What They Told Us: Chapter 2

I was alone in the House. The tin ceiling and gaudy chandeliers stretched high above my head. The entry hall. The immense mahogany door stood before me, looming out of the dusty interior. The grandfather clock suddenly struck ten; the chimes echoed through the stale air and reverberated in the halls of the House. Suddenly my heart began to pound in...anticipation? Fear? I shook my head; I couldn't tell.

Silence overtook the hall except for the ticking of the grandfather clock. I counted the seconds. 59, 58, 57, 56...no, I wasn't counting the seconds. I was counting down. Why? I stopped keeping track but a male voice resumed in my place.

 

"20, 19, 18, 17..." The whisper hissed in my ear.

 

"Why are you counting?" I asked.

 

"11, 10, 9, 8, 7..." The voice continued.

 

Suddenly heavy footsteps sounded from outside approaching the door.

 

"4, 3, 2, 1..."

 

The footsteps stopped. In their place resumed a steady knocking. Then the doorbell. I moved to open the front door but found I could not. My feet were frozen in place and the knocking continued.

 

"A visitor on the porch, don't leave him in the cold, dark world. When a door closes another opens. Dream big, Ariadne," the chilling  voice said.

 

With out a warning, the door flew open and an ominous figure towered in the grand entrance. All at once, terror gripped my heart and I jolted awake.

 

Sunlight trickled in through my bedroom window and spilled across my face. I closed my eyes and allowed the soft light wash away my recent vision. Or was it a nightmare? It was becoming difficult to tell. I should let Nyla know; she had a way of talking to people and everything made sense. She was like a therapist. She would hand me a cup of tea and look at the dream  with a keen, practical eye and see it for what it was. Just a nightmare, nothing more.

I closed my eyes and practiced the breathing exercises the attendants had taught me. Inhale...exhale....inhale...exhale. My heartbeat still thundered in my ears like a raging drum. Inhale...exhale...The beating slowed slightly and I opened my eyes. I wished I could open my window and feel the fresh morning breeze breathe a new life over me, but it was locked. The House would punish me if I disobeyed them. 

I rolled over onto my side. My mouth stretched into a wide yawn, which I covered. The night before last I had dreamed that when I yawned my soul tried to escape. It had been nothing but a silly nightmare but with my...condition, I couldn't risk losing my soul to a yawn.

"Nyla hasn't been out of room eight for some time now, Sir," a voice said from the hallway, worming its way into my awareness.

"How long exactly?" Another deep voice responded.

"Three days," the first said. It sounded monotone as if it belonged to an attendant of the House.

"Her condition must be active. We must place surveillance in..." The deep voice continued, however the next part was mumbled and incomprehensible from my position.

I slid out from under my covers and approached the door. I brushed my wild hair away from my ear and pressed my head to the wood.

"I will carry it out, Sir," the attendant voice promised.

"Very good. Thank you, Ms. Wright," a pair of footsteps shuffled away down the hall, "Her decisiveness needs to be inactive as soon as possible. Before the new one arrives."

"Yes, Mr. Wright," the footsteps resumed again and disappeared from my range of hearing.

I pulled away from the door and was more bewildered than before. One of the attendants and Mr. Wright. Talking. About...what? Nyla and the "new one." The other residents and I already knew about Nyla. She had told us that she was preparing for a long period of meditation and tea. She said, once, that before she came to the House of Wright that she used to meditate and drink tea for weeks on end. But now, she has limited freedom with her "condition" and is under close watch by the attendants.

During the conversation Mr. Wright had mentioned to the attendant that surveillance needed to be placed somewhere. In Nyla's room? Or throughout the House? They already kept close watch over us with hidden cameras it couldn't be either of those two.

I stumbled across my room back to my cot. The smell of breakfast drifted up from the kitchen downstairs. The rich smell of pastries and fresh bread. Any other day I would have found my way downstairs to the table to await breakfast. Today, however, I longed to curl back up in bed and fall into a dreamless sleep. That wasn't an option.

I couldn't sleep without a dream, vision, or nightmare working its way into my subconscious. In fact, I could barely be awake without a daydream consuming my mind. This wasn't the time for daydreaming; this was the time for action.