Ludwig folded Vash's letter along its crease and laid it back on the writing desk for the fourth time that day. He'd found himself drawn back to it throughout the course of his daily routine ever since it had arrived in the mid-morning, taking pause after fetching water or feeding the horse to go over it again. The action was more nervous tic than fixation. It was now late evening, and the gas lamp on the desk was at work upholding its tentative orbit of amber light to encompass most of the small room. Weak shadows materialized sporadically in the corners where the lamplight struggled to reach; uncertain apparitions. Ludwig stared unseeingly at the folded piece of paper, trying to sort out the thoughts cavorting in his head, but they were hard to pin down and analyze of late. They were too loud to hear.
The letter had arrived five days after he had sent his out. They had been a strange five days. The bold arrow of time soared on ceaselessly forward, but not in the comfortably measured pace that it had taken for most of his adult life. It came sometimes to a crawl without the slightest warning, and Ludwig, in the midst of performing some task, would become unable to focus, mind torn in a hundred directions at once, chest suddenly leaden. There was more than one instance where time seemed to have lurched forward abruptly. One moment Ludwig would be staring out the window at the dawn and the next he would be collapsing onto his bed with only a vague idea of what he had done during the intervening hours. He had never had trouble concentrating before, and his increasingly erratic state unnerved him-at least in the back of his mind, where order and rationality still held their ground. It was totally unprecedented; he didn't know what to do with himself.
His calendar didn't lie, though. It played no role in skewing his perceptions. It hung like a mirror, presenting to him a small, square section of unequivocal truth. The truth was that the appointed date was the Friday of the next week: September the sixth.
The truth was that Ludwig feared death.
He undressed as per his ritual, gaze fixed as always on the bedroom's sole window, which showed nothing but a vaporous mirror image of the room, twin lamplights flickering in playful unison. A twin of himself, appearing, though it could have been a trick of the light, a little thinner as it frowned back at him, unbuttoning its coarse shirt. He might have forgotten to eat a few times, but he couldn't be sure. His stomach felt like soiled cloth, sour and dense. It indicated nothing.
His reflection wasn't something he enjoyed viewing, just for moments like this. It was always an unpleasant surprise when it appeared.
He was a tapestry of recessive Aryan genes—vein-blue eyes, winter wheat hair, skin milky and melanin-deficient. His jaw was square and his shoulders were broad, framing a body cut with generous muscle tone, every contour lean and severe. In some men, these traits were cherished as the European ideal—whatever that was. They looked lithe, cunning, and coolly confident. He'd seen these men about; he knew they were real. But on Ludwig, those basic features were all undercut by the ghoulish gray rings encircling his cavernous eye sockets; the chapped, thin lips; the tautness of the skin beneath high-set cheekbones; the brow ridge that cast the rest in eerie shade. His visage, choked in shadow in the dimness, stared from the window pane impassively. The pane vibrated slightly with a gust of wind outside, and the image faltered.
For one awful instant in the stuttering reflection, Ludwig imagined that his face was sealed into a white death mask, moments from tearing free of the repugnantly mismatched body beneath it on unfathomable wings. And the gaping black eye sockets just stared. It was so vivid. For an awful instant he felt his heart churn, his brain exclaim wordlessly, his eyes go unfocused.
He turned away, knowing that tired eyes play tricks (and only half believing it).
Perhaps Vash was right, he thought. He hoped that was all there was to it, this recent trouble of his. He must have been thinking about death more than necessary. It was getting to him, clouding his judgment. He felt that he was slipping out of his own control, and that was all he had.
Some sleep is all I need.
I'm fine.
I'll be fine.
Taking care to avoid the stare of the reflection anyway, he extinguished the lamp's flame with a metal snuffer, thus plunging the room into the natural gloom of the night forest outside.
.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.+.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
At the stroke of midnight, Something Happened.
The first metallic tolling of the grandfather clock in the parlor shattered his dreamless R.E.M. sleep state. He was suddenly thrust into awareness as if into a pool of freezing water.
The second toll sounded. He was confused. His eyes were still closed, but he felt rough blanket against his bare arms, which were tucked limply to his sides; a down mattress against his back; cool air on his exposed feet.
The third toll. He was in his own bed, he realized. He was safe. It was a night like any other. So why, then, was his pulse quickening? Why was his skin becoming clammy with a thin film of sweat? Maybe he'd find out if he opened his eyes.
The fourth toll. He couldn't open his eyes. He tried again, but it was as if the nerve signals had been blacked out. He tried moving his arms, but they too were fettered, locked into place. He concentrated all his energy on moving his fingers, his toes, anything; but they were all equally lifeless.
The fifth toll. The faint stirrings of panic began. Why couldn't he move? What was happening? He couldn't still be dreaming; he was completely lucid. So why-?
The sixth toll echoed strangely, as if its vibrations had been warped on their way into the room. Simultaneously, the air in the room became thick and oppressive. It weighed on his motionless body, and crept into his shallow inhalations to slowly compress his insides.
The seventh toll came. Something was afoot. If he could only open his eyes, if he could just force his body into response, he could put a stop to this. But he could not move. Whatever was happening, he was utterly helpless to it. Pulse pounding in his neck, he waited.
The eighth toll. He couldn't bear the immobility. He couldn't shake the feeling of impending horror, that something major was about to befall him. He was suffocating in the trembling stillness.
The ninth toll. Panic surged across his every nerve. Yet the room remained obstinately silent. As far as his four serviceable senses could tell, nothing was happening. And yet…
The tenth toll. He tried extending his senses as far as they could reach in a bid to ferret out the irregularity in the room. Deprived of sight in such silence, though, they were no good. He couldn't calm down, try as he might to reassure himself. The air, as if in reply, pressed heavier still.
The eleventh toll. He wished he could just go back to sleep. Any nightmare would be better than this horrific state of alarmed uncertainty. This inexplicable paralysis.
The twelfth toll sounded, and suddenly it happened.
As if conjured from the inside of the mattress, the unmistakable sensation of human fingers grazed across the back of his neck.
The scream died in his throat without release as the echo of the last clock chime terminated. His reflexes commanded his hands to move to his neck, but they were dead weight. His muscles were locked; there was no fight, no flight. He was at the mercy to whatever this thing was that had emerged from the dark.
The hands that he could not see moved down, raising a crop of goose flesh all the way to his shoulders, where they came to rest. They were gentle, satin soft, and small against his fevered skin. They grasped, not with menace, but with urgency. Then, a face. He felt the smoothness of its cheek, ghostly, against his own clammy jaw; its slight chin, its dry lips.
Ludwig was beyond terror at this point; mind shutting down, falling end over end into oblivion-the only escape route remaining. Just before the faint overcame him, the soft lips turned to touch his ear, forming airy foreign words that trailed him down, down, down into the column of absolute cerebral darkness into which he was plummeting.
Trovare me.
"Find me."
And then there was nothing.
A/N: Hello! I'm so glad you've read this far. Am I starting to lose you yet? Haha. This story has taken a weird turn, and I, for one, LOVE IT. Weirdness is but one of my specialties.
You know how I said in the last installment that there would be few updates in the near future? Well, it still stands. I've got two weeks of school left, yes, but my summer is also shaping up to be insanely busy. I will be: looking for (and hopefully getting) a job (or two), taking summer school for piano lessons (what?), taking an online English class, and learning Swedish (I forgot to mention…I GOT ACCEPTED! I'm actually going to live in Sweden for six months starting in August! Aasgdhgjhsajgh I can't even-).
So, if I don't update often enough, you can rest assured knowing that's why!
Until next time!