The clamp was paralyzing. It froze my lungs and stoppered my mouth shut. For a moment I stood there like a statue - suspended in time.
"Let me go now." I gasped through the silence.
A moment of stillness fell heavily around me as reality hit like a number eleven bus. Is this icy hand really owned by my admittedly slightly weird roommate? There was a snarl, I scrunched my eyes up tight waiting for pain, then a whimper or whine. Suddenly I felt a rush of blood race down to my ankle, I looked down just in time to see the hand crawl back under the deep blue duvet. Whines turned into full sobs.
"Just go. Just leave." came the voice from the duvet. It was remarkably like a wolf howl.
Suddenly thrown into motion I staggered out the door and down the corridor. I followed the hall round until I reached a glass door.
'Fire Escape' It was then followed by lots of translations and in my clustered mind the first thing I thought was - why the hell would somone who needed a 'escalier de secours' be in this dump?
I pushed my shoulder against the cool glass until it opened, my toes froze on the damp tiles on the outside. It was a small balcony with winding iron spiral staircases going up and down. I wiped down the bottom step with my pyjama sleeve to clear off all the rain water and gave up quickly by just siting down anyway.
'What the hell had happened just then? Should I tell someone? Was it even Dan under the duvet?' I'd heard enough of my thoughts by then so I decided to go back in.
'I'll ask him today about it.' The thought of it was terrifying.
The door to the room looked scarier and more intimidating than it had done before, the dark wood stood out too much next to the pale lemon walls and the golden number 12. I lifted my hand which seemed to have turned as heavy as stone and knocked.
"Hello?" Said Dan in his casually cool voice. I couldn't move, shock, fear, suprise -whatever stopped me in my tracks. He came to the door and peaked round the threshold.
"Hi" I said looking down at the carpet, feeling suddenly stupid and embarrassed in my soaking pyjamas.
"You can come in you know... It's your room too." He said making desperate efforts to gain eye contact with me. That was the invitation I needed as it definately didn't feel like my room anymore. I stepped cautiously inside and climbed up onto my bunk, hoping that being higher than him would make me feel better. He paced up and down the narrow room.
I watched him pace for a little while, but then my eyes met the small dresser in the corner of the room. It was next to the snall prison-like window, and from all that I could remember about it before was that it had been left empty and untouched. Now it had an assortment of make up lined up neatly on the wooden top. Mascaras, lip glosses, eye liners and foundation - was it Dan's make up? I seriously considered this possibility until my eye caught a silver mascara. 'Voltori' It said in black down the side of the square bottle. It was mine... I had bought the mascara on an areoplane to spain with my Mum. It was from the official twilight cosmetics range and at that stage I was mad on anything to do with twilight. I turned around and looked at my bedside shelf, the nail varnish that I had been using just the other night was gone.
"Why is my make up there?" I asked pointing to the table. He stopped pacing and looked up at me.
"I thought it would be better, it was all crammed on that little shelf - it could all fall on you in your sleep if your not careful." He said in a calm smooth murrmur.
"Right..." I said - his eye contact with me made me a bit worried. Why couldn't he have asked me to move my stuff? And anyway why should it bother him in the first place! I looked over to the clock above the door- 10am.
"Well I am going to breakfast. Coming?" I instantly regretted saying the 'coming?' bit - to be honest I was getting a tad irratated by Dan.
"No - you go. I have a few thing to do." He replied as he picked his matress up off the floor and pushed it on to the bottom bunk bed. I nodded and left.
Once I was got out the door I could of hit myself - 'why didn't you ask about what he did to you this morning Una?' My subconscious gibbered. Right - after breakfast - i'll ask him.
