushing against the invisible force fighting me, but it's become effortless, as if it's simply human nature. My vision is blurring, but I don't feel weak. I can't hear Annabel anymore--I don't know if she's still here, I don't even know if I'm really here anymore.
This sensation of invincibility is exploding around me, and I'm so transfixed by it that I don't notice it coming to an end. As the sensation peaks, as I'm about to reach the nirvana of whatever this is, it shoots away from my body, and everything is replaced by darkness.
#
"... worth a try... recognise... voice."
"Oi... up... shithead."
"Watch... language, please, there... children present."
Voices mesh into one, and I can't make sense of anything anyone is saying. My head is throbbing. I try to lift my hand to it, but it's as if my body is disconnected to my brain.
"You wanted me... him up!"
Annabel? I try to speak, to say anything, but I can't move my mouth. There's something hard resting against my back, or am I lying on something hard? Am I lying down?
"Felix? Jesus, c'mon." Yep, Annabel.
I'm definitely lying down, and based on the subtle smell of dust and oak furniture, I'm still in the manor house. Why are my eyes shut? I try to open them, but struggle to even mange a twitch. What the hell just happened?
"I think... waking." Another voice. Who's that?
"Could slap his face." Another different voice.
Are they talking about me? I listen for Annabel's voice again, and soon hear her call my name. I still can't open my mouth, and the pain in my head is creating a low buzzing sound. I manage to flicker my eyes a little, then Annabel speaks again.
"Throw something... crotch, that'll work. I've done it before... pretty funny, when he... like fourteen. It made him cry and--"
"Don't!" I quickly interject without even realising I've spoken.
I couldn't be more relieved to have found my voice. I finally manage to progress from flickering my eyelids to opening them, and at first, all I see are a blur of colours. Three pairs of eyes gape at me, and I recognise the pale blue ones as Annabel's.
She says my name, and I mumble something I don't even understand in response. As my eyes adjust to being open, the blurred figures eventually shape into those of a small boy and a blonde woman with braided hair, and judging by her archaic choice of a puffy gown, she's not from this century.
By the time I've properly come to, I'm sitting up on the hallway's rug with my back resting against the pale wall. I wasn't out for long--barely a minute, apparently--but Annabel is as clueless as I am to what the hell is going on. No change there then, really. The small boy is the one I saw during the tour, but I'm yet to discover who the woman is. Her dress looks expensive, and I'd say she's no older than forty.
I've just finished describing the creature that was lurking here no more than five minutes ago to Annabel, and the woman is shooing the boy away.
"Aren't you freaked out by me?" I ask, looking up at her.
She smiles lightly. "No, it's a great pleasure. Only once have I been accompanied by another like you."
"You've met someone else who can see spirits?" I'm so shocked that the words only just about leave my mouth in the right order.
She nods. "A long time ago."
The woman kneels on the floor beside me, then gently rests her palm on my forehead. She shuts her eyes briefly, and there's a smile on her face as she removes her hand and opens them back up. Not quite sure what that was. My head feels a lot clearer though, and all traces of dizziness have disappeared. Hell, I feel better than I did before I passed out.
The woman's eyes are a striking brown, and despite her face being void of make-up and her hair being pulled painfully tightly into a braid, she's oozing with warmth and tenderness.
"Did you see that thing?" I ask.
"Yes," she responds. Annabel furrows her eyebrows, and the woman must notice because she releases a breathy laugh. "You are just a child, dear," she says, turning to Annabel. "Once you wander this earth for as long as I have, you begin to notice things others fail to."
"What was it?" I question her.
"Bad news," she replies simply, and I wait for elaboration. "I'm uncertain of what they are, but they were never in any way human, and they only bring darkness. Though never have I seen one vanquished by a human, certainly not a human child."
"I'm nineteen," I mutter.
"Pardon?"
"Sorry, nothing, I--what do you mean? What did I do?"
"You vanquished it," she says as if that explains anything whatsoever. She chuckles again. "Killed it, in the sense that it will never return."
I'm slowly beginning to consider the possibility of me being the Anti-Christ. One second I'm throwing people into lakes, and the next I'm vanquishing demonic stalkers. It's a real party when I'm around.
"But they are not your danger," the woman continues. "They are controlled by greater forces, ones that only seek to destroy. To employ one against a human is..." She hesitates, and shifts her eyes from mine. "It's unheard of. They want something from you, and they will not ask nicely."
Annabel and I glance at one another, but as I turn back to this woman in hope of understanding more, she suddenly vanishes. What--
"Mate, what the hell are you doing?"
I hastily pull myself up from the carpeted floor to stand at the sound of Tom's voice, and it sure as hell isn't subtle. Thankfully, no one's with him.
I inwardly curse, and wish he could've waited just a few more minutes. For once in my life, I'd found someone who actually seemed to know exactly what this whole dead people thing is about. I wander over to Tom with a shrug, as if that's a perfectly good response to explaining why I was just sitting on the floor in a haunted manor house. As it's Tom though, the weirdness doesn't really click.
"I told everyone you'd be fine, but no one ever listens to me," he says as he drapes his arm over my shoulder, and I can't really remember reaching a level of closeness to Tom that would make this normal. "Carmen was scared you'd been ghostnapped. You need to get in there, mate, she's thirsty for you. I dunno how much longer I can resist seducing her myself."
Tom's a weird one. What he's saying is gross, but he's kind of like a confused, excited puppy, so no one really takes him seriously. He doesn't stop talking as we make our way back to the group, and it gives me time to zone out and think. As great as it is that I apparently got rid of that thing, it would help if I knew how the heck I did it, especially now it sounds like that isn't the only one.
What are these forces that employ those things in the first place? What would they want from me? I fear I'm not going to get a chance to speak to that woman again, so as Tom and I join the rest of the group in one of the many bedrooms of this house, I make a decision. I'm going to tell Ava everything.