The darkness created fluctuations that would have been shadows in the presence of light. Claudia crouched in this darkness and stared at Eudora's eyelids. Claudia clung to Eudora's hand trying to disable the shadow of Eudora's soul from fleeing.
The only sound was Claudia's breathing and the trickle of air that entered and exited Eudora's lips. A third breath could easily hide there. It could nestle in between the two, and its owner remain hidden until too late.
Claudia felt sharp teeth bite into her neck or her thigh. The pain was so real and so terrifying that each time it took her a moment to realize it was not real. After that, it took a good while to squelch the hurt that never had been. The agony would be all she had left if Eudora was taken.
So Claudia huddled there and made no effort to protect either of them. She waited for Eudora's light to reemerge. Only that light could rid her flesh of the phantom bites and save her from the all-consuming darkness.
If too much time went by, the air itself would lose patience and consume them both. It had hungered for their deaths for far longer than was its want. This place feasted on death. Claudia and Eudora had robbed it for too long. It was not a soft darkness, and it didn't forgive. There would be no help or shelter. The gloom would give them up to death. It would muffle their ears as death approached.
"Protect me," Claudia said to the unconscious woman in front of her.
Her torn fingertips reached the soft flesh of Eudora's breast. How long until it was still and cold? To the second, that was the amount time that Claudia had left in her life. It was Eudora's strength that held the darkness back. Claudia was a victim, born and bred.
And then there was light. Eudora's breathy voice lit the corridor. "Ah, I see hell waited for me."
Claudia laughed and clasped her hands together. "It was so dark. And I saw hands in the darkness. Rings glinting from dead fingers."
"I was somewhere lovely for a while."
"No one goes someplace lovely from here."
"I did, but here I am again." Claudia heard a smile on her friend's face. "I heard tears. It was beautiful."
"I did not cry."
"No, my pet, I never thought you did." The fabric beneath Eudora rustled.
"The darkness won't eat us now. But it is still hungry, it is ever so very hungry. We must go to the light lest it find a way to get past you."
Eudora's hands found and tightened about Claudia's arm. "The darkness is never a good place to be."
The two weak and cold women stood together. In another world, they might have rested, slept, ate. They were not in that world. Alive or dead, moving or still, that was all that existed. Eudora was light as something ethereal as she leaned against Claudia. Only her bone thin fingers were properly substantial. Her nails were as sharp as teeth biting in the dark.
And then they were in the light of a torch. They parted. Claudia leaned against one wall, and Eudora set her hand on the other. Those strong fingers alone supported her. Her other hand began to unwrap Claudia's careful bandaging. As Eudora's hand coaxed the cloth dried to her head wound, she began to hum.
It was a quiet tune used to the throats of nannies and maids at children's bedtimes. The notes took a fright and disappeared as soon as they parted from Eudora, who seemed unaware. She let the bloodied cloth fall from her fingertips and touched the brown patch at the front of her head. Her eyes were vague. Only when her hand dropped did Eudora allow her song to fade into sobering voice.
"Can you cry? Do you remember how?"
"I was alone."
"He loved you," Eudora said, her voice was song. It belonged in heaven.
Claudia did not contradict her. Still, the words played like a lilting nursery rhyme in her head. She doubted he knew how to love. Looking at Eudora, pressed against the wall, she tried to picture them together. Limb twined in limb. Mouth on mouth. The image wouldn't come. That world was so distant that it might never have existed.
If he had loved anyone, ever, she imagined it was Eudora. "He loved you, Dora."
"And if only I'd known the limits of his love. I could have fled and lived with my heart, alone just me and my heart. I think, I would have ceased existing a long time ago if it wasn't for him." Eudora's hand had fallen to the pouch at her side and rested there. "And he loved you. So we are a part of each other."
"You are the light. Without you, I am afraid to die."
"Death is a childish thing to fear. There are far better fears to have."
Claudia nodded, "Now that you are here, I will fear only as you bid."
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