by Sarah Swan
“…and I’d been trying to get in touch with you over and over again, but your phone must have died, or something, because like half my messages said they don’t get through, and for the other half you never reply, but oh my god it’s good to hear from you, fiiinally! You won’t believe what’s been going on here. Class started, and everything was totally boring without you, but then Justin asked me out! Justin! Can you believe it?” I smiled. Kyla had been mooning over Justin for at least the past six months. He’d been frustratingly oblivious to it. “Anyway, that was just this week, and we haven’t gone anywhere yet. But, our first date is on Friday! There’s like a party going on that night, but he said he’d get me before that, so I totally don’t know what he has planned, or what he wants to do, but I’m so excited!” She stopped and took a few deep breaths. “Oh my god, but I’m talking too much. What about you? How are things with you? How’s the new school? Met any cute boys yet? You totally kept me in the dark for way too long, and now you gotta dish everything!”
“Well, actually,” I started to say, but was interrupted by a knock at the door. That was weird. I wasn’t expecting anybody. “Hold on,” I told Kyla, “there’s somebody here.”
“I’m waiitiing,” she said shrilly.
I went to the door, fumbling it open with one hand while I used my shoulder to flick the light on. I still held the phone to my ear with my other hand.
The door opened and there stood Rob. I nearly dropped my phone. He smiled knowingly at me. He was wearing a bright blue hoody. Even through the thick fabric I could make out his very athletic body. His eyes absolutely shone, as always.
“Uhh, hold on a sec,” I said to Kyla. “I’ll call you back.”
“Tracy? Tracy! Tra—” her voice cut off as I ended the call.
“Well,” Rob asked, raising his eyebrows suggestively, “aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“What are you doing here?” I hissed at him, ushering him quickly through the door. If anybody on the floor had seen him… Chris was on the other side of the hall, for crying out loud! I slammed the door shut, and prayed that nobody had noticed.
“You said we should study together,” he shrugged, as he walked in a wide circle around my room, inspecting all my belongings, “so I thought I’d come by.”
“You said that,” I corrected him. I didn’t like the way he was looking so keenly at all my stuff. It felt like he was trespassing in my life. Well, at least I’m not breathless around him anymore, I thought.
He spun around on one heel, looking right at me. He looked the picture of innocence. “Me, you. What’s the difference? Maybe I just wanted to come by.”
“Why would you want to do that?” I asked slowly.
“I never got a chance to apologize,” he offered.
“Apologize? What for?”
He took a deep breath, and for a long moment looked uncomfortable. It was odd, seeing him like that. Strangely, it was a little bit appealing. It made him seem more real, more human. Not like the Adonis I had made him out to be. “I’m sorry for… the way I treated you at the party.” He seemed to be forcing the words out. “I shouldn’t have yelled. I don’t know what came over me. Sorry.” He exhaled the breath he held, and looked at me expectantly. Like he was waiting for something. I didn’t know what to say.
“It’s… no problem?” To be honest, I had forgotten all about that, and it was surprising to think that he still remembered something that must have been so insignificant in his life.
His face lit up, and he was back to his old, confident self. “I was hoping you’d say that. So, Tracy, what’s up?” He sat down leisurely on the edge of my bed.
I blinked. I didn’t know what he was expecting. But, his presence was making me uncomfortable. It was just the two of us, in my little room, and I barely knew him. Apparently, he didn’t have the same problem.
“Something’s on your mind,” he said with surprising perceptivity. “I saw it when you were in class, and at lunch earlier. I thought you might like to talk to someone.” He motioned over to his side. “You can sit down, if you like. I can… I can go over there.” He nodded to my chair after I didn’t move. “Come on, I know something’s on your mind. You wouldn’t have gotten so tied up with Liz and the others otherwise.”
“How do you know about that?” I asked cautiously. I still hadn’t moved from the door.
