Light would not penetrate it, as it hovered motionlessly, a foot above the floor.
― M Feria
I came back home feeling depressed as if a great weight were pressing down upon me, but the more I thought about it, I realized I wasn't depressed but oppressed.
My moods have always been very stable and there was no reason for me to be depressed other than a loss of sleep the night before.
But I'm familiar with the effects of sleep loss and what I was experiencing was totally different.
The cause of my gloomy affect and heaviness did not originate within me but outside me. The I felt under siege and threatened by an alien presence.
It didn't require great detective work or imagination to pinpoint the cause of my distress―it all tracked back to my meeting with Victoria Mercer.
It wasn't so much anything Victoria said or did, but was more a case of who she was.
I knew from snatches of conversation I overheard between her and other students that she practiced yoga and even taught it at a small studio north of the campus.
I wondered what other arts she practiced.
As I thought about the girl I happened to glance outside my townhouse.
It was near dusk and the blue shadows of trees from the nearby ravine had turned black and began to blur their lines in the gathering gloom.
I shivered as if stepped from sunlight to shadow—to darkness so complete, it was alien and passionless.
I closed the curtains and lit a fire hoping to dispel the chill and add some cheer to the empty room.
Was I being dramatic? I mused.
It would be easy to attribute my feelings of desolation to a young girl rather than to admit the obvious―I was disappointed about Janice's absence and didn't want to concede that I was needy.
Even if Janice weren't romantically interested in me I missed her friendship.
But regardless, there it was―out in the open for all to see―the Great Gray Manning was not all he was cracked up to be.
Yes, I had to admit the truth, I had feet of clay and undeniable needs.
But even as I owned the truth of feeling abandoned and alone, I knew it didn't account for everything I experienced.
No, it still came down to Victoria.
What I sensed in her was a coldness, a total lack of feeling—and to be completely frank, a malevolence that was appalling.
I knew I couldn't produce the evidence to back up that charge―it was totally based on intuition, but I didn't need to prove this to anyone. It was my own strong conviction.
As soon as I determined how I felt about the girl, the room unaccountably turned dark as if someone had dimmed the lights.
There was a low hum in my ears that reminded me of the buzzing of flies.
In the darkened hallway a form seemed to materialize before my eyes, a hooded figure clad in black, suspended about a foot above the floor.