GLASS SOULS
|||||
CLAIRISA CAMPBELL
Copyright © Clairisa Campbell 2020
All rights reserved. The right of Clairisa Campbell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.
No part of this publication may be altered, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including, but not limited to, scanning, duplicating, uploading, hosting, distributing, or reselling, without the express prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of reasonable quotations in features such as reviews, interviews, and certain other non-commercial uses currently permitted by copyright law.
Disclaimer:
This is a work of fiction. All characters, locations, and businesses are purely products of the author’s imagination and are entirely fictitious. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, places, or events is completely coincidental.
GLASS SOULS by CLAIRISA CAMPBELL
Table of Contents
PART ONE
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
PART TWO
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
EPILOGUE
SPECIAL THANKS
PART ONE
◊
Ignorance
She lives in my home, but the others don't know.
She shares my hair.
My smile,
My face,
I have her voice, for she cannot speak.
She can only move when I move.
She is bound to my will.
She helps me with my hair, lets me know when I'm ready.
And all she can do is wait until I look her way again.
She's always there even when I don't want her there.
I should know but then I don't.
She is I and I am she.
She and I are merely reflections.
Ones we are both forced to see.
-C. Campbell
PROLOGUE
♦
Nightmare
THE NIGHTMARE CONTINUED THE same way every time. The dark room loomed, silent and chilling. On one side of the mirror, I saw myself bound to a wall, wet and shivering. On the other side, I saw myself unconscious in a forest, beaten and bruised. I could see both images of me at once, flashing back and forth. Each version of me sent great pain through my body. While I was trapped against the wall, a cold whip stung my skin. It cut through my muscles, burning and stinging but leaving nothing more than surface welts and small scratches. In the woods my joints ached, and my chest burned. I was covered in small sharp stings, as though I were wrapped in tiny shards of broken glass. Pain, sadness, and terror tore through me as I was forced to watch my two forms of torment every night.
Both on the wall and in the woods, the atmosphere was dark and suffocating. How was there two of me? Where had I been before? Trying to contemplate the possibilities made my head spin. Maybe I understood what the dream meant long ago but my body hurt too much for my mind to focus any further this time.
The cuts along my body throbbed, the pain worsening with the cold. I couldn't breathe, and my head pounded, making everything around me worse. Dread lingered over me. I looked around the dark room for salvation, but no one could be found. The more I stared into the dark, the farther my heart sank and the more hopeless I felt.
My woods self managed to curl up in the fetal position, which only made my pain worse. That pain jolted me to my other view. Switching between each view between blinking. Each blink bringing different pains with it.
Hanging on the stone wall from tight chains on my wrists, my muscles were tense. I struggled to see into the dark void.
Deep laughter sounded near me. After each chuckle, the sound of a whip followed, and the pain coursed through my body. I opened my mouth to scream, yet nothing came out. My mouth and throat were dry and sore, had my voice been exhausted? I never saw what led to this point, so I didn’t think I’d ever learn why. The shadow of a large man came into my vision. He stepped closer and his feet stopped on a mirror that laid on the floor in front of me, visible due to the small, unseen light source behind him. The glass shattered beneath his feet.
I shivered against the cold stone.
The man continued to advance. He started to speak, and I couldn’t make out what he was saying. It sounded foreign, almost backwards.
“Lleweraf ssecnirp...” The man hissed.
The word “farewell” stuck with me even though I had never heard the word pass his lips.
Fear soon followed in my thoughts. He was talking to me. Wasn’t he?
Farewell.
Farewell.
Farewell.
He drew closer, his large frame shadowing me from what little light was in the room. He reached for me. I felt frozen in place. Everything seemed to slow down around me, each second an eternity as his hand moved an inch closer to me. Flashes of more pain lanced through me. Suddenly another figure appeared behind the man. The second shadow grabbed the invader by the neck, trying to drag him away from me. A third smaller man followed. He grabbed the attacker’s shoulders. The two smaller men were thrown back by the first man’s large arm. After they fell to the ground, the attacker’s large hand continued back toward me
The attacker seemed to grasp at me with more ferocity than his last attempt. As I feared, it connected with my throat, cutting off my air.
I gasped for air as the large man tightened his grip. Soon, I had felt no pain from my neck. I was able to breathe again, and my lungs burned from the icy air that lingered from the last breath I took. The sound of my lungs fighting back against his hand, hoping to sneak even a small amount of air between his grasp, echoed in my head accompanied by the pain of his fingertips digging into my skin. The air from my surprised gasp stopped in my mouth as the burning began. A light flashed from the large man’s side forcing his hand away from me. Pain returned for a moment but the chill from the air brushing my skin was welcome.