“I’ve been around them for a while, and I know when something’s going on. I saw them earlier today, and they were the most excited they’ve ever been. But then I found you, sitting all alone and looking so glum by the fountain…”
“I wasn’t glum!” I defended.
He shrugged. “Either way. Something’s going on with you and them. Liz, Madison, Ashley, and Eve just disappeared last night, and nobody knew where. And when I came by your room, you weren’t here either.”
“You came by my room last night? Why?”
“I had a suspicion that, err, something might be amiss. I was relieved when I saw you in class today.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Who are you to take such a keen interest in my life?”
The corner of his mouth twitched up in a mischievous smile. “I like to take care of people who are special to me.”
My knees became weak, and I stumbled forward, nearly falling on my face. I disguised the movement by pretending I had meant to walk to the chair. I sat down heavily, not taking my eyes off Rob. “What do you mean?”
He chuckled. “Oh, come on! Don’t act coy. I wasn’t the only one to have felt something that morning we first met. We had a… moment, didn’t we?”
I coughed. Did we? I thought I’d imagined all that, getting caught up in Rob’s stunning looks and air of confidence. But here he was, sitting on my bed, a scant five feet away from me, on a dark September evening, admitting that he felt something too? This threw a wrench into everything.
“…Tracy?” he prodded gently, and I realized I hadn’t spoken for a long time.
“Oh! Um, well, I don’t really… I don’t really know how to reply to that.” I blushed, and looked at my feet.
Rob smiled, and, of all things, looked relieved. “I’ll take that as a maybe.” His eyes twinkled. “You know, I wasn’t sure about coming here. I was so worried I’d be making a fool of myself.”
“No! Don’t say that.” Somehow, his sincerity made him all the more appealing. The insecurity, the uncertainty, it made him… more like me. Suddenly, I saw past all the outside appearances. I saw past his beautiful eyes, past his magnificent body. Past his strong voice, and past his show of confidence. I saw the young man sitting there, waiting on me, and admitting that he… well, that he liked me.
He smiled. “So, you’ll give me a chance?” he asked shyly.
“What about Liz?” I asked.
“She’s just a friend,” he answered. “Even though she does sometimes act very possessive.”
“But I heard you on the phone. The other night, when I called her? You were the one to pick up. Right?”
He nodded. “Yes, but, like I said, just a friend. There’s nothing going on between us.”
“Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to be stepping on any toes.”
“Trust me.” He leaned forward, looking at me intently. At that moment, I felt something I’d never felt before with a guy. I felt like he was there for me. I felt like he was somebody I could talk to, about everything and anything, and he would listen and take care of me. And that’s all I really needed at that point. Somebody I could talk to, who was here in the flesh, and who wouldn’t laugh or make fun of me. Somebody I was safe with. Even with Chris, it wasn’t like that. “And Tracy? If you want me to go, you can just say so.”
“No,” I whispered, just under my breath. “I want you to stay.”
Our eyes met. We were five feet apart, but I felt something take over, a gentle force that picked me up and lifted me out of my seat. I floated through the air, slowly gravitating toward him, our eyes still locked together. It was lik
e what I felt with Chris, just before I kissed him, except this time it was more right. More intense. I sat on the bed beside Rob, breathless yet again, with my mind blank and his eyes on me. My hand touched his, but I didn’t pull away. Neither did he. Slowly, as if underwater, I moved my head toward him, my lips slowly parting for a kiss…
Crash, bang! A loud blast from outside shook the entire building. Suddenly, the power went out.
“What was that?” I asked, looking around wildly.
We were cloaked in solid darkness. Uneasy memories of the void came back, unbidden.
“I don’t know,” he said, feeling for my hand and taking it. It was slightly reassuring, but still the memories of floating through that horrible, dark emptiness persisted. I bit them down hard. This was nothing like that, I told myself.
An alarm sounded from within the building, loud enough to pierce through the door to my room. It was loud and extremely obnoxious. And slightly frightening.
“What is that?” I asked.
