Chapter 16
“You couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” Eden snapped.
He gave her a little smile. “It’s hard to when you’re afraid that other people will end up dead.”
She sat down beside him with a heavy thump and nodded. “I know. That’s why I’m here too.” He reached out a hand, and she placed hers in it. “You know this is stupid, right?” she asked him.
“I know it is.”
She added, “And it could end up with a really bad deal for both of us.”
“Hopefully not,” he replied, “but I can see how that would be a fairly major concern.”
She rolled her eyes at that. After a moment, she asked, “What do you want to do?”
He hesitated and then spoke. “I was wondering about trying to contact whatever is in that portal and seeing if we could release more people.”
She frowned. “Wasn’t the first time enough to let this go? And the second time?”
“We have to do whatever it takes.”
“While you were in the lecture hall earlier, did you get any weird sensations over it?”
“No. … Why? Did you?”
“I don’t know,” she muttered. “It sounds creepy, but it felt as if I was being watched.”
He studied her closely. “By Richard?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t think so, but I really don’t quite know what the heck was going on there.”
Eric shrugged. “I didn’t feel it.”
“I guess that’s a good thing,” she murmured.
“You’re serious though, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I am,” she stated. “I was being watched, and that’s why I finally just got up and left, realizing that you weren’t there, and I just didn’t feel safe all alone.” He frowned at that, and she shrugged. “I know I’m being silly.”
“No, not at all,” he said. “I think it’s very important that we know exactly what’s happening here, whether we can do anything to change it or just confirming that we can’t interrupt this cycle. In which case, we’re better off not even touching it at all.”
“You already know how I feel about that,” she pointed out, “because I would quite cheerfully disappear from here and never come back.”
“And what about Debbie?”
She nodded. “That’s the only reason I’m here, and it’s scary as hell.”
He smiled and squeezed her hand. “I’ll try opening it just a sliver.”
“And what if the wrong thing comes out of Origin?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, but, if it’s Debbie, wouldn’t you want to be the one to help her out?”
“I would,” she stated, and seeing the look on his face, she raised her hands. “I know. I know.” With a wave of her hand, she added, “You go do you.”
He laughed. “I don’t even know what doing me is,” he stated, with a shrug. “Apparently, according to Stefan, you’re the one who has more experience with this.”
She frowned and shook her head. “No experience with this, no, sir.”
He studied her. “But you do have some experience, is that what I’m hearing?” She just stared at him, saying nothing. “I really want some clarity before I go into this. If you have experience to share, it would be great if you would tell me.”
“I’ve just had experiences,” she clarified, as she shook her head. “I don’t know what they are because I didn’t stick around long enough to find out. Some I already told you about, and then some I really don’t want to talk about, … never ever, not at all.”
He didn’t say anything to that and just stared off into the distance for a long moment. Then he sighed. “I guess we’re about to figure it out.” And, with that, he closed his eyes and settled deeper into the energy around them.
He let Stefan know what he was doing, and Stefan hadn’t really responded in any way, so Eric just took the initiative upon himself. As he opened the energy and probed Origin, that same maelstrom surged toward him.
He felt his hair lifting and all kinds of chaos swirling around him. He heard Eden gasp at his side, but he couldn’t take his focus off what was in front of him.
Whatever this was, it was all about control.
Then she squeezed his hand and murmured, “Soften it.” He didn’t even know what that meant, but he immediately felt the energy around him soften.
So now it wasn’t such a maelstrom. It was more of a gentle wind. As he softened it a little more, he sensed her approval as the wind turned to a breeze.
Somehow he had a sense of what she was feeling at the same time, and he squeezed her hand, needing that connection. He almost felt her laughter whisper through him as if she heard what he had just thought.
As he calmed the energy yet again, he heard a big whisper of something going past him. It came out, and yet it was still somewhat attached to the place they had left behind. He didn’t understand the attached part, but, in some way, it made a weird kind of sense.
As he stood to take a step forward, Eden spoke, her voice calm but urgent. “It’s trying to draw you in, and you can’t go in there.”
He hesitated, yet took another step, the temptation too much, the pull getting stronger. “I don’t think I have a choice.”
