Slowtown

30

It takes me outrageously long to come to my senses. Everything is dull, muted, and dark. I can't see. I blink hard to be sure my eyes are open. Yeah, it's just pitch black. I find I'm half-sitting half-laying on the floor in a very crumpled position. I don't move just yet, I still can't tell where I am. My hands rest on a textured floor– carpet. I breathe slowly, but the air doesn't come easy for some reason. My mouth is dry, but I make an arduous attempt to swallow, and feel something slither against my skin, restricting.

A snake, rough and twisted, has tied itself around my throat. It coils at the back of my neck, ready to tighten itself and choke me.

I recognize this. I jolt up, clawing my fingers under it, trying to free myself. I pull with all my strength and it loosens easily, but it's still looped around me, so I keep pulling, undoing it entirely and tossing it into the darkness, not wanting to touch it any more than I have to. It hits something with a thump and falls into a heap on the floor, three feet away from me. I back up as much as I can, which isn't far.

My mind still can't process where I am, too filled with the image my eyes are feeding it— the pale serpent watching me. It resides in its corner, and I in mine, and I don't know who won the fight. Maybe this is round two.

The darkness around it shifts. I swear I see it inching towards me, and I push my back into the wall, heels pressing the floor so hard either the bone or the floorboards might crack. I watch it be still in one moment, and then appear to move just the slightest again. I ask myself if this is its strategy, to take its time and make the panic rise in me like a fume.

Rise, it does. Billows out from my stomach, collects in my chest, and fills my head with a pressure so dizzying I think I might pass out and that's when it will get me–

—

My senses are clear, like my head has been been emptied and washed out with water, and that's all I feel. Even with my eyes closed, there is light filtering though my eyelids, making the blackness of sleep transition into a sort of orange. I move a bit. Reach both hands up to scrub my eyes. Then I finally open them, and I'm met with two more pairs.

For a moment, my heart pounds a little harder, because I don't know who they are.

But I've seen these eyes before– icy blue, warm hazel, I know I've seen them somewhere... who do they belong to?

All they do is stare at me. Maybe I should say something. I open my mouth and make a noise, but they cut me off.

"Tyler!" they burst.

My mouth is still open, waiting for my brain to remember their names, because I must know their names, I know I know them...

The one with brown eyes speaks fast, and his voice rings a bell, "We lost you in the woods, so we left, but when we got out, we saw you walking back towards your house, and we were about to run up to you, but you were walking all weird, stumbling around and stuff, like all the newbies."

Halfway through this explanation, I remember that he's Josh. That's right, that's Josh.

"We didn't know what happened to you in the forest, but since you were lookin' super dazed, we decided not to touch you or talk to you until you woke up."

I stare at them in silence.

A look of worry streaks across his face. "Do you remember us?"