Page 69 of A Velvet Kiss After Dark

Her eyes lolled up into her head as she lost herself in a trance. Somewhere from within her a second being seemed to pulse in wait inside her mind—a menace—like a lurking spider. It beckoned her to open her eyes, and when she did the foreign etchings on the doorway seemed familiar to her for the first time. So much so that she was able to easily decipher the glyphs into understandable language.

She read them aloud.

"Speak the truth, and so it shall be."

The truth of what, Tabitha wondered.

And so,shall "what" be? What would happen?

Tabitha stood, her tightly wound leg muscles cramping to be stretched to her fullest height. She began to pace back and forth as her brain whirled at the riddle she'd just unlocked. She'd always been good at detective work. Surely, she could solve this riddle.

Speak the truth, and so it shall be.

After a long while, no answers came to her.

The truth of what? she thought not for the first time.

When she could no longer stand the pacing, she resumed her seat before the obstacle before her and contemplated the riddle before her.

At times, she'd state various conjectures aloud and hoped it'd open the door that would lead to the relic she wished to recover.

"Truth?" she offered to no avail.

"The truth?" she tried, accentuating the first part.

"Be truthful?"

And so she was at an impasse.

She had no Demonish language in her brain to even try speaking the word "truth" in the local language, and she was no polyglot.

For the first time in her life, Tabitha wished she'd studied philosophy versus journalism when she'd gone to college. Perhaps the answer lie in some esoteric Plato passage or in a letter from Socrates.

Time stretched forward once more and so Tabitha closed her eyes as her vision swum in green limelight from the spider that lurked inside her mind.

What does this mean, she thought?

The, a voice whispered inside her brain. Her own or someone else's? She did not know. But she heard it clearly.

"What does thou desire the most in the world?"

A far-fetched question for certain.

Freedom from poverty? From suffering? From pain? Power? Control? Maybe just freedom in general.

But those were more ambiguous iotas. Archetypal suggestions made by humanity who coveted such notions. What did she, Tabitha Burke, a gossip columnist from the little state of Missouri desire most in the world? What was her truth?

She thought of her father. A nearly vague figure at this stage in her life, a person whom she could never forgot.

The truth was…

"I'd like to know what happened to my dad," she said out loud.

As she spoke her words into existence, a powerful answer called out. A low-pitched boom sounded from beneath her feet and left her teetering side to side. Tabitha held her hands out to catch her from falling.

Whoosh.

The door in front of her suddenly spewed dust into the air and began to crumble before her very eyes. Piece by piece the stone fell to rubble. Until nothing stood in her way but a pile of rock.

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