Hunted by Darkness

Assylum

Sarah

The lamps sped fast outside the window, a dizzying blur. She didn’t know where they were going; they hadn’t discussed it, but it didn’t seem to matter. A pressure had lifted off her shoulders as soon as she had left the house.

But a new one had taken its place. Comfortable or not, there was a certainty about the future while she was in her parental home. She would go to the support group, she would settle, she would, maybe, go back to school. She would find a job. That was what she had mapped out in her head. Now, all of that has become sand, impossible to hold.

Samson’s head rested on her lap, and she was grateful for its reassuring weight. Even he seemed more relaxed.

But there was more unpredictability in her life. There was the Old Ones, a name she still found difficult to use, even if only in her mind, and there was him, there was Gabriel.

The revelation that he had known her before the accident, before she had lost her memory, had been intriguing but not surprising. And that, that was surprising. She should have been outraged. Shocked, at the very least. Instead, she had accepted it without a second thought. Was that a sign that her subconscious did remember him? There was nobody to clarify that for her.

Gabriel looked back at her every now and then while he had some indistinct conversation with the driver, and all she could do was smile vaguely. Partly, it was exhaustion. Partly, it was fear and doubt. She wasn’t sure she had done the right thing. When her parents had started calling her name, she had half-expected those black shadows to reappear and chase them, but none of that had happened. The image of her mother worrying, crying, plagued her mind and yet she couldn’t shake the sense of relief. Far from the cold of that house, she didn’t feel like she needed to hide under her blanket or lock her door at night.

Gabriel looked back once more, and their eyes met. His eyes reflected the light of a passing car, the gray working like a mirror. They pierced her with such intensity that she couldn’t hold his gaze. Only looking back when he faced forward, she could only wonder at how well they knew each other before. Well enough for her parents to know him, apparently.

They turned left, and the cab finally stopped. Out of the window, she could see a low apartment building with red brick walls and black iron balconies. She looked up at the four floors, the roofs barely visible against the dark sky. A hand pressed softly on her lower back and made her jump out of her skin.

‘This way,’ he said. His voice was soft in the darkness.

She nodded, though he probably wouldn’t have seen the gesture with so little light.

He guided her towards the door, using his other hand to dig into his jacket’s pocket. The keys tinkled like bells and the door made as much noise as a gong.

Gabriel’s studio apartment was on the ground floor. Even with the light on, it was dark. It smelled of cold coffee and old shoes, clothes strewn over the back of every chair and dirty dishes in the sink. Yet, when the door closed behind her, it felt safe.

He dropped the keys noisily onto the counter and stood there, looking around, rubbing his hands against his trousers. She didn’t know what to say, but Samson didn’t seem to feel uncomfortable, he ran across the room and jumped unto the double bed, padding the mattress and curling up into a ball.

‘Samson, come here!’ she said, but he barely lifted his head.

‘It’s ok, don’t worry about it,’ he smiled weakly before starting to work his way around the room picking up clothes off the furniture. ‘Do you want something to eat or drink?’ he asked once he dropped everything in a basket at the corner of the kitchen.

‘No, thanks. I’m just… the bathroom?’

He pointed to the door on the right, past the kitchen. She was glad to lock the door behind her and have a few minutes to herself. Unlike the rest of the house, the bathroom seemed very clean, and smelled of washing powder.

The reflection in the mirror looked back at her with dark under her eyes. How long had it been since she had slept last? It felt like years. It definitely had been weeks since she had had a peaceful sleep, at least since her last night in the hospital.

Her heart beat faster being there, when she thought about the future, even about tomorrow morning. The more she let her mind ramble, the scarier it all seemed. It was the second time those things had gone after her. The first time, she told herself it was just coincidence and, after a couple of days, she had almost convinced herself it had all been a bad dream, but now… there was no way to ignore it, and she couldn’t see past it. There was no plan to be had, no solution, no authority to go to. There was only one person she knew that had any knowledge of what was happening, and that was Essie. The problem was how to find her. Yes, she knew she lived in Southwater, but that was about it.

She jumped when she heard the knock on the door.

‘Are you ok?’

‘Yes, sorry, I’ll be out in a minute.’

She used the toilet and washed her hands and face before leaving.

