*Duplicate Lies*
*Chapter 2: The Nightmare*
The darkness wasn't empty. It felt thick, heavy, like a wet blanket pressing down on Avina. She couldn't feel the floor beneath her bare feet. She couldn't feel her own body, even. There was just this deep, black space that swallowed every sound and every bit of light. A sharp, strange smell filled her nose, something like old metal and something burning. Was this what it felt like to fall? Or was it something much, much worse?
Just when she thought she might scream, bright colours exploded behind her closed eyes. First, a harsh, blinding white. Then, a sharp, electric blue. After that, a crazy mix of deep red swirled around. It felt like her whole body was being pulled apart, stretched very thin, and then snapped back together. A dull, painful ache started behind her eyes, throbbing in her head.
Then, as quickly as it had come, the terrible darkness lifted.
Avina gasped, her eyes flying open. But she quickly squeezed them shut again. Too much light! It wasn't the soft, gentle light from that strange room she'd stepped into back at the mansion. This light was hard, fake, and it made a loud, buzzing noise that made her teeth hurt. She blinked many times, and slowly, her eyes got used to the brightness.
She wasn't in the hallway of her mansion anymore. She was lying on a cold, very hard floor. The air felt heavy, smelling strongly of hospital cleaning stuff and something else… something a little like old blood, like when you cut yourself. Above her, a single, flickering light buzzed, casting long, shaky shadows that looked like moving monsters on the dull grey walls. There were no windows, no familiar furniture, nothing from her beautiful home. Just long lines of shiny, metal cabinets all around the room. They looked like giant refrigerators, stretching from the floor to the ceiling.
Her heart pounded very fast against her ribs, like a scared bird trapped inside a small box. *Where was she? What was this place?*
"Hello?" Her voice came out as a weak, thin whisper. It was so quiet, she could barely hear it over the buzzing lights. No one answered. The silence that followed was even scarier than the noise.
She pushed herself up slowly. Her arms and legs felt heavy, like she was moving through thick mud. Her bare feet touched the cold, hard floor again. She looked down at herself. She was still wearing her soft nightgown. *Had she walked into this room straight from her bed? No, no, it was the locked door. The light.* A freezing cold feeling, not from the temperature, crept up her back. This place felt completely wrong. Terribly wrong.
Her eyes darted around the room, trying to find a way out, any hint of where she was. She saw only one door, also made of cold, hard metal, at the very end of the long room. With a sudden burst of desperate energy, she stumbled towards it, her hand reaching for the cold handle. It was locked. Of course, it was locked. It had to be.
She pressed her ear against the cold metal. Faintly, very faintly, she could hear sounds – a low, quiet murmur of voices. They were hard to understand, but they were definitely human. Relief, sharp and sudden, rushed through her. There were people. She wasn't completely alone in this terrible place.
"Hello!" she yelled, hitting the door hard with her open hand. "Hello! Is anyone out there? Please! Let me out!"
The quiet voices outside stopped immediately. Total silence,then, a slow, deep creak. It sounded like something very heavy being dragged across the floor. Avina held her breath, pressing herself even harder against the door, trying to hear more.
A single, soft cough. And then, a whisper. It was so close to the door that she felt the tiny shake through the cold metal.
"You're awake."
The voice was flat, with no feeling in it at all. And it was chillingly familiar. Avina gasped, jumping back from the door as if it had burned her skin. It sounded like... no, it couldn't be. Her mind screamed in protest.
"Who are you?" she demanded, her voice shaking badly. "Let me out! Dave! Are you out there?"
The whisper came again, even fainter this time, as if the speaker was moving away. "Dave… he's resting."
Resting? A new kind of cold fear seeped into Avina's bones, colder than the floor, colder than the steel. She stumbled back towards the middle of the room, her eyes flying around wildly, looking for anything. The sterile metal cabinets around her seemed to grow taller, closer, like giant, silent monsters. The flickering light from above grew dimmer, making the shadows on the walls twist into even more frightening shapes.
Then, she heard another sound, much closer now. A soft, steady *thump-thump*. It was coming from one of the stainless-steel cabinets, the one closest to her right side. A faint, tiny shaking ran through the metal.
Fear turned into pure, icy horror. The thump-thump grew louder, more insistent, and with it came a soft, muffled shuffling sound from inside the cabinet. It wasn't a machine noise. It sounded... alive. Something was in there.
And then, from inside that cold, metal box, a tiny, almost silent sob.
It was the same sound she'd heard last night. The same soft, sad baby cry that had pulled her to the locked door in her mansion. But this time, it wasn't a distant echo. It was right here, trapped inside one of these cold, metallic boxes.
Avina stared at the cabinet, her breath caught in her throat. The hum of the lights, the strange metallic smell in the air, the steady, rhythmic thumping, and that small, desperate cry. It all came together into one terrifying truth that her mind desperately fought to push away.
A wave of dizziness washed over her. The room spun wildly, the harsh lights twisting into blurry streaks of white. Her legs felt weak, her head swam, and the hum seemed to grow louder, filling her ears until it was the only sound in the world. She squeezed her eyes shut, a silent scream caught in her throat as the floor rushed up to meet her. Everything went black.
Avina woke up to the warm, soft feel of her silk sheets. A gentle light was filtering through the curtains. She blinked, her eyes adjusting slowly. The air smelled of her expensive lavender pillow spray and Dave's familiar scent. She could hear his soft, even breathing next to her. He was still fast asleep, his arm gently thrown over her side.
For a moment, she was confused. Where was she? Then, the details of her beautiful bedroom slowly came back to her. The large, soft bed. The elegant lamps on the bedside tables. The quiet morning sounds outside. She was safe ,she was home.
But a strange, heavy feeling sat in her chest, like a cold stone. She felt tired, deeply tired, as if she hadn't slept at all. And there was a whisper of something scary, a shadow of a bad dream she couldn't quite remember. Something about a cold place, and a sound… a tiny, sad sound. She frowned, trying to catch the memory, but it slipped away like water through her fingers.
*It was just a dream,* she told herself, pulling her blanket higher. A very bad dream. The locked door in the hallway downstairs felt far away now, a distant worry she had almost forgotten. She closed her eyes again, snuggling closer to Dave's warmth, hoping the feeling of dread would soon leave her.
End of chapter
Tbc.....