Talia's Torment

Chapter 6: Bedtime and Bad Dreams.

Talia knew she was asleep, she had to be.  The feeling of watching her own body could only be relegated to a dream.  At least that was what she kept screaming to herself in order to try to tamp down on the panic that was seizing her heart.  It was racing like a freight train giving all it’s worth.  It kind of reminded her of a sickening version of that children’s story about the train giving all it had to make it up the hill full of toys.  She had to find some way to snap out of it, before this dream went where she knew it always inevitably did.

                Feeling the panic surge through her system she watched in helpless horror as her mind yet again relived the past she fought so hard to push down.  She needed to keep sane and it seemed that tonight her mind had other plans and so the ever present nightmare began again.

                Reliving that monster’s “handiwork” always started this way, with sleep.  She would feel herself slipping into the ether but there was nothing she could do to stop it, always having avoided that perilous dream world for so long that she couldn’t escape as it dragged her to its dark depths.  It was the one battle she had yet to overcome and defeat, always coming at her weakest point and claiming victory with a surge of panic and waves of dread.  It seemed to be a never ending movie reel flash back of the one pivotal moment in her life that had changed her forever.  The one she could never escape from, once unconscious it would claim her again and again.

                So she watched, and tried in vain to wake herself before the nightmare reached its most terrifying moments, before she would see his appearance before her again.  It never worked, but maybe this time she could wake before the screams woke her and Tanner this night, doubtful.

                Floating above herself she always thought this was the weirdest part, seeing herself unconscious in the chair.  She knew it had been that way because she had lived it, but seeing her that way when she knew she had not seen it in real life always left a surreal feeling to the whole ordeal before the true terror would grip her.  Yet, there she was tied to the chair, head lolled to one side as if a rag doll propped up like some forgotten toy left to the ages.  She could hear her heart beating in her chest as it was beating in her body now, slowly gaining momentum in her dream and her physical form together.  Soon she heard it, the sound that would forever haunt her, seemingly so innocent before yet now totally full of menace, he was coming and he was whistling.   It was what always woke her dream self, the whistle that she would learn to hate, the seemingly innocent song of childhood forever tainted by a deranged individual who seemed to take pleasure in the stiffening of her spine as she woke realizing that she was not tied to a chair in a room dimly lit by a singular bulb hanging bare from the ceiling.

                She was fully dragged into the memory now, as her dream body woke her perspective went with it, from hovering, trapped inside this helpless body of her former self.  Try as she could she was never able to wake before this it seemed like her mind wanted her to remember that it had actually happened.  At least this nightmare fuel would serve as another bolster to her determination to stop the demon she now saw rounding the chair behind her slowly coming into her vision as he leaned forward to grab her shoulders yet again.  He leaned around her so she could see his face next to hers, and he was smiling.  He gave her that same breathtaking smile that had won her over, made her feel like she was the luckiest girl on the planet, but now his eyes were cold.  They changed the whole meaning to that smile with just that little detail.  It went from the smile of a charming admirer to the smile of the hunter who has caught his prize and now the fun would begin.  It caused her heart to skip a beat and seem to freeze within her chest in an instant.  She knew somehow that this look held all her future and was slowly crushing it with glee.  It would forever haunt her now, but for the moment she was stuck in the past and it was crushing her lungs as they fought to let loose the scream that she knew would come.

                “Looks like someone is finally awake, just when I was thinking you were going to sleep through the night.”  “I’m so glad you decided to join me tonight, you know how I hate to wait.”

                His voice was like oil, sliding over her spine and making her shiver with the uncomfortableness that it caused.  “Laurent, this isn’t funny.  Let me out of this, come on, untie me.”  She heard the fear in her voice and from the way he slowly closed his eyes and seemed to savor it she could tell he did too.  It was how she knew that this was not some game that they were playing, they weren’t getting kinky, this was quickly approaching something else, and as he opened his eyes and leveled them at her the malice in his expression froze her voice and her heart with the fear it caused.  She was simply trying to remember how to breathe now as he slowly walked towards her clicking his tongue like he was scolding a child, no not a child more like a dog.  His face held no more of the compassion or seeming love she had seen over the last few weeks.   Rather, now it held a cold determination and sickening thrill that he seemed to have trouble keeping reined in as her face paled.