I've seen this room in my nightmares.

It's more of a memory: played and agonised over in my head. Except tonight, I'm living it here, in this house, not in all the other Places. That's what makes it terrifying. It's always real, but tonight, the Kosul are forcing a nightmare into my mind. 

I'm breathing in the black, my pulse slamming against my throat. Smothering humidity presses heavily down on the air, but falls cold and icy against my skin tracing my veins like the tip of a needle. I tilt my head up as if trying to stay above a body of water, swallowing gasping breaths, my chest tightening in the dark.

Whispers crawl into my ears and quicken my breaths, scuttling along the floor and dancing over the air. I feel another body in the dark close-by but I can't see anything, the black too thick and secretive. I swallow, squeezing my eyes shut for a heartbeat in desperate, shameful fear.

"William Alessandro Delain." I feel- not see- a finger emerge from the dark, reaching forward to trace my clammy collarbone exposed above my shirt. My entire body is trembling and I fight to keep it still, gritting my teeth too tightly. I'm nine-years-old again and trapped in this darkness, alone for the first time in my life, in a place I don't know, waiting for someone to appear and drive a knife through my heart. I remember how hot the tears were on my freezing face.

I force my chin down, blowing out strangled breaths. I see a face shrouded by a hood so dark it is just another tone to the shadows, only angular cheekbones and a sharp nose jutting out from beneath the fabric, their mouth melting into the dark. I shudder, grasping meaningless loose corners of my control only for it to slip away just as fast.

My body jolts as his hand abruptly flattens against my skin, nails scraping my collarbones. A suffocating feeling torments my lungs, unpleasant and smothering. I clench my fists, determined to stay stood, pushing back against the relentless force. I stare with wide, injected eyes, gasping; waiting for the lack of air to effect him too: it never does. A white flash cuts across my eyes and blinds me, causing me to falter, my shoulders forced downward. I straighten again with difficulty, shaking, my lips quivering. My vision sways and the black sky swings above me, the man's face fading and re-focusing. His fingers stay pressed over my heart. I try to stay up, my knees buckling, and I'm still on my feet, my eyes rolling back into my head until the wave hits. It drags me under and crushes my bones to dust and ash, grinds my skull to the wind and no one will ever remember who I was.

This chapter is meant to be short because it is actually only meant to be one with the following chapter, but I decided it would be too long together. So here is this one as a small teaser as to where Will has gone!

thanks for reading,

Martha x