“You do have a choice, Eric,” she stated, her tone firm. “You can’t go in. If you go in, you can’t come back out.”
He sighed softly at that and whispered, “Entities are in there.”
“Yes, I can feel them,” she whispered.
Was she in his head, around his head, or somehow connected to him, a part of him, speaking through him?
He didn’t understand what was happening, but they were all so very blended into this same experience that he knew that, no matter what it was, he had to do something with her, as she was an integral part of it. “I think I can return, if you go with me,” he suggested.
After a moment of silence, she sighed heavily, almost regretfully. “But that doesn’t mean I can save you,” she whispered.
“You can save me,” he declared. “I know you can.”
“I don’t know that,” she snapped. “This place is not for any of us to visit. It draws on your fears and insecurities.”
And then he got it. “That’s it. … You’ve been here before.”
“No. No, I haven’t,” she cried out. And, with that, she snapped back and dragged him right back out of wherever he had been, kicking and screaming, until he opened his eyes and saw her sitting there right beside him.
*
As soon as he opened his eyes, she bolted to her feet and took off running.
She couldn’t stop the shaking. Even running was hard.
She ran like the devil was on her heels because it just seemed as if she could do nothing to get away from it, to control it.
She wasn’t even sure what it was but felt as if it was right there after her, right on her heels.
When she was forced to a halt, jerked back around, and pulled tightly into warm, strong arms, she knew exactly who it was. As she burrowed deeper into Eric’s chest, she still shook, her quivering overtaking her system.
When it finally slowed down, he whispered, “You know we need to talk about this.” When she shook her head, he sighed and added, “Oh yes, we do.” She shook her head again, and he murmured close against her ear, “I don’t know what you’re hiding or why you’re hiding it, but what you did back there,” he shared, “was amazing. It was incredible, and we need your help to do it again.”
“Absolutely not,” she snapped, stepping away from him, glaring at him.
“In case you didn’t get the memo, this is not what I want to do, and this is not where I want to be.
In fact, if you won’t take me home, I’ll just grab a bus and go home.
I’m not staying here and getting pulled into this nightmare, … not again.”
And then to her horror, she realized that the one thing she didn’t want to say had slipped out and still hung in the silence between them, before landing into his awareness with a resounding crash.
“Again,” he whispered in shock and amazement.
She shook her head. “No.” She raised a hand.
“I’m not talking about this, not now. I don’t want anything to do with this mess.
” She pulled free and took several steps forward, only to hit an invisible wall, almost as if being slammed into it, and she froze.
Trying to move was useless. Trying to change direction was useless.
She slowly sank onto the ground as everything inside her stilled, and her sense of alertness sharpened, waiting for everything to come crashing down, like it always did.
She had managed to forget about this and to put this away for so very long. Yet, right here and now, without any warning, she was right back in the same nightmare she’d fought so hard to escape.
Eden muttered, “I didn’t mean to say that.”
“Oh, I got that message,” Eric stated. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say to that.”
She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No, that’s not true,” he argued. “I would have preferred that you say something earlier, but I guess if it has anything to do with this nightmare, I can understand why you didn’t.”
“I don’t think anybody can understand this nightmare,” she muttered, with a wave of her hand. “I’m not sure I even know what this is.”
Her voice was faint, and, even though she tried hard to bolster it with firm resolve, her words came out wavery, creaky even.
“Look. It’s not that I’ve seen this exact thing before,” she clarified, “but I have experienced a couple very scary scenarios, and I just didn’t want to ever deal with this again. ”
“And when you say this?”
She waved her hand out there into her surroundings.
“Psychic stuff, weird stuff, energy stuff, ghosty stuff,” she shared.
“I don’t know how to explain it any more than that,” she snapped, sounding frustrated.
“It started to get to me, ever since that opened, and I sensed them around me,” she shared, “and that is the last thing I want.”
“Sense them?”
“Yes,” she snapped again, glaring at him. “I know. I’m crazy.”
“You’re not crazy, so stop saying that,” he said, “but I do need to understand.”
“I’m not trying to keep you from understanding,” she yelled, turning to look at him. “I don’t understand it myself, and, if I don’t understand, I can hardly explain it to you.”