Page 22 of The Shadowed Oracle
“No. No. I’m no one’s enemy. I only want to be left alone.”
“Yes.” The thing found her amusing now, its laughter softening. “You must. After all, you are quite irresistible. Those Shades seemed very territorial over you.” A pause, considering. “Tell me, have you always seen them? Even as a child? Have you always been able to see what hunts you?”
“Yes,” Ingrid blurted out.
She knew instantly what the Thing was referring to. The madness, that dark something, the nightmares. But the shocking fact that this creature could see her own personal hell was utterly overshadowed by one word.Hunt. As if the waking nightmares had wills of their own. Conscious minds, needs and desires.
It made her sick to think that all her life, what she was seeing was not some ghostly nightmare, or some signal of danger on its way to her, but a conscious entity somehow hunting her.
She was so stunted by the revelation that she didn’t weigh whether or not it was wise to tell the truth to this Thing.
“I’ve always seen them,” she added.
“Then you might be useful, after all.” It seemed pleased, or at the very least, less aggressive. “How tortured you must be. Always prodded. Watching those nasty little Shades trying to pry open your pretty skull and nestle in your mind.”
“Yes,” Ingrid repeated flatly, nearly unconsciously. “I’ve always seen them. I don’t think I’ve ever felt peace. I have always seen them.”
“And now?” the voice pushed monstrously. “Do you see them now? Do you, girl?” The Thing’s snarl acted like a divine command, and Ingrid paused, mentally probing her surroundings.
It didn’t take long to realize they were gone. Not even the vibrations she’d feel when the visions were just starting to make themselves known. Those steady, low taps of the nightmares trying to get in, reminding her of what would come later that night—they weren’t there.
“No,” she said. “I don’t. I don’t feel them now.”
“And why do you suppose that is? Why, little Viator, do you think they left you here now?”
Ingrid didn’t reply. Didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Because she already knew the answer. And once it sank in, it rattled her to her very core.
This Thing… it had scared off her worst nightmares.
“They ran from you,” Ingrid said in a whisper.
“Very good,” it snarled.
And before Ingrid could think of what to say next, she was seized by impossibly long and bony hands and lifted off the floor. She floated upward, her dark-adjusted eyes blinded by lights. Then out of the haze, she made out the seashell-shaped lamps and the shaggy green and blue carpet of her apartment building.
The hallway. She was in the hallway. Somehow, this thing had broken free from the dysfunctional confines of the elevator and had taken her with it. With just her gaze, she desperately searched for familiarity. For help. Darting back and forth as she slowly ascended, up, up, up, until she was at her own floor. The sixth floor.
She scanned for her door like merely seeing it would set her free, snap her out of this nightmare. But once she locked onto it, it changed. It seemed further away, almost unrecognizable. Everything else in the place she’d called home for years began to shift.
It was as if the Thing had penetrated her mind, somehow altering her surroundings. The creature grumbled something like a laugh, holding her still so she could watch. Watch as it stretched the hallway and turned her door into a mere speck in the far distance. Watch as the lights imploded and sickly green weeds sprang from the floor and the walls crumbled into a rotting pit of endless nothing.
Next came the voices. People. Real people. Her neighbors. Laughing and talking. Louder and louder their cries of joy became until Ingrid almost called out to them. Asked them for help.
But she didn’t. She knew they weren’t there. They weren’t real. She couldn’t trust her senses anymore. She was truly, finally, and hopelessly powerless. The strain in her shouldersrelaxed, and she simply… held still. She would save her strength for whatever would come next. Maybe it was more darkness. Or maybe it was a psych ward, which seemed preferable. If she’d woken up in some white-walled hell with a doctor feeding her pills like candy, she might not be all that opposed, considering.
She would take just about anything over these illusions. This Thing’s power over her, reminding her of how weak she was.
Her reality bent. The floors caved in. The ceiling dripped. Then she was in her apartment. Or, a rendition of it. A bland, empty version of her home where the kitchen was overrun by decaying food and her bedroom was drowning in foamy black water.
The voices returned, rising to piercingly high levels and then warbling into something familiar.
Franky.
It was Franky.
He was reciting a slightly different, bizarro version of the pre-shift talk he always gave Ingrid, full of clichéd jokes and “go get ‘em” affirmations. Things she’d normally roll her eyes at, but now seemed so precious.
Then she heard Dean. He was angry, just like he’d been at the lack of leads Ingrid provided when he’d shown her the symbols. The Thing must’ve picked the worst memories he could pluck from her mind. And Dean, like this, muttering something unintelligible at her, it was more painful to recall than she’d thought.
