Page 6 of Shadow & Stars
Harsh voices. A dripping tap. Damp. Cold. My wrists hurting, something too tight around them.
More wafts of ammonia, darkness bleeding over the colors of the living room. Those cracks widened, tearing through everything. The room tremored, the furniture taking a tumble. Ornaments shattered. The windows imploded. Invisible claws tore chunks out of the walls, some of the ceiling caving in.
Oh, God. Oh, God.
I scrambled to my feet to protect my grandma. But she picked up her crossword book again as the room collapsed around her. Oblivious, living in the dream, so far removed from all of this.
It’s not really happening…
I groaned somewhere in the distance, those gruff voices spewing more shit I couldn’t make out.
Fuckers. I’d kill the fuckers.
Grandma looked up, chewing on the tip of her pen in thought. Her face contorted, melting like hot wax.
Sorrow hit me like a bulldozer. Real or not, it didn’t change the curdling in my guts, and the sudden spike of grief. I fell to my knees again, overcome with sadness.
“Please…” I tried, my eyes hot. “Please don’t… Please don’t…”
I’d watched her draw her last breath, her light stolen from my life. I couldn’t take this. I couldn’t watch her melt.
“Come on, you bastard. Wake up!” a man shouted.
Ammonia, thick and invading. The warmth of the room gone, cold licking across my skin.
Grandma’s features were gone now, globules of wax dripping down her body.
I closed my eyes, throwing up steel walls. “No. I won’t watch. I won’t?—”
A sharp gasp and my eyes shot open, my chest on fire.
“About time!” A man complained, spraying spittle in my face.
Someone laughed.
It took me several beats to come to a competent level of awareness under a weak spotlight above my head. Every inch of my head pounded, my throat as dry as sand. I licked my cracked lips, desperate for water and some headache pills. Small waves of nausea rolled through me.
Man, this sucked.
“Get him some water,” Spittle Guy ordered. My eyes adjusted to his bearded face. Scars cut across his sun-burned red complexion, while dark eyes scrutinized me.
“Why?” another guy asked.
“Because I said so.”
A tear in my jeans revealed part of my skin glittering like the gold dust falling in this room. I was still sparkling.
“Whatever.” The huffy guy stomped off.
A bit more with it now, I scanned my surroundings. It was dirty, some kind of abandoned warehouse with lots of pipes and a metal stairway on my left leading to a door. Two more big doors were on my right, their windows boarded up. Shafts of moonlight spilled through a broken skylight, the night sky clear and full of stars. Butterfly’s dust fell through that aperture, making a pretty carpet on the floor.
There were five people around me from what I could make out.
“What…” I tried, traces of ammonia still burning in my nose.
Did they wake me up with smelling salts?
“No damage was done to your head,” Spittle Guy said. “Must have a skull of fucking iron.” He chuckled.
