Devil Be Nice

Tayja

I am running. Running faster than I've ever run before, my feet pounding the ground so hard that at any moment, I ought to lift off the ground and take flight. Screams are stuck in my throat, terror blinding me to the wicked branches tearing at my clothes and holding me back, keeping me trapped on the ground. I am being chased by the figure from my nightmares. The figure from my reality. I'm about to break free, about to return to the skies when a loud BANG explodes behind me. Now I am falling, falling, falling into a deep dark hole. A hand seizes my throat and suddenly everything is black, nothingness, nonexistent, null. Is this what it feels like to die? Is this how they felt?

~~~

A blinding light greets me the next time I dare to open my eyes. Brilliant whiteness overpowers my vision and I close my eyes to block out the intense glare. My brain is muddled and dim, my thoughts as viscous as crystallizing honey. My head feels like it weighs three times too much and the weight might pull me over backward. My skin is hot, but I'm shivering. I feel like death incarnate. The light from the other side of my eyelids dims significantly. I open my eyes again to see a figure standing above me with no face. I hear myself screaming as I lose consciousness again.

~~~

My eyes drift open slowly, my head still hazy. I have no memory of where I am. I'm not entirely sure who or what I am. I don't really care, either. But I feel like I should.

I'm staring at something off to my left side. A variegated brown blur, indistinct but for the darker streaks running through it. I blink a few times and with a stabbing pain as my eyes focus, the murky shape becomes the wall of a rustic log cabin. My head spins as my eyes drift upward, searching for relief from the razor-sharp clarity. The ceiling is a void of darkness. My eyes slide closed as I feel the vacuum above sucking my body up, up, into the void and I succumb to the blackness.

March 26

This time I wake slowly, awareness dawning so gradually that by the time I realize I'm staring at a lamp, I don't know if it's been twenty seconds or two hours. My head feels clear at last, but I am overwhelmingly tired. I have vague memories of waking here before and feeling sick.

But where is here ? I don't know this place. Dread begins to creep into my body, making me dizzy with fear and scaring away tiredness for a moment. I mentally pull myself together and take stock of the situation, something I know I've had to do before to survive. My eyes dart around the room, taking in as much information as they can. I seem to be in a cabin. I am lying in a warm bed nestled between the silkiest sheets I've ever touched. A window to my left reveals that darkness has enveloped the cabin. Did I see light from this window before? Snow is stuck to the glass panes, peering in at me. A snowy evergreen branch slaps the window, the sight of it sparking something in me.

The memory of running suddenly hits and sends me curling up into myself with a familiar terror. They are chasing me. I am being hunted. They won't stop until I'm dead too.

My body is shivering in fear when I remember the new plan to keep me safe. I'm moving to Alaska. A plane took me from Seattle to Fairbanks, I slept in a motel room just down the road from the airport, and I remember the helicopter we took the next morning. But I can't remember anything after the helicopter. The memory of running resurges, but I tamp it down. I dream about running in terror most nights. That was just another dream.

I look at the cabin around me. I must be in the safehouse Johnston was taking me to. The memory of Johnston, my handler, smiling kindly at me while reassuring me that he'd protect me at all costs makes me feel just a little bit calmer. I seize that thought like a drowning girl. I just need to convince myself that I'm safe, that Johnston is on the other side of the door in the corner with that light coming under it - with that shadow in the middle - it must be Johnston, coming to check on me. Everything is fine.

My carefully crafted reality shatters when the door opens and the man who walks in is not Johnston. Terror comes flooding back when the man and I make eye contact. He freezes and takes a step back. He's wearing a plaid, long-sleeved shirt and a black ski mask over his face. This is almost cartoonish. I survived so long, knowing the faces of the men who almost murdered me, only now to be killed by a man in a ski mask. Are they trying to play with me before they kill me? I clutch at the sheets in front of me, my only defense.

"So you're awake, then." His voice is gruff, raspy, and sounds strained. He coughs. Even if I try to respond, the terror constricting my throat won't allow any sound to pass through. He must notice my fear, because he quickly adds, "I'm not going to hurt you. You're safe. No one can find you here."

I feel my brow furrowing. I don't understand. Nice, safe people don't wear ski masks when they come to talk to you. But his voice doesn't sound like either of the two that haunt my dreams.

My survival technique kicks in again. I create my own version of reality and convince myself it's true. Everything is fine. This is normal. He works with Johnston. This man is here to help you. Everything is fine.

Clinging to my last threads of security, I timidly ask, "Where's Johnston?"

He pauses. "Who?"

I pull the blankets closer as my facade crumbles. Where am I? Who is this man? Where is Johnston? Why would he tell me that no one can find me here? Is that a threat?

Waking up in a strange place with gaps in my memory is disturbing enough without a masked man making vaguely threatening statements. The fact that he somehow knows I'm hiding from someone is even more suspicious.

The spiraling terror of a panic attack threatens. I can't let it take control of me now. I have to stay here, present. I have to get answers. I have to be OK. Everything is fine, everything is fine.

"How do you know someone is looking for me?" I ask, my voice little more than a squeak.