He grunted. “Fire alarm. We have to get out of the building.”
He stood, pulling me up with him. The room was absolutely dark. The only things breaking through the black were the small power lights of my computer and phone. Thankfully, I knew the layout of my room well enough to navigate us to the door. I felt around for the handle, found it, and pulled it open.
Outside was mayhem. With the door open, the sounds of the alarm were no longer being buffered. They were loud enough to cause me to put my hands over my ears. A lone emergency light shone at the end of the hall, barely illuminating the scores of kids rushing down the halls. Most of the doors were open, except for one: Chris’s, at the very end of the hall.
“Come on,” Rob said, pulling me forward. “We don’t want to be the last ones out.”
I let him lead me into the swarm of passersby. In the darkness and commotion, it was hard to tell anyone apart, as all that was visible were the general shapes of their bodies. I passed by Chris’s door, stopped, considering, then turned back. What if he were still inside? The stream of people continued by me, and I realized I had lost Rob. That made my mind up. I banged on Chris’s door. There was no answer. I waited a few seconds, and tried again. Maybe he wasn’t even here? The alarm continued ringing in the background, warning me to hurry out of the building. I felt time being cut short. I tried a third time, but then realized my folly. If he really was inside, and couldn’t hear the alarm, then it was unlikely my knocking would rouse him, either. Just as I was about to turn away, the door opened, and a dark, shrouded shape emerged.
“What’s going on?” It was Chris, and he sounded like he had just woken up.
“Fire alarm,” I said quickly, checking over my shoulder. The majority of the crowd had already passed, leaving only a small trickle of kids rushing by. “Hurry up and get out.”
“Tracy?” he asked.
“Yeah. Come on,” I urged. “We’ve got to get going.” I assumed it was as hard for him to see me as it was for me to see him. “Hurry, before we’re the last ones out.”
He cursed under his breath, but came out the door. Catching him in the bare illumination of the far emergency light, I saw that he was only wearing a robe. It made me grin. It reminded me of my dad. But that was cut short as we both hurried down the stairs, and blended into the milling crowd outside.
All around me, I could hear the uncertainty shared by my peers. There was a palpable disquiet. Nobody seemed to have any idea what was going on. People were mostly talking about the crashing noise that had precipitated all this. There was a common uncertainty about its cause. It was dark outside, too. While the night sky provided slightly better illumination that the dark corridors inside, it was still surprisingly difficult to tell anybody apart. The lights that usually shone around the courtyard from the dorms were all out.
I looked for Chris, but realized that he had also gotten away. I stood by myself, huddling against the growing wind, and waited. There was nothing else to do.
Just as abruptly as this thing started, it was over. The cry of the alarm cut off. Shortly thereafter, with a high pitched beep and whirr, like a machine booting up, the electricity was restored. Lights came back on. A confused and slightly tentative crowd filed back inside. I stood on my tiptoes, looking for either Rob or Chris. Neither could be seen. Having nothing else to do, I followed everybody else inside, wondering if we’d ever get an explanation for what happened.
Chapter Twenty – An Uncanny Pull
For the next few days, I buried myself in my schoolwork. It was my only solace from the uneasy thoughts that disturbed my mind. In the past, it had always helped ease my thinking. There was no uncertainty there, just the work that needed to get done and nothing more. There were no emotions involved, no doubt, and no misunderstandings. There were no people involved. I felt, futile as it were, that if I didn’t think about the crystals, they would just go away.
Of course, things were never that simple. The first day passed without a problem. On the second day, I found my thoughts drifting toward the crystals whenever I wasn’t completely focused on the task at hand. I ruthlessly pulled them back each time. But, my thoughts continued returning to the crystals as the day crept by, more strongly each time. It was an effort to stop myself from running to Liz and begging to be shown the crystals again.
