Chained

Eighteen

Water drips from the ceiling. I can't sleep, even if I chose to sleep. I look over at the gathering pile and just feel a sweet relief that it isn't a pile of scarlet. It's just water.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

I bury my face in my hands and try reassuring myself over and over again. Something is still messing with my mind. I'm not home. I'm imprisoned in this hellhole.

That's what is true.

Exhaustion weighs me down, heavier than any chain, and I fight to keep my eyes open.

"Come back to sleep, Jason."

I blink. Emily's voice. But Michael took the phone away from me. I look wildly around the dilapidated basement, trying to figure out the location of the sound. But I can't find anything. I squeeze my eyes shut and wish that any deity would save me. Emily has stronger belief than me.

I don't want to die in this horrible place and fade away into the nothingness of death. Fear eats away at me, terror of ceasing to exist. These horrible thoughts first came to me at the age of seventeen. There had been nothing in particular that brought those thoughts. I was just gaming, and at that moment, I realized that one day I would be nothing.

Only darkness. The dripping has ceased, as well as all sound. Something with less feeling than even numbness drapes over me.

I don't want to be nothing. I open my eyes and jolted. My ghostly reflection glances back at me, pale skin and dark circles under my eyes. I am sitting on my bed, back in my room, far away from that basement of hell.

"Jason, I worry about you when you can't sleep."

"Emily?" I croaked.

She leans up, her blonde hair cascading over her shoulders. "You aren't going for another late-night drive, are you? I hate when you do that."

For a second, I consider arguing with her. Pointing out that I am not in the room with her, and she is just a hallucination. But what's the point of arguing with a hallucination?

"No, I'm not going for a drive," I mumble.

"Sometimes I think you don't even want to be here."

I jolt and look back at her. "Emily, I swear to God there is no place that I would rather be than right here with you."

She grabs my hand. "Then why aren't you here with me, Jason?" She groans. "It's like you're a million miles away from me."

"I'm quite a distance away," I say. "Locked in a basement by a psychotic cult."

Emily wrinkles her nose. "Is that supposed to be funny, Jay? Seriously, you have a sick sense of humor. I worry about you so much."

"You always say I worry too much," I mutter.

She sighs. "You do worry too much. It's always about other people because you can't stand worrying about yourself. I think you'd have to be locked in a basement to actually focus on yourself."

I shudder.

"Just come back to bed," Emily says. "Forget all of that other stuff. Be here with me, Jason."

I grasp her hand. I want to believe I am really there with her. But the coldness of the chains still weigh me down, and the rattle follows when I move. I can't tell her—she would definitely think that I was insane.

And I don't feel her flesh. I feel the chill of water swathing my skin, tugging me down into the darkest depths. I let go of her hand and look at mine. Damp flesh, as if it had been underwater and not in the embrace of Emily's hand.