The attacker’s attention was torn from me and relief flooded my lungs as they took in the air they begged for. The light faded and was replaced with a shadow moving from where the light came from. The man ducked back into the shadow of the darkroom fighting back the smaller faceless form. The third shadow broke off from the fight and ran to my side. The chains around my wrists rattled, then with a loud crash one of my arms fell to my side. Had he broken the chain? I still felt some of its weight on my arm, but it wasn’t propped up anymore. The small shadow held me until the sound of the chain falling echoed through the room. The large shadow returned to me, possibly reacting to the chain being undone, this time moving faster than normal. The small shadow holding me was torn from me and I felt my whole-body fall pulling on my still chained arm. I didn’t fall far, in mid movement the large man reached for me and I felt that I had been pulled from the wall. The chains around my other arm breaking away from the wall. The pain from this movement was quick but strong, before I had fully realized that my arm was now broken, I was thrown to the ground. The floor felt colder than the air in my lungs. A chilled breath escaped my lips, frosting the shards of glass near my face.
Soon, flashes of warm, wet grass fazed into view. The sensations from the stone room melded together wi
th the sensation of grass against my skin, making each blade soothe and sting me all at once. I laid on the grass and tried to gather my thoughts. There was a sense of familiarity here. I felt like I had been here before, this forest, this meadow of sorts surrounded in tall red brown trees, felt safe despite the pain. Here there was no one choking me, I wasn’t chained to the wall behind me and I wasn’t as cold.
I felt warm and I felt safer, despite feeling pain that kept me from moving. I did all I was able to do without pain and I blinked.
I blinked ensuring that this place was actually safe.
A first blink made me question if I truly was safe.
The second blink made me hopeful that was true.
A third blink broke that illusion. This nightmare had happened before, and I knew its outcome.
That brought me back to the stone room. I was laying on top of a mirror, my body unable to pull myself from its surface. Panicking I tried to move but instead of leaving the mirror, I was sinking into it.
There was a man, smaller than the one that attacked me before. He moved from the shadows in the back of the room to my side. He tried to lift me up, but I kept sinking deeper. I felt the tingle from the cold mirror climb up my skin until I was surrounded in cold and then numbness.
Darkness was all the mirror led to. Above me the figure, still just a shadow with no features, attempted to pull me up. Below me, inside the mirror was nothing. I was being pulled into the nothingness. I drifted farther and farther away from the small light illuminating the room behind him. The faceless man held my limp body close to him. I looked up to see myself in the man’s arms. I was out of my own reach. My physical self was in his arms, but I was still falling inside the mirror. The small shape kneeled above me, cradling the form in his arms. Looking up to see where I started, a small form covered in white and red was curled up in his arms. Was I wearing white then? How did I not see any of the red…any of the blood? As I sunk deeper my mind wandered a bit, looking up but not seeing much except for the light from where I started being swallowed by darkness and distance.
My awareness came back in a jolt. I looked above me and saw the blurred image of trees. My body was still sore and trembling. The dirt below me felt wet and I looked around seeing I was lying in mud with a red tint to it. Unable to turn my head, I shifted my eyes. Not long after, the blurred trees around me turned black. Darkness overcame my vision yet again.
Had someone been there with me? I thought I could sense someone. As suddenly as the presence was there, it slipped away. I was alone again.
Everything continuously felt, so real, so cold, so painful. Could it really be a dream?
Deep inside of me, I knew part of it was. The fact I could never question nor prove that the rest wasn’t true made me feel worse.
I floated in darkness endlessly after that. I was no longer able to see the forest nor the young man holding me.
Nothing but darkness…
~
Buzzing brought me back from that darkness. I smacked my head against the bed frame. The clock’s numbers glared at me, declaring it six o’clock in the morning.
“Oww,” I squeaked and rubbed my forehead, “Damn bedpost…”.
I looked back at my, now perspiry, pillow.
“Damn it. Not that dream again,” I stuttered, cursing the nightmare. The alarm clock blared obnoxiously, drowning out my muttering.
I looked at the footlocker at the base of my bed, recovering from the lingering feeling of the nightmare. Going through my usual process. It had felt so real. Every moment felt like I had lived it without remembering it. Perhaps part of it was something I had lived. I was in a forest, in pain at one point, according to the others who tried to explain things to me. The stone room was a mystery. The men and the whip couldn’t be real. Pain from the scars lanced through me, but my body was unmarked. As usual, I was at a loss of what to think.
Looking at the same footlocker in every home I lived in. A constant shape in my view every time. It had been my mothers, then I took it to college then I took it here. My only consistent piece of furniture. A pseudo comfort object as it was. I could always count on it being there. Waiting for me to get it back together every night.
