Chapter Eight: Timeless

Ginny's mind was somewhere else.

Everything around her was high color—so bright that the colors hurt her eyes. The black and white were the worst. Just looking at them she felt as if she were going blind.

As she looked around, the bright, fluorescent colors blanked to gray, leaving only the bright white and black.

She didn't know how, but she knew that she was in a maze—a labyrinth—and she was at the heart of it.

She'd read a scene like this in a book when she was seven. She couldn't remember the name of the book, or even the plot, but this scene had always stuck in her mind—fascinating and terrifying her.

She wondered now if her subconscious was trying to tell her something.

She slowly became aware of the fact that it was unbearably cold—and she was clad in only a flimsy T-shirt and some pajama pants. Goosebumps rose on her skin.

Not sure where the feeling came from, but thinking—no, knowing—that it was more than the cold that had caused the gooseflesh to upspring.

Ginny thoroughly scanned her surroundings, forcing herself to ignore the brightness of the black and white.

She was beginning to get dizzy. The colors and shapes around her reminded her of a fun-park attraction.

Well, she wasn't having fun.

Ginny was finding it hard to keep her eyes open and stay standing up. The room was spinning around her; steadily going faster and faster.

Tom's face appeared in the bright black and white all around her.

"Don't fight it, Ginny." His echoing voice said, seeming to come from all around and nowhere.

"Fight what?" she whispered, barely audible.

"Don't fight it."

The room whirled ever faster.

With great effort—that Ginny didn't know she had—Ginny bolted from the middle of the maze and ran as fast as she could away—away from Tom's whirling fun-house and away from Tom.

She had to get out.

She had to get out.


She didn't know how long she'd been running—time didn't seem to exist here—but when she slowed down she was thoroughly lost. Which was exactly what she'd expected, but it was still upsetting nonetheless.

She stopped to get her bearings. Which way was the exit?

The corridor she was standing in was in stark contrast to the heart of the labyrinth that she had run from. Here, it was dark and shadowy. Light just seemed to fall into the walls. She didn't understand why or how she could see.

She felt cool glass on the wall. And the gravitational pull of the walls, floor and ceiling; as if black holes were contained within the glass.

That would explain why the light just seemed to fall into the darkness.

What was this place?

All at once all she wanted to do was unlock the secrets of this strange place that she was in.

Getting out didn't seem quite as important anymore.

Now she had to know what was contained within the glass surrounding her.

She leaned her head onto the pane and closed her eyes. She wanted a glass of ice water, suddenly she was very thirsty.

Her ears picked up footsteps, echoing down the corridor, coming her way. She didn't move, she was too tired to move; all she wanted was a nice tall glass of ice water and to curl up in her warm, safe bed and go to sleep and never wake up.

The footfalls stopped.

Tom had found her—well, she hadn't really been hiding from him in the first place, she knew that he could sense where she was, just as she could sense where he was, but that didn't mean that she wanted to be anywhere near him.

Slowly, deliberately, she moved her head around so she was looking at him.

A beat passed, neither of them said anything; they just stood there, peering at the other.

Tom began to take a step forward and before she knew what she was doing, her instincts and reflexes took over and she had moved her hands up in front of her—almost exactly as she had with Drac—Malfoy, only she missed her aim slightly and the wall to Tom's right had a hole blown into it.

It only took a matter of nanoseconds for the entire glass wall to be sucked out into the black void beyond its barrier and Ginny too was being pulled backwards with it.


A.N. I know this is a pretty short chapter and given how long it's taken me to update this story it should've been longer, but in my defense, things have been a little hectic around here and I'd also come down with a chronic case of Writer's Block. So, I apologize for its briefness as well as its tardiness. Please R&R .