Page 167 of Phobia
Iknewit.
“Collin!” Brianne screams. I slam my hands over my ears to block out the magnifying screech.
“Bri?” Collin shouts back, sounding further away. My stomach plummets.
“Uh, can anyone see?” Lenny so helpfully asks.
“No, Len. None of us can see a fucking thing.” That was Kane. I’d laugh if I wasn’t about to piss my pants.
I squeeze my thighs together and shove a hand between them, needing as much pressure as I can to keep my urineinmy bladder. Jesus, I should’ve gone to the bathroom first.
Actually, I should’ve just locked myself in there until this was all over.
“Where’d that guy go?” That was definitely Lenny. Shoes scrape across the floor. Scuffles and the drag of nails scoring over the porous cement.
“Did you forget none of us can see?!” Collin shouts, sounding so far away.
“We should try to stay together,” I try to say, but my voice comes out in a meek whisper.
“What! Oh, fuck, what is—” Screaming silence descends. My breath halts in my lungs, mid-inhale. I choke on the pressure and the sound of my raging heartbeat hammering in my ear canals.
A slow, yet impossibly rapidchug, chug, chug.
I plaster every inch of myself against the damp wall, still pressing harder even as my feet slip.
“Kane?” I rasp on a cough.
Nothing.
“Kane! Lenny?”
Silence.
I can hear the sound of my own panting, loud and rushed as it fills the staticky air. I slowly slide my foot out, away from the wall, hovering it around. When I meet no resistance, I slam my molars together and force myself to push off the wall.
Leaving the stability makes my skin crawl. Something rushes in the distance—a long, echoing sound that grows closer with every step. I swing my arms out around me, blinking rapidly with wide eyes in hopes I can catch a single glimpse ofanything.
I’ve never experienced a darkness so absorbent, likenothingexists but me inside a black hole.
It’s the most terrified I’ve ever felt. To be so hopeless and helpless.
As stupid as it is, I close my eyes. Psychological torture is one of their things. This is all this is. A sensory deprovision. A way to knock me off balance.
You can do this, Madi.
Even the voice in my head sounds unconvincing.
“Guys? Are any of you here?” The heel of my palm slams against something, sending me reeling back with a scream. My arms flail as my feet slip, and I tumble to the floor. There’s a creak and a snap, followed by a deep, shuddering groan, like a heavy door being shut.
Something long and thin wraps around my bicep. The foreign touch rips a scream from my throat—a sound so brutal, it splits my vocal cords, and I think I taste blood. I try to yank out of the hold, using every ounce of strength I have, but it’s fruitless.
Wetness trickles between my fingers, making me gasp. It oozes over my palms. I push down to get away from it, but it starts flowing faster, soaking my jeans in an instant. The sound of it dripping somewhere in the distance is a focal point as I trudge through it on my hands and knees, swallowing down gags as the thick sludge coats my fingers.
The smell of sulfur wafts in my nose, making me gag. My whole stomach convulses as it only grows more potent. It clogs the air, and I swear if I could see, there’d be a haze in the air.
My chest contracts with the effort it takes to inhale, the stench so repulsive, my body begins to fail its most basic instincts.
My limbs slow of their own volition, even as my mind is screaming at me to keep moving toward what must be a drain. A door. Something—anything.But I can’t think. Not when everything is burning.
