Through Glass(48)

You are safe in the light, my mind screamed the phrase at me, but I didn’t hear. I couldn’t hear anything other than the heavy pounding of my heart. The sound perfectly in sync with the beat of the footsteps as someone rushed toward me. I needed to get out of here.

I ran forward without looking where I was going, my eyes still focused into the darkness behind. I ran faster as my head darted back and forth, scared to take my eyes off the blackness that held the noise for too long. The pounding of my feet matched the ones that followed behind me, the sounds increasing as the beats came in time.

“Help!” The pointless word was out before I could stop it. My head turned toward the blackness behind me. I looked into the dark as my feet took me forward, only to run into one of the many forgotten shelves.

I screamed as I made impact, as my body was thrown to the side and the torch flew away from me. I reached for it in vain and the stream of fire soared through the air before hitting the floor with a crash and extinguishing itself, leaving me in the dark.

“No… nonono… not again.”

My fingers fumbled through the dark as the footsteps kept running toward me; the sound getting louder and louder in my ears. I blinked furiously as I searched, willing my eyes to adjust to the dark again, praying I would be able to see something through the dark grey haze I was trapped in.

I reached for the torch and for the rail, knowing I would need both. The footsteps of my pursuer pounded in my ears, louder and louder. My fingers fumbled. I shouldn’t have run, I shouldn’t have let my fear get the best of me. If I had only stayed still…

I shoved the thought from my mind and dragged my hand through the trash in search of at least my weapon, listening to the footsteps as they came up behind me and stopped. The echo loud in my ears as the pads against linoleum sounded only a few feet away from me. My fingers stopped, the silence freezing me in place.

I could hear the labored intake of my breath, the heavy inhale, my exhale sharp in the darkness.

However it wasn’t just my breath, it was someone else’s, too. Someone who stood above me, their body swallowed up in darkness.

Darkness that had come to kill me.

“Alexis?”

Everything in me tensed at the sound of my name, unfamiliar on someone else’s lips.

Someone, not something. I had never heard the creatures speak before, not since that first day when their voice filled my head. This was not in my head, though, this voice was in the air around me and decidedly human.

I wanted to jump into their arms and thank God I wasn’t alone, but something in me stopped. That deep train of fear taking over as the warning bells went off. Something about this was wrong.

I fought the need to turn, to look up at them and see who had come to end me. I didn’t turn, I barely moved. I said nothing as my arm reached forward, my movements slow and controlled as my sweat covered fingers wrapped around the large bed rail. It was the only thing I could reach as my torch was too far away to be useful.

“Alexis?” the voice came again. I would walk away from this. I would fight if I needed to.

I clung to the rail, allowing one more breath before my body moved, one quick swing as I turned to face whatever had followed me, whatever thing knew my name. The rail swung through the air, the point moving to come face to face with the person before me, the rail pointing at her like a barrel of a gun.

“Sarah?” The rail slowly dropped as I spoke. The surprise at seeing her hovered above me, taking away all the fear I had just felt.

I had just been thinking about her, only moments ago. Thinking about her crush on zombie hunters, on late night movies. Now, here she was, right in front of me. It was almost too good to be true.

It was too good to be true.

I wanted to say it wasn’t the same girl, but it was her, just in a different life. I brushed off my worry and narrowed my eyes at her, needing to know it was really her. She smiled brighter, her Barbie doll face looking more weather worn than I had ever seen it or thought she would let it get. She was as pale as a ghost, which only made her blue eyes seem brighter, the black and red blood stains on her clothes darker.

“Oh, God, Alexis! It is you.” Her voice was deeper than I remembered it and her face older. Everything about her had changed as the world had. She was no longer prissy and perfect, she was hard and battle worn.

“I mean, I knew it was… I thought it was… the red hair… that backpack. But how could you be…” she rambled for a moment, then exhaled just enough to show her relief before she was right next to me on the ground, her arms wrapping around my shoulders as she pulled me in for a hug.

I froze.

This hug was not like when Cohen hugged me. There was little joy in this happy reunion. Everything about her felt cold, heavy. She was stiff, like she was scared to touch me. The sensation sent a long shiver up my spine, one that I quickly pushed away. I was beginning to sound a bit too paranoid.

Slowly my arms lifted to return the hug, the bed rail slipping from my fingers as I wrapped my arms around her.

Then she squeezed me, her arms softening up as she pressed me against her chest. She exhaled heavily, her chest rattling in my ear.

“I’m so glad you are alive,” she sighed, her voice sounding the same way it had two years ago and I felt everything inside of me loosen. What little of the stress and fear I had been feeling practically evaporating. I squeezed her back, my body tensing only enough to try to keep the ridiculous emotion caged behind my eyes.