Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 49441 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49441 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
It called again, some time later as I picked at chips and a soda that appeared out of nowhere, but it sounded even further away.
Nothing I needed to worry about, surely.
Episode rolled into episode as I got lost in my binge.
It wasn’t until there was a short silence in the show that I heard the soft echo of it again.
“Roxy!”
Huh.
That voice sounded familiar, didn’t it?
I slid my legs off of the couch, staring down at the sneakers on the floor, trying to place them.
I didn’t have sneakers like that. Ones meant for walking or running.
I didn’t have exercise-focused items in my wardrobe at all.
Even as I thought it, though, the yoga pants I was wearing grabbed my attention.
A memory threatened, but it was like it was being held back behind some thick fog, inaccessible.
“Roxy!”
My gaze slid up, taking in my arms, slowly blinking at the scratches and bruises.
Where had those come from?
It was like I’d been attacked in my sleep or something. Because nothing had happened. Right?
The last thing I remembered was re-filling the spell box in front of my building, then making my way upstairs to eat some chips and watch TV.
I remembered, vaguely, wishing for Chinese food.
But that was where the memories stopped.
Something felt odd about that last memory, though.
As I tried to focus on it, it seemed to slip further and further away. Like a vivid dream upon waking as you desperately tried to hold onto the remnants of it, only to have it slowly fade away.
Shaking those thoughts away, I turned toward my bathroom, realizing I felt sticky from dried sweat.
What had I been sweating about, though? Too much action on my show?
I pushed open my bathroom door, starting to strip out of my clothes as I glanced toward my shower/tub combo.
Only to find it wasn’t there.
In its place was the soaking tub of my dreams, big enough to fully submerge in, to swim in.
Huh.
“When did I get that installed?” I asked aloud as I walked over to turn the tap on.
I didn’t know when I did it, but I was happy that I had as I slid into the water, feeling it wash away the strange ache in my thigh muscles, the throbbing in the soles of my feet.
As I sank in and rested against the wall of the tub, my eyes drifting closed, a vision flashed across my mind.
A man.
Gorgeous with ice-blue eyes and dark hair, picking me up, cradling me, carrying me, holding and comforting me.
“Huh,” I said, jolting upright, blinking at the wall of my bathroom.
That felt very… real.
More like a memory than a fantasy.
Maybe I had a fever, I decided as I climbed back out of the tub, wrapping myself in a towel, then going into my bedroom to change my clothes.
That would explain the sweaty feeling. And maybe even the bruises and cuts. Had I had a fever so high that I’d hallucinated? Hurt myself?
That wouldn’t exactly be unusual. My mother would tell me stories about the fevers I used to spike as a child, leaving me hallucinating and scaring the hell out of her.
I didn’t typically get sick. Being a homebody meant that I wasn’t usually in contact with anyone long enough for them to spread their germs to me.
But, I dunno, I ordered in a lot. Food poisoning was always a possibility. Even if my stomach felt fine. And I didn’t have that telltale chill or raw feeling in my nose and throat that came from throwing up.
Well, whatever it was, I was glad it was over, I concluded as I slipped into a pair of yellow fluffy pajama pants with little dogs in the shape of loaves of bread on them.
Another memory flashed so quickly that it disoriented me, making me ram into the edge of my bed.
It was gone so fast it was hard to make it out.
But it involved the same man from my fantasy in the tub.
Maybe I needed to see a doctor, I decided as I made my way back out into the living room.
“Roxy, please,” the echo called.
Suddenly, my attention was drawn to the floor in my kitchen. And I couldn’t shake this feeling that something was supposed to be there. That something was there.
No.
Not something.
Someone.
But I couldn’t see them.
My mind flashed back to the tub, the fantasy that felt too real. The man holding me.
The vision sharpened, pulled into focus, expanded.
Not just holding me.
Looking at the bruises.
Another vision came into focus.
Vines grabbed me, trying to wrap me up. And those same hands that held me fighting them off of me.
Then telling me to run.
But where?
The hedges came into focus.
Winding endlessly.
Not a hedge.
A maze.
No.
A labyrinth.
“Roxy,” the voice called, an aching plea.
And it all came back.
I knew that voice.
“Nathaniel?” I called into the void in front of me.
Then, like a veil being pulled away, there he was. Pale, wide-eyed, but him.