Page 20 of The Shadowed Oracle
5, it read.
Ingrid lived on the 6th.
She had no time to wonder, no time to hit the emergency button or even hit the elevator button again.
Because the lights went out, and utter blackness swallowed her. The silence was so alienating that it felt like being underwater, running out of air. It seemed unfair that she’d gone her entire life without having any thought of the terrifying sensation of being trapped in a small, dark space—until it actually happened, and she had no time to plan or brace herself for the horror of it. She took a few deep breaths, talking herself down. She calmly reached for her phone, but nothing on her screen lit up, not even a flicker. It was only a dead, metallic weight in her hand.
Her line to the outside world, the world in which anyone at all could come save her, had been cut. She let her arm go slack at her side, letting out a few more wavering breaths.
It’s only the dark,she assured herself.
I’ll find a way out.
There’s some kind of alarm... somewhere.
She opened her eyes to search, but found not a single light. No backup source from above. No emergency red button flashing.
She felt around the empty space for the controls of the elevator, total darkness giving her the illusion of a much larger area. She took a few steps forward, a few to the right, waving her arms until fingers landed on metal. She grazed the wall for the controls, hitting just a few at first, then pressing all of them down in one long desperate swipe.
Pitch black.
She blinked rapidly, listening to her own heartbeat as it became louder, faster. Her insides churned, throat tightened, temples pounding from within as if her brain had rebelled and began beating its way out of her skull.
Her hands balled up in preparation, because she knew what came next. Those familiar monsters were making themselves known. An endless lineup of rotting faces, macabre beasts and villains from her past, all smiling at her like they’d been tucked away under her eyelids the entire day, waiting.
Hollowed-out corpses and senseless gore flashed rapidly every second. Scenes from her grim childhood mixed in with otherworldly creatures made of smoke and black scales. A murdered girl in a suitcase. Kyle Twyker on his floor bleeding out. A cloaked figure hovering over her as she slept. And those symbols. They were painted everywhere.
Again, she closed her eyes and reverted to the techniques she’d employed for years. A sense of humor, and unmitigatedrage. That’s what she’d always combated them with, and that’s what she was doing now. She seethed, creating cartoonish names for the beasts in between her measured inhales and exhales.
But new visions just kept appearing.
In a panic, she slapped at the buttons again with a thud. The echo of it sent a chill down her spine. She had the sensation of being hundreds of feet underground. A tunnel. A black hole. A grave.
She smashed the buttons again.
Nothing moved. Not a sound. No lights. She was helpless.
“Hello,” she said, feeling so small, so pitiful, so disoriented.
“Help!” she yelled.
“Help me!”
“FUCKING HELP!”
But it was only the voices in her head that answered. Indecipherable murmurs, more like vibrations than sounds. She could sense them trying to rattle her. Trying to trick her.
“Fuck you,” she whispered. If they hadn’t defeated her yet, then they never would. They’d never break her. Never take away her sanity.
She’d made it this far, for this long, and giving in to the madness was no longer an option. She didn’t fear the bumps in the night. Shewasthe bump in the night. It was her. It was always her. It was all in her head. These monsters werehers. Theywereher. It was all in her head.
“You can’t… you can’t touch me,” she whispered.
“But I can.”
The voice slithered from behind, followed by one long pointed nail scratching at the back of her neck.
Chapter Eight
