V - PAIGE
Paige
stopped at the door to her apartment.
Again she felt the tightness in her chest and the stirring in her
gut. She wanted to run again, wanted to
go back down and have another cigarette.
Then she remembered the young man, just a boy really, and she knew she
couldn't go back down. She had to face
up to it: life wouldn't just go away whilst she smoked.
She
took a deep breath and moved to push the door open. Everything seemed very quiet in the darkness, but then that's
what happened when the power went out.
Stillness. Conversation becomes
hushed, arguments die out and all the appliances, televisions, radios and
stereos shut off and shut up. She
smiled at that. Turn the lights off on
humanity and everyone's happy to fade away quietly.
The
door swung open slowly to reveal the inky depths of the apartment. There was no sound from inside and no
movement visible at all, but then it was almost pitch black.
"David?" She called out timidly. They needed to speak, or to shout, or to
something, but she was reluctant and her voice held no confidence. "David, are you there? I've had some time to think and..."
There was a
rattle from the kitchen.
"Hello?"
She stepped
forward and felt her way around the furniture.
Her vision was adapting quickly but it was still only at the stage of
working out general shapes.
"Hello? David are you in there?"
There was
another rattle.
"David? Look I know I've been treating you like
shit, but” Rattle. "But this isn't
funny. You were right, we need to talk." Rattle.
Rattle. Rattle.
She
was standing outside the kitchen door now and the noise beyond had become
continuous. She pushed it open
slowly. "David?"
VI - ???
The
candle flames burned brightly, but the colour seemed slightly wrong. It made reading the text on the pages harder
somehow and so he put the book down and tilted his head back to relax. There was a soot stain on the ceiling. It was growing, and it was starting to
ripple.
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