Grey II - Ghosts

Chapter 20 - Golden Eyes

It's so wrong, it's so wrong.
And down below your veins run dry, your vacant eyes.
I lost control.

Escape the Fate - Cellar Door

It was like looking through a keyhole, I couldn't see the edges, the full picture, only a sliver of the room, a narrow glimpse into my worst nightmare.

I saw myself, on my cot, tossing and turning as I imagined I did most nights. And I saw Syn across the room, his gold-flecked eyes bright from the firelight, sadness etched into the lines of his face. His eyebrows drew together as he watched me, as if he could see whatever nightmare I was fighting, he couldn't though, I knew his Gift didn't work like that. He rolled over, his back to me, but I knew he was still awake.

The peephole shuddered, shivering and making the image blur. When it returned everything was varying shades of gray, like a Shift, but somehow it felt different, darker, worse. The world was beautiful through my Shift, at least it was to me, the brightest of whites, the deepest of blacks, and every shade in between, showing everything, hiding nothing, it was beauty in its cleanest form, its sharpest form. But the room before me was not beautiful, it wasn't clean or sharp with razor-thin lines separating stark contrasts. The room before me was dull and smoky, shadows making it hard to see, like my vision was from another world, like I was trying to see things that weren't really there.

My mind ached from the difficulty of watching through the fog, but I couldn't look away. A moment later I realized it was the same scene as before. Me twisting in my bed, the blankets tying themselves into knots, and Syn watching me, the dull gray shadows making his face look lifeless in the firelight, his eyes no longer holding the warmth their color gave them. He looked haunted, everything did, not truly alive, but not yet dead, like a ghost world.

I felt a jolt as something dark came from where I laid, a slightly deeper shadow crawling across the concrete floor. It was eerie how alive it acted, like it was dragging itself, pulling itself forward with great effort, each movement bringing the darkness closer to Syn. He had turned away already, his back to me as he laid on his right shoulder, staring at the wall, just like he always did, but I knew he wasn't asleep.

I tried to move, to will myself into the room, to save him from the dark grayness leaking from my sleeping body to his. There was something sinister about it, something that made my Shift jump in me, clawing and snapping at its cage. It was a poison, a living, evil poison slowly advancing on Syn, trying to overtake him, to cover him, to get a hold on him and drain the life from his golden-brown eyes. I tried to claw at the peephole in front of me, digging at it. I felt my nails bending and breaking against the door, little slivers digging back as I desperately tried to warn him, to warn my friend of what was coming for him. What I had lead to him.

I awoke with a cry, fiery pain shooting up my arms. I looked down to see the damage I had done in my nightmare, bloodied fingers with shards of wood sticking from my skin, my nails broken, hanging and jagged. My fingers felt on fire, the kind of sting I hated the most. I would rather be punched than slapped, cut deeply than have the multitude of slivers under my nails that I now did.

I shook my hands, trying to fling the red-stained wood away, but only succeeded in splattering tiny droplets of blood across the floor I had fallen asleep on. I glanced around to get my bearings, trying to remember the night before while avoiding looking down at my hands as I rubbed at the splinters to dislodge them. My mind felt thick, slow, like fingers that stopped listening to their instructions in the cold.

I was in an old house. I had come in late through a poorly boarded up window on the first floor. Too tired from my hunt to make it through the storm outside back to the Clan's warehouse. Too exhausted from stretching myself so thin, from not sleeping, not resting, only hunting. I had curled up in the corner and was asleep within seconds, even on the uncomfortable, warped, wooden floor. The same wooden floor which now had deep, bloody gouges in it where I had clawed, thinking it was the door separating me from Syn and the darkness that was creeping ever closer to him.