‘I was starting to worry,’ he said with a quick smirk, ‘Are you ok?’

He didn’t refer to her time in the bathroom, she knew, but she could only shrug.

‘I’m sure you have a lot of questions…’

Sarah put a hand up to his lips, a gesture so familiar, it startled her. The warmth of his breath on her fingers sent a shiver down her spine, and she snapped the limb back to her side.

‘I… I’m just tired, can we just go to sleep?’

Of course, she had many questions. Who was he? How did they know each other? And, most important of all, did he know what had happened to her?

But right now it was all too much. All she could see was the darkness trying to swallow her and she couldn’t bear the idea of adding anything else onto her plate. All she wanted was for it all to disappear, and she believed she could pretend it had. She felt safe right here, right now, truly safe, dwarfing the semblance of refuge she had felt in her room, the modicum of peace she had achieved by blocking the door and burying herself under a blanket.

‘Sure. I’ve changed the bed, so you can take it.’

‘I don’t want to kick you out of your own bed.’

‘Don’t worry about it, I fall asleep on the sofa most nights anyway,’ he shrugged.

‘Thank you,’ she said, lifting her face to him. The way he looked back at her made her fidget, and warmth flooded her face. It was a good thing the lights were dim, she thought to herself.

********* 

Gabriel

He watched her get into bed, only from the corner of his eye, as he spread a blanket over the sofa. He couldn’t stare long enough to see what he wanted to see. Gabriel had watched her for a long time now but from afar. There had been no close contact since that day, and now that they were in the same room, alone, he was nervous about having his questions answered.

There was no doubt in his mind that it was Sarah, it could be nobody else. It was the same black hair and the same strange blue eyes, the same fair skin. What he wanted to see was if it was the same Sarah in the inside too. He wanted to be able to recognize how she twirled a strand of curly hair around a finger when she was nervous or how her lips twitched when she was angry. Would she still insist on keeping the spoon in her cup of tea and did she still dunk her croissants in her coffee? At least one thing hadn’t changed, though, he thought as he saw Samson jump onto the bed and curled down to sleep at her feet.

He lied down on the sofa, the old springs creaking under his weight, his legs propped up on the armrest. The shadows on the ceiling only moved when a car drove by, while he strained to hear the sound of her breathing. Instead, there was the noise of traffic, like a river, and the occasional laugh coming from late party-goers. He had hoped to collapse under his tired muscles, but now he couldn’t even close his eyes. After all the excitement, his heart pounded in his chest. It wasn’t fear this time, at least not fear for his life. Sarah was, finally, in the same room as him. He yearned to touch her, to hold her in his arms, to feel the softness of her lips on his mouth, the warmth of her skin against his. And yet, none of that was possible. There had been more than walls and distance separating them all this time, but it was only now that he recognized the additional barriers.

Somewhere in the deep confines of his brain, he had imagined that once reunited it would all go back to the way things were. He imagined one of those couples running towards each other on a beach, the sunset in the background. He hoped for something less cliche and overly dramatic, but somehow he couldn’t shake the mental picture. It was the last thing he remembered thinking about before falling asleep.

 ***

It was dark. Not dark like those things, not utter lack of light, but the darkness of the night, with the slight illumination of a young moon and partially covered starry sky. A breeze, soft and mild in temperature, made the tall grass sway. It was tall enough to hide the ruins they were looking for. They had thought it would be scary or unnerving, but it was peaceful instead. He could feel her small hand between his fingers as their steps parted the green sea of vegetation in front of them.

‘It should be over there,’ he heard her say. He wanted to turn around and see her face and kiss her and take her away from there, but he couldn’t, he was afraid of what he would find looking back at him. Instead, he kept advancing to where she had pointed to. He could barely remember why they had started looking for that place to start with, but now it was more of an adventure.

Bushes and tall grasses had grown through every crevice the rock had left. Still, they found it, or what was left of it. It seemed much smaller than they had imagined after reading the descriptions. Sure, the perception of size might have changed through the centuries. Now they were used to massive buildings, piercing the sky by hundreds of meters, but back then there were no such marvels. Either way, this was it. The tower they had read so much about.

