What was Lost and Found in the Fire

Ch. 48 A Shadow and Shots in the Dark

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Sang's POV

Location: Lockheart Manor

Date: End of November

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I wake to a dark room and a racing heart. 

A nightmare is just on the edge of my consciousness, a memory of fear so intense that the nerve endings in my body are screaming. My chest is so heavy that it feels as if something is sitting on me, pressing my body down into the soft mattress mercilessly.

I'm laying on my back in a bed. It's unfamiliar to me and that scares me even more than the nightmare I can't even remember.

Even though I want nothing more than to sit up, and escape the confines of the unknown bed, I can't. 

Sleep paralysis holds me in its clutches tighter than the blankets wrapped around me. 

I open my mouth, trying to call out to anyone that will listen but only a soft sound escapes, nothing more than a soft exhale of breath.

Panic claws at me. I try to move my fingers next, but my body won't listen to me. I'm panting now, small noises coming out as gasps. The shadows in the room are deep, setting off a new wave of anxiety.

And then I see it. 

In the darkest corner of the room, a chair is set up and a dark shadow begins to separate itself from its shape. My eyes begin to bulge from my head when I realize it's man shaped, and big. Too big to be....my mind stutters and shuts down when the shadow starts to move. 

It slowly rises from the chair. I choke when it creeps closer and seems to grow even larger the closer it gets. Terror races through me like freezing water in my veins.

A tear drips down my cheek. 

A hand distends from the shadow, reaching out to me and it's then that my body finally catches up with my mind.

I start to scream; brokenly, with a screechy sound, akin to a cellphone in a blender.

It hurts so much. But the sounds leave my body without my permission, and I sit up and press myself against the headboard, fear telling me to get away. 

The shadow jerks away from me, my low odd sound probably scaring the monster as much as it scared me.  

 I scramble, pulling the blankets to me and pressing my whole body to the headboard in an effort to get away from the shadow.

And then a light blinks on outside the room, and the door bangs open with such force that I can hear the metal doorknob crack the wood of the wall behind it.

With tears running down my face and still struggling to pull air into my lungs I take in Victor's terrified face. He stares into the room in alarm and with a heavy heart I turn to what I expect should be an empty room. 

I avoid beds like the plague for exactly this reason. And I never sleep on my back. It's not safe. 

But instead of a room of nothing but my fear based hallucinations, North Taylor stares down at me with guilt filled eyes. 

 I heave. My throat contracts.

I attack. I grab the nearest thing, a pillow, and sock North right in the face. 

It's not that satisfying, and it certainly doesn't make me feel better but the other option, a lamp, seems like a little bit of an over reaction. 

And then I remember that it's not normal for people to watch strangers sleeping and I leap for the lamp. I throw it wildly, and the world explodes into sound. North, the shattering lamp, and the calm assurances that I'm okay from Victor morph and churn in my ears.