Time Limit

Camille

HORROR AND HYSTERIA

The bed was luxurious, warm and soft.  The fluffy white sheets made me feel I was sleeping on a cloud.  Full of fantastical thoughts, I drifted off to sleep.

It wasn't until I heard the scream that all happy thoughts vanished.

————

The scream, long and terrifying, pierced through my eardrums and sent a chill down my spine.  Who was that?  I cocooned myself in my blankets and shivered. 

I don't know what possessed me to go and investigate.  Perhaps it was my desire to be my dream self, the brave Cinder.  Perhaps it was that I knew I would regret not helping whoever needed me.  In the end, I regretted not staying where I was.

I tugged on a bathrobe and put on a pair of slippers.  I creaked open the door cautiously and walked out.  The dark corridor loomed before me, pitch black and terrifying.  Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw a patch of cold white moonlight.

Krystal's door was wide open.  She lay on the ground, unmoving.  I didn't want to look.  Couldn't look.  Yet I still did. 

I still did.

Step by step, almost in a trance, I walked towards her.  The world spun in slow motion.  With every step, I became more and more certain, and more and more afraid.  I stopped at Krystal's motionless body.

Her startling blue eyes were glazed over, and her forehead glistened with sweat.  Her chest moved up and down weakly.  Something white was around her neck- a pillowcase.  "Krystal?" I whispered, knowing it was no use. 

"Krystal?"

She looked up at me, her gaze so horribly, agonisingly insane.  She whispered something.  A phrase I mulled over and over. A phrase I would hear in my nightmares. 

A phrase I would never forget.

"AVE OMNIA VATES."

Her eyes closed and her feeble breathing stopped.

Somewhere in the darkness, I could have sworn I saw a flash of white teeth as someone smiled.

But I was too cowardly, too afraid, too terrified, to chase after.

_____

I floated in a hazy cloud.  My eyelids fluttered open and closed repeatedly, allowing me to drift off to dreamland, unwillingly letting the incessant beeping of my alarm clock drag me into consciousness.

I stumbled out of bed and looked around in confusion.  I wasn't at home.  This wasn't my alarm clock.  This was Fandom Academie and Violet was the beeping.

Krystal.  Krystal.  Krystal.

Reality hit me like a wrecking ball.  The darkness, that horrible voice, Krystal!  Krystal was dead. She was gone.  It couldn't be.

No, it couldn't be! 

But it was.  I stood there for an eternity, not moving.  It wasn't true, it couldn't be true. It just wasn't possible.

Hot tears dripped down my frozen cheeks.  The world spun around me.  I gripped something- I didn't know what.  I let the tears flow like a river of lava in a land of ice.

_____

Someone barged into my room.  Someone grabbed my hand and dragged me away.  I didn't know.  Didn't care.  The tears blurred my vision.

I found myself in the dining hall, a bowl of soggy cereal in front of me.  I rubbed my eyes.  It was like I was dreaming, only half-conscious.  I couldn't care less.  I didn't care if my socks were mismatched, or if my hair was a mess, or if I looked like a wreck.  Krystal was dead.

I lifted the cold metal spoon to my lips and forced myself to choke down a few tasteless kernels of cereal.  Around me, everyone else was chatting and laughing, oblivious to the zombie of a girl sitting in a corner. 

It just wasn't right.  How could they all be smiling when- when Krystal was gone?

I didn't sure what really happened last night.  Perhaps I screamed.  Or fainted.  I didn't know.  All I knew was, Krystal was dead.  Killed.  Why?  Who?  How?  Was it real?  Or was it all a nightmare?  No, it couldn't be.

Just then, I felt a warm hand on my shoulder.  Hayden?

I felt my lips mumbling something.  "Hayden... Krystal..."

Hayden patted my shoulder soothingly.  "It's okay, everything's okay..."

"No, no, no..." 

No, everything was not all right.  Krystal was gone.  Didn't anybody care?

I leaned on Hayden's shoulder, drifting off to sleep again.  I heard Hayden's sympathetic voice.  "You must be tired."  He sounded rather strange, I thought.  Rather high pitched.  But then I didn't know.  Was there anything in the world that I did know?

"Oh, and Camille?  I know this probably isn't the best time for you but would you like to go to the Opening Ball with me?"

The opening ball?  What ball?  And how could he be thinking of a ball at a time like this?  And did he think I'd say no?

"Yes, yes," I murmured.  "But..."

Images of Krystal were flashing through my brain.  Her smile, her laughter, her life force shining, glowing.  She was as young as we were, so undeserving of death, so much life left to live.

And now it was over.

My stomach heaved and I lolled forward.  I was dying, dying, like Krystal....  No!  Warmth was trickling down my chin.  Blood.  Blood.  My own blood.

I was fluttering to the floor, about to lie in a pool of crimson, like a butterfly about to flit its wings for the last time.

A scream pierced through the air.

It was long, loud, awful.  It was a scream of horror, of terror, of fear.  The world spun, stopped, froze.

I don't know what happened.  But I was staggering out, screaming.  "Krystal?  Krystal!" 

I almost didn't recognise my own voice.  My eardrums were splitting, the tears were flowing, there were hands all around trying to grab me, I was struggling, kicking, screaming, about to drown under a layer of darkness.

"Tell... me... when... it's... over," I wheezed.  "If... if the high was.... worth the pain."

My throat was dry, so dry.  And now my lips were parting to form words.  Words I didn't know.  Words so unfamiliar, so horrifying, so strange.

But words I had heard before.

"AVE OMNIA VATES."

My lips were warm, so warm.  I tasted blood.  I was right, I was dying.

Tears flooded and flowed down my cheeks, hot and blinding.  I couldn't see, couldn't hear, the world was disappearing...

I crumpled.  I fell to the ground with a thump.  Pain shot though me and my head was throbbing dully. 

The floor was cold.  Ice cold.  Cold like Krystal.  Krystal.  "Krystal!" I shrieked, one last time, clawing at empty air, before falling, falling into sticky black.

(A/N: Hey everyone, thanks for reading this chapter!  I had to make that Taylor Swift reference ;) I hope you enjoyed this and don't forget to vote!  ~Evy)