Gabriel had no doubt, there in the grass laid the cornerstone of the door’s arch, with the sculpted sun, now illuminated by his torch. He knelt and brushed the surface with his fingers. One of the rays had broken off, and others were worn out almost to oblivion, but the overall design was still visible.

They walked in what was left of the construction, which was not much. Bits of the stone walls to the East, maybe a foot tall, surrounding greenish cracked slabs. The corners of what had once been the entrance to the tower had given way to low shrubs and brambles. There was no sign of the stairs that once must have led to the upper levels.

‘Can you feel it?’ she asked, a trembling note of excitement in her voice. Even in the dark, he could see her eyes shining, and he smiled almost without meaning to. He didn’t feel anything, but he said he did anyway. She had always been more sensitive than he was.

‘It should be over there,’ she pointed. On what would have been the wall opposite to the door, under the circling staircase, was meant to be a trapdoor leading to a room underground, a secret space. The mystery was, why was it secret. Surely, the inhabitants of the tower at the time must have hidden there something valuable, at least to them.

In the white glow of his torch, her hand had emerged in front of him like a ghostly apparition to push the tall grasses and weeds apart. They split like a green curtain to reveal chunks of rock that were likely to be remnants of the old building. They were almost flat on the ground, laced with weeds and overgrown vegetation. As the pale hand pulled the first rock off the pile, a scream pierced the night like a crow in the distance.

Gabriel opened his eyes, startled, a cold sweat over his forehead and unable to recognize where he was for a few seconds. The scream had stopped, but he could hear a panting and faint, unintelligible words. He then remembered all that had happened that day. He remembered Sarah and jumped out of his makeshift bed, crossing the open-plan flat in two strides to discover Sarah writhing under the duvet. He dried his hands on his bare legs before leaning over the bed, one knee on the edge, before softly shaking Sarah’s shoulder. Her eyes opened in the darkness, he knew, because she stopped twisting around. She remained frozen for a second, and he wondered if she remembered where she was. Would the sight of his face when she turned around be familiar or would she panic, not remembering where she was or why? He couldn’t tell, when she finally faced him. She just rubbed her eyes with the heel of her palms and sat up, pulling the blanket up with her.

‘Did you have a nightmare?’

She stared down for a few seconds, then slowly turned to look at him, probably only a silhouette against the streetlights piercing the curtains.

‘I don’t… I don’t know. I don’t remember,’ she answered in a soft voice, ‘What time is it?’

Gabriel patted his thighs as if he was checking his pockets, then remembered he was standing there in his underwear. He went back to the sofa and fished into the pile of clothes on the floor for his mobile phone. The back-light showed it was too late to call it night but too early to call it day. Still, it didn’t seem worth it going back to sleep.

‘Almost six o’clock,’ he picked up the clothes from the floor, ‘fancy some breakfast?’

‘Definitely.’

Gabriel tried to tidy up further. Last night he managed to get most of the clothes, but his flat had become a proper mess. He then put the dirty dishes into the small dishwasher and switched everything on, washing machine included. With a sense of accomplishment and evaporating embarrassment now that the apartment didn’t look as if a hoarder lived in it, he went to the chest of drawers and got some clean clothes. Samson jumped onto the floor, making the adjacent floorboards vibrate. He stretched all his length and started turning restlessly around Gabriel’s legs. He knew what that meant.

Was he imagining the hot trail her eyes were burning into his back?

He pulled clean jeans on and then fished into the drawer for a white t-shirt and a jumper.

‘You can take a shower if you want,’ he said now fully clothed, ‘I’ll walk the dog in the meantime.’

‘Sure,’ she nodded in the darkness.

Samson must have known what was happening because he started waggling his tail frantically. Gabriel opened a drawer in the kitchen and pulled out a ball and some small bags and stuffed them in his pocket.

‘We can go out for breakfast when I get back.’

As happy as he had been to find her again, a sense of relief washed over him now that he had closed the door behind him. He had been eager, last night, to explain, to remind her of who he was and what they had been to each other, what they had started to be. In his imagination, their reunion was climactic and passionate, but now that reality was in front of him he wasn’t sure if he could face it now.

But then, she would want to know. At the very least, she must have a million questions about what happened to her. And he was the only one who could tell her, or, rather, what happened during the time leading to the incident. He could recall it with vivid detail, just as he had just dreamt before she woke him up.