A gasp tore its way from Phoenix's throat as his eyes flashed open. For a moment, everything was black—there was nothing but the pounding of his heart as it slammed against his chest and the panting gasps that ripped through his body as he tried desperately to force air into his lungs. As the adrenaline began to disperse, his vision slowly came back, but it was so irritatingly gradual that he almost started to panic. A panic more than he already had been. It was as if there was a black hole in the middle of his eyesight, shrinking, allowing his vision to appear around the edges until finally, finally, it was nearly gone.
The room around him slowly came into focus, the familiar contours of his lavish bedroom emerging from the darkness. The silk sheets clung to his sweat-soaked skin, a testament to the terror that had gripped him in his sleep. Phoenix took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to ground himself in reality.
The nightmare was much the same as it had been for the last decade—pain, burning, screaming. Phoenix had started to resort to begging, pleading for any way to get out of the mess, the mistake, the curse he had made a decade ago, but nothing came of it. He was stuck. He was fucked. He had made his bed, and there was no way out of it. Even the sweet release of death would be nothing but torture…
In his mind's eye, he could still see the flames licking at his flesh, could still hear the cacophony of tortured souls crying out in agony. The vivid imagery of hell, his future home, haunted him even in his waking hours. Phoenix ran trembling hands through his hair, willing the remnants of the nightmare to fade away.
When Phoenix's vision was finally intact, he noticed a figure standing in his doorway, and the panic burst through his body all over again. He quickly sat up, his eyes wide as his mouth parted, but when his eyes adjusted and the dark figure actually formed features, he whispered, "Catherine?"
The sight of her was both a relief and a new source of terror. What was she doing here, in his home, in the middle of the night? How had she gotten past his security?
She didn't look right. Something was off as she stood there, her eyes wide as what appeared to be horror twisted her features. Her random appearance in his house and how she had gotten there did not enter his thoughts. It didn't matter how she had gotten there, not when she looked like…like she was about to faint. She was completely pale, and she looked like she had seen a ghost. "Catherine, what's wrong? What's going on?"
The eerie stillness of her posture sent chills down Phoenix's spine. This wasn't the Catherine he knew—vibrant, full of life. This Catherine seemed like a shell, a hollow imitation.
Scrambling out of his huge bed, fighting the covers that had twisted themselves around him as he slept, Phoenix quickly made his way over to her. She still hadn't made a sound, hadn't so much as moved as she stood as frozen as a statue. If Phoenix hadn't known any better, he would've thought she was just one of the monuments he had purchased to scatter throughout his estate, but her eyes… Her eyes locked on him as he got closer, and it was like she had suddenly melted.
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The intensity of her gaze was unsettling. It was as if she was looking through him, seeing something beyond the physical realm. Phoenix felt exposed, vulnerable in a way he had never experienced before.
"Phoenix," she gasped.
The sound of his name on her lips should have been comforting, but instead, it filled him with dread. There was something wrong in the timbre of her voice, something alien and cold.
"What's going on?" Phoenix repeated, his eyebrows furrowing in concern. Reaching towards her, his fingertips gently caressed her cheek, just the lightest of touches.
And then she screamed.
The sound that left her body didn't sound human at all. Her mouth opened, and the scream that left her body sounded as if it were tearing its way through her life, like razor blades, like just the passing of that sound through her vocal cords was tearing her apart from the inside out.
The scream reverberated through the room, seeming to shake the very foundations of the house. It was a sound of pure anguish, of torment beyond human comprehension. Phoenix felt it in his bones, a primal fear taking root in his core.
Phoenix jolted away from her, the air leaving his body as his eyes widened to saucers, and as she threw her head back to scream at the ceiling, true fright took hold of his chest.
"Catherine! Catherine!" Phoenix jumped forward, grabbing a hold of her shoulders as he tried to shake her, as if that would stop the horrid sound that was filling the room and threatening to damage his eardrums. "What's wrong?! Catherine! Stop! Catherine, stop!"
His pleas seemed to fall on deaf ears. Catherine continued to scream, her body rigid under his grip. Phoenix felt helpless, unable to reach her, to help her, to make sense of what was happening.
The screaming suddenly cut off into a gurgling, choking sound, and then she gasped—then silence. Complete and utter silence filled the void around them, and as Phoenix continued to hold onto her shoulders as she stared up at the ceiling, all he could hear was his own heart pounding in his chest as fear curled and slithered beneath his skin.
The abrupt cessation of the scream was almost as terrifying as the sound itself. The silence felt oppressive, loaded with unspoken horrors. Phoenix could feel his pulse racing, could hear the rush of blood in his ears.
"Catherine?" Phoenix whispered so softly, afraid that any movement or sound would start the screaming again, but somehow…Somehow, the silence was worse.
He held his breath, waiting for a response, any sign that the Catherine he knew was still there. The air around them felt thick, charged with an energy that Phoenix couldn't understand but instinctively feared. Whatever was happening, he knew in his gut that it was far beyond his control, far beyond anything he had ever faced before.