Into the Aether_Part One(34)

The boy dropped the bags on the cold cement and stood in front of Courtney, holding both fists upright. Lara watched, amused, as his hands trembled.

“Leave,” Lara said simply. A multitude of voices echoed in the couple’s minds. The sound was so terrifying that Courtney’s whole body started to tremble, while her feet stayed paralyzed.

“Somebody help us!” Courtney called out, frantically looking around the street, but the closest people were over by the mall entrance. They gave no indication that they had heard.

The boy continued to stand in front of Courtney, shielding her body with his. Lara basked in their fear. Courtney dropped to her knees, clutching at her chest, her breathing growing ragged and hoarse. Lara felt intoxicated, powerful. The rage was addictive; she wanted more. She encouraged it, allowing it to fill every atom of her being. Staring at the boy, Lara delved into the deep recesses of his mind, the place where only the most horrific of fears and memories lay, and felt for his worst fear. She grabbed it and pulled it out for him to see.

“You’re going to die,” Lara said in her sickly choir of voices.

He watched in horror as the skin started to melt from his hands. He screamed and grabbed at his sweater, ripping it apart, as his once-muscled body disintegrated in front of his eyes.

Courtney watched her boyfriend stare at his hands, and then rip open his shirt. He looked down at his muscular torso and started screaming. Was he seeing something she wasn’t? He started running along the street, until he tripped on a curb and fell down, hard. Quickly, he got up again and continued running.

Lara looked down at Courtney.

“Please, I... I’m sorry!” Courtney looked up at her.

“Yes, you will be.” Lara delved into Courtney’s mind. She looked for a suitable nightmare to inflict on her. A deep memory was rooted deep in the corner of her mind and Lara pulled hard to bring it to the surface.

At Lara’s command, Courtney relived a memory of her mother and father leaving for the evening when she was just a toddler. The babysitter, who was sixteen, was filing her nails when the doorbell rang. A young man entered and passionately kissed the sitter, and then they both looked at Courtney. The sitter started yelling at Courtney and pointing upstairs. Both Lara and Courtney watched as the younger version of Courtney shook her head in defiance.

The sitter grabbed Courtney by the shoulder and shoved her into a small closet. Courtney reached for the handle, but it was too tall. There was barely enough space in the there for her to turn around in. It was dark, and she started to get hot. It became difficult to breathe, and Courtney violently hammered her fists against the door, but it was solid and refused to budge. An old doll with yellow-rimmed eyes fell from a shelf, knocked down by Courtney’s pounding on the door. A drawstring started receding inside of it, making a creepy warbling sound that at one time could have been laughter.

Lara lifted both of her hands, pushing the memory into Courtney’s conscious mind. The closet grew smaller as the walls slowly moved inward. The ceiling pressed downward until Courtney could no longer lift her hands up and was forced into a squatting position. The walls pushed at her from all sides. The ceiling continued its downward descent, pushing her head and neck into a cramped position.

Courtney was now taking short gulps of air, and beating her hands against her chest. Lara watched as she lay on the sidewalk in a fetal position, her body quivering. Fear poured off of Courtney, and to Lara, it was delicious.

Lara knew that if she pushed the memory just a little harder, then it would become the only reality Courtney would ever know. She would be trapped in a perpetual nightmare, a closet that would become a coffin, buried in the depths of her mind.

Courtney’s face was turning blue, and the fear ebbed. Her gasps for breath grew further apart.

Courtney was dying.



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