That type of pull frightened me, as well. The best thing I could do was confine myself to my room, not speaking to anybody or doing anything not related to schoolwork. Academics offered an escape, no matter how ineffective it really was. Why was I thinking about the crystals so much? What was it that drew me to them? Especially when I knew their danger?
If it was a matter of willpower, I thought I could continue fighting it. At the same time, I knew I couldn’t isolate myself from everybody else at the school forever. Sooner or later, I would need to face up to everything going on around me.
Which wouldn’t be a problem, I thought slyly, if it just had to do with Liz and the crystal seekers. It was still odd thinking of the group of girls by that name, but that is what Liz proclaimed them to be. Things would have been easy – well, maybe not easy, but definitely simpler – if my concerns only had to do with them. The other issue, of course, had to do with Chris and Rob.
Relationships, especially with guys, had never been my strong suit. I knew I was floundering based simply on how I had reacted. Since the first day of class, Chris had begun texting me non-stop. I ignored his messages. He even came by my room a few times, at which point I froze and pretended I wasn’t there. I just wasn’t ready to deal with him before getting a better grip on things. I knew I had promised him that I would talk about us. But, back then, my feelings were much simpler. Right now, all my emotions were a mess. His were too, I’d bet, especially after my promise to talk to him and then my ongoing avoidance of him.
The problem was that whatever feelings I had for him paled in comparison to what I felt – or thought I felt – for Rob. That night he came by totally changed my perspective on things. Even though nothing had happened between us, I felt the connection was there. It wasn’t something I would have expected. But, I realized there was another side to Rob: one that ran much deeper than the buff body and stunning eyes. There was a person there. He cared for me – however irrational that really seemed. What did I have going for me, that Liz or any of the other girls here didn’t seemingly have more of? Maybe it was just the novelty of my being new that attracted Rob. If it was something so simple, so superficial, so outside of who I was, it diminished my enthusiasm for him. Or maybe it didn’t. I wasn’t sure.
So, I avoided him, too. Thankfully, we had only science class together. The second time that class met during the week I walked in as inconspicuously as possible and right at the bell, hoping he wouldn’t notice me. It didn’t work, however, as he made eye contact and winked. I pretended not to notice. At the end of class, I slipped out before anybody else, quiet as a mouse.
So, I had to balance two different guys at a time whe
n I totally wasn’t prepared for it. So, my pitiful natural instinct kicked in: I ignored both of them.
Thankfully, though, I didn’t hear from Liz or the others for the remainder of the week, either. It was almost an eerie silence, like they were waiting for me to crack and come to them. Perhaps it was just my imagination getting the better of me, but with every day that passed my thoughts started coming back to the crystals with increased intensity. It made it seem that it was just a matter of time before I went back to Liz.
Complicating matters even further, and definitely contributing to why I just wanted to be by myself, was the fact that my headaches had started getting worse. As the week dragged on, it started becoming a chore to get out of bed every morning. I trudged from class to class throughout the day, but the entire time my head was throbbing. The usual clarity with which I could focus on things was gone, replaced by a cloudy haze that lifted only when I thought of the crystals. It made focusing on schoolwork infinitely harder. Yet, that was the only thing I would allow myself to do.
Unfortunately, the amount of work given out at the start of the year was sorely lacking. Everybody was still transitioning from summer mode – even the teachers – so the assignments we got were few and far between. I did my best to read ahead, to bury myself in the material we would cover later in class, but it was empty work. By the time the weekend rolled around, I had reached the extent of how far I could work ahead. It was time to face reality.
Saturday morning, I woke up having hellish nightmares. I dreamt I was back in the void, but this time there was no escape. The crystals had abandoned me. When I tried to draw on their power to save myself nothing happened. I was empty, and alone. Even worse, Ashley’s attack replayed itself over and over again, but this time, when the horrible flame touched my skin, it reached deep into my being until its wicked tendrils wrapped themselves tightly around my soul. It gave a yank, and everything that was me was forever lost, wrenched cleanly out of my empty body by a torturer’s hook.