My eyes finally adjusted to the dark room. I lifted my hands into view. They were dripping with sweat and shaking uncontrollably. I stared at them for a few minutes as my eyes continued to focus. I clenched my fingers into fists, holding back tears of fright and self-loathing. Like a scared child, I wanted to call out for my mom. But I was alone. There was no point in trying anymore.
I would have to remain alone. Pathetic, weak, and afraid. It was like I didn’t even wake up from the dream at all.
ONE
♦
Juliet
I WIPED THE SWEAT from my brow as I stood up. My alarm clock still rang frantically, and the sound filled me with relief since it had pulled me out of the nightmare before was scared awake by the ending again tonight. I had to focus. My day started with enough time to get ready, so I could walk to the campus. I didn’t have more time to try to shake off the darkness that still lingered in the corners of my mind. Whenever I let my guard down, whenever something new happened in my life or even when I tried to forget that anything was wrong, more nightmares would congregate in the depths of my mind. Only resurfacing when it was most inconvenient.
I smacked the snooze button, not wanting to obey its howl, and looked around my empty apartment. Most of the room could be seen in one pass. A small open floor plan with a small kitchen close to the only decent-sized closet. My bed was close to the only window, the window itself was attached to a fire escape that wrapped around the building. I could sit in the windowsill and look out to the canal that was only a few feet away from the entrance of the apartment. Favoring the back walls of the room my interior decorating left most of my furniture hugging the west and south walls, leaving a few feet between me and my art desk along the south wall, across from the bathroom and the aforementioned closet. Just enough room in the kitchen for a small dining table, close enough to nearly be considered an island, not leaving much room to use the stove. My expertise was with the microwave, so I never had to worry about that much. There was no seating beside my desk chair and a small stool that sat by the closet.
Forcing myself to fight my pillow’s gravitational pull, I stood to face the window at the apartments west side. I saw the majority of the view since my bed was parallel to the window, as my bed was about the size of two of these windows. Then I opened my blinds to the skyline of Venice.
I expected a nightmare on my first night in Italy. Sure, Italy was a center for art and culture and yes, my school offered to send me here. But despite thinking that I couldn’t handle more nightmares provoked by change, I decided to go, regardless of my past. I had two wishes. The first was to have a nightmare-free night, or to be allowed to control the dream in some way. To have the ability to run or fight back.
Even the ability to understand the dream would be a blessing.
My second wish was to prove that I could do something worthwhile, to make up for the time I lost when I was a child. In coming here, I could face my nightmares long enough to at least achieve that dream.
These were the long-term wishes; my third, short-term wish was that I could go back to bed since the nightmares kept me from getting any decent amount of sleep.
Deciding to ignore my own wishes I closed the curtain and got ready for class. I started with a cup of coffee. The coffee pot was cheap and old, but it came with the apartment and it worked. After I had woken up a little more, I hopped into my tiny shower. The water fell over me as I tried to force a feeling of calm.
Finally feeling like a human being again, I pulled my hair over my shoulders. My dark cocoa brown hair fell nicely into place. Brown hair and brown eyes, like always, I hoped. Growing up having to fudge my appearance and never seeing much more than the ends of my hair and what I could see looking around didn’t help my wor
ries. For all I knew my self-induced stress could have given me early greying on the top of my head. Thinking about myself allowed the feelings of fear to come back.
I kept my appearance simple. Anything to avoid looking into a mirror.
Dread still lingered in my mind. I wanted to wash it down the drain too, but it was like an infection in my mind.
For an object so harmless, I still shivered, knowing the mirror was there. Just through the curtain, permanently bolted to the wall, covered in a towel. My heart pounded. Even while in the shower, I couldn’t relax. I rubbed my arms over and over, huddling towards the back-shower wall. My stomach cramping in pain. All the things I’d gone through back home.
I couldn’t remember much of my childhood, except for one thing: that deep fear of mirrors. Maybe that's why my dream featured one all the time. Maybe not. Doctors had their theories. There had been one that involved the idea that I had been thrown out of a truck window, but I wasn’t too sure that was all of it.
I was told the story after I had gotten my important memories back.
‘Rayne, honey, there was an accident when you went on your trip to Lake Tahoe. Something happened, and the truck wrecked. They found you in the forest. That’s why you lost your memories.’
I was 14 when mom told me that. The four years before that I had to relearn who my parents were, what my name was, even what my hobbies had been.
I never recalled the accident itself, only the slightly familiar forest that appeared in my dream. Nothing else came back; even now 12 years later.
Some of my other memories had returned in small bits, I relearned the faces and names of my family and former friends. I learned I had a bit of a talent for art and everything else fell into place. I graduated and went to college for fine arts at a small university back home. Now here I was, studying art abroad in Venice.
Yet, even though things seem good, my fear followed me.
Glass Souls (Reflection Book 1) Page 1
