The Dead of Night

Lilac

Chapter Thirty Four: Lilac

A bizarre lilac haze seemed to draw over my brain, almost as if someone drew blackout curtains before my eyes and closed myself up, however, I didn't feel as if I were falling asleep--quite to the contrary, I felt as if I were just rising from a long slumber! However, as I began to explore what capacities I had left, I found that I couldn't open my eyes! My fingers could twitch and I could crinkle my toes, just a little; all else I did in vain. 

Screams, horrid, terror filled screams of bloody murder rang about me, and filled my ears with deafening noise! Some screams seemed closer than others, and some encompassed a word or two--others were just plain agonizing wails. 

As my senses began to return to me, I found that my arms were raised and hooked above my head, spread apart in the big, victory 'V', while my legs were spread beneath me in the same fashion--hooked at my ankles. At this revelation, my mind began to reel--where was I? What happened? Why were there so many screams? To these questions, the answers remained elusive, however, my wide-ranging imagination began to shoot out ideas as to the answers--each more gut wrenching than the last.

I  couldn't remember anything after I tackled the man--as my memories began to trickle back to my mind's eye, it was as if I were watching a film of the foretold events, but the projector showing the 'movie' of the recent past simply shut off after I pounced upon the man and left me in complete darkened confusion. The fingers of fear, to whom I was very accustomed, drew a steady, sharp line from the bottom of my calves, up my spine; this sent several shivers of inquietude rocking through my shackled body. Fear's fingers were that of ice, but not just frigid ice--no, this ice was so bone-chillingly bitter that wherever its fingers traveled, the skin of the victim would be left burning in a white hot flame. 

And so, even when the fingers of Fear began to close in upon my dead heart, I began to squirm; I knew I couldn't feel the palpitating of my heart because it couldn't palpitate anymore--it was dead! And yet....and yet! Something waned within my chest and I could discern the phantom beating of my own heart protected within my rib cage. I could feel it through my entire body, and it seemed the world swayed with the 'lub dub' which echoed so eerily through my head and vibrated into my chest. My wrists pulsated in synchronization with the waning of my body's delusionally counterfeit tremors; undoubtedly created by my brain....or maybe it was Fear itself--showing me, for once--compassion. Or, perhaps it was teasing me with my desire to obtain any shred of humanity I had left within myself--taunting me with something that couldn't and wouldn't exist.   

Regardless of the reasoning, my breathing began to quicken, in time with my bodily throbbing, and everything, everything! Began to feel as if it were leading up to some rushed pique of intense dread! 

Then...

It stopped. 

It all just...stopped. 

It was as if I'd fallen into a noiseless, senseless void. The screaming stopped, the tremors which shook my body stopped, and Fear's relentless fingers...well...relented! A strange, orange glow began to break through the lilac haze which draped about my eyes like an enchanting cloud; and the glow didn't pause until my eyelids were pushed open, and I was forced to take in the horror about me. 

At first taking in such a sight, I felt as if I were in a fishbowl. My head was still a bit queasy and I wasn't used to such light! 

Candles lined the walls, but not just candles--huge, bronze candelabras four times my size! The walls looked to be a mix of white alabaster and a type of pink quartz weaving throughout it--overall it was beautiful, and adding to the illumination given off by the candelabras, it gave the entire room a strange glow of cleanliness and old-world charm. The floors were of black slate and connected to the walls via white crown molding stained red and brown in certain places (mostly near the strange, vertical-standing platform which I was hooked to. Nothing was near me, nor beside me, save a fireplace two times my size (in length) upon the opposite wall, to my left. The mantel was engraved upon in gold, and yet the stone of it was a swirling, twirling black granite. Sitting atop the mantel were at least a hundred canopic jars of every color imaginable! Reds, dark greens, lime greens, turquoise, light pink, orange, yellow--I could go on for ages!