ELARA
I step into a dimly lit room, hydrogen lights flickering on and off above me. Glass walls surround me on all sides, revealing nothing but darkness. As my eyes adjust, they snag on something strapped to a chair close by-something morbid and horrifying and fundamentally wrong.
My heart nearly leaps out of my chest.
A human skeleton sits buckled into the chair, a kind of dog muzzle cinched where the mouth should be. Dark, empty eye sockets tilt downward, spiderwebs veiling the bones in silky threads.
I choke back a scream.
When I turn, more skeletons appear in the shadows, each one strapped down the same way. On a center table, surgical equipment lies scattered like an abandoned ritual. Jars filled with a yellowish liquid line the edges-something pale and eerie floating inside each one.
Then I hear it: crying.
A small, thin sound. Human.
I inch toward it until I find a little boy crouched beneath the long table, sobbing into his palms. I kneel so I'm eye level with him.
"Hey... are you alright?" I whisper, but he keeps wailing, shoulders trembling violently.
"Can you tell me who you are?"
No response. It's like he doesn't even hear me.
A sharp smell curls into the air and into my senses, dry and bitter like a warning-smoke.
It thickens fast, the room suddenly warmer, hotter, boiling.
"I think we need to leave," I mutter, grabbing his thin arm.
But he's no longer crying.
He stays still, frozen, empty-eyed.
His lips move, barely forming shapes. The heat swells, suffocating.
"What?" I lean closer.
"Adam... Reed... Annabeth." He repeats like a personal mantra.
The glass to our right explodes. Fire storms into the ward, the shockwave slamming me backward onto the floor. White smoke and orange flames roar inward, devouring everything.
The boy rises slowly, staring into the blaze.
"Adam... Reed... Annabeth."
He's shouting now, as if someone else is using his voice.
Coughing violently, I stagger to my feet and grab his arm, trying to pull him away from the fire. He resists, rooted in place, chanting names I don't know.
"We need to get out of here!" I cry desperately.
I yank him hard enough to spin him around-and freeze.
His once-innocent face twists into something monstrous: sharp fangs, glowing orange eyes, beast-like features stretched across too-small bones.
I stumble back, but he flickers-appearing closer in an instant. His fingers clamp around my arm.
I scream, thrashing, but he doesn't let go. Flames lick the floor behind him, smoke clawing into my lungs.
"Adam... Reed... Annabeth."
The tone shifts-less sorrow, more threatening, monstrous even.
He releases me just as I wrench away. I trip, falling backward-
-straight into darkness.
"He hurt them," the boy's voice echoes, disembodied.
Time thickens like syrup. My heartbeat becomes the clock.
One...
Fire and smoke dance in the night sky like twins of oblivion.
Two...
A red symbol glows in the dark-a half-circle with a single line extending outward. It burns like molten metal.
Three...
Something stalks the woods.
Dark. Malevolent. Hunting.
Screams.
A massive, feral black wolf tears through the trees, chasing someone dear to me, some one I love-someone who connects everything.
Then it all vanishes.
And I'm suspended in empty black. Pure nothing and I scream until my lungs burn.
---
"Hello? Excuse me-are you alright?"
A voice drags me back.
I bolt upright, looking around wildly, half-expecting the fire to still be roaring. But I'm in the school hallway. Fluorescent lights. Lockers. Teenagers.
A boy with warm brown eyes and soft dark waves steadies me by the arms.
"Are you real?" I blurt though its a valid enough question giving everything I've just seen.
He blinks, confusion spreading across his Wasian features. I suddenly become fully aware of his hands on my arms, and I pull away.
"Y-you were screaming," he rushes out in one, frantic breath. "Like, really screaming, so I came to check and you were just-standing here-and I didn't know if you were fine or not-but obviously you are I mean if not then I won't be talking to you right no-"
"I'm fine."
I cut him off just as students drift back inside after lunch. My nerves spike.
"Please don't tell anyone what you saw," I whisper, hating how fucking desperate I sound.
His eyes soften. He nods.
I exhale shakily and head for the exit. I am done with today. My attendance record is practically perfect-I could skip a week and the Principal couldn't say a damn thing.
I stop by my locker to grab my purse-only to find Carl at his, right beside mine.
Perfect.
Now I have to face him.
I force myself forward. Carl looks up, those warm, devastating eyes locking onto me, melting me from the inside out carrying me in it's amber and brown currents.
"Elara... please. I don't know what I did wrong," he says quietly.
My chest tightens, splitting at the seams.
But I can't do this. Not now. Not when I'm unraveling.
I grab my brown leather purse, sling it over my shoulder, and slam my locker shut.
"It's not your fault, Carl," I breathe out, already walking away.
"Elara, wait-"
I stop but keep my back to him.
"Please... don't follow me."
My voice almost cracks but I hold it in, if not he'll know how much I need him to not listen to me.
If he sees the breakdown clawing its way up my throat, I'll never forgive myself for as long as I live.
Carl stops moving towards me. He actually listens
I don't know if that should make me feel better or worse.
I bolt out the school doors, past the parking lot. Hot tears spill down my face with no clear reason-maybe all of them at once.
The midday fog has lifted, but it feels like a darker cloud hangs over my head.
Maybe it's the illusions-the horrifying phantoms of my own imagination that might haunt me for the rest of my life.
Maybe it's knowing I'll never be normal.
Maybe it's Carl... The boy I've been obsessed with since preschool.
Maybe it's everything all at once-heavy and unspoken and crushing my soul.
I keep walking.
Tears painting the asphalt with my burdens.