"Let's go, Ember. You have a test to do."
Salome smiled at me.
Reassuring me, perhaps?
She doesn't ever smile.


That scared me more than
her usual cold self.
The hallways grew longer,
colder.


I passed unfamiliar people.
Some in street clothes.
Some in suits.
All of them looked withdrawn.


All of the life I felt in the world,
it was backwards here.


My breath frosted in the air,
joints slower as
I felt it seeping through
my clothes.


I kept looking at her expression,
she looked ill,
her skin looked grey,
her eyes tired.


She looked physically drained as we approached it.
I felt nothing.
And then we stopped.


A double door,
the wood engraved with patterns I cannot place.
"Are you ready?"
Her voice was trembling.


Fear.


She was afraid.


I was too just from that.


I was walked into a large room in the Office.
I had never been here before.
I could not see the ceiling through the darkness,
trees were painted along the sides.


The trees were spiraling, looking as
if they would suck me in.
The air was clammy,
like I was wading through it.


As I walked forward toward the other end of the hall.


It moved away.


I never reached it.

The walls stretched like springs.

I stared through the light.
Each beam seemed like a wall of
dark
light
dark
light


dark


The lights vanished.
I felt a presence.
A ghost.


By my shoulder.


I turned around.


Darkness.


I felt something brush against my back, behind me.


I drew my gun.


I shouted for whatever it was to show itself.


Darkness.
Became.
Light.


The room was empty,
no one was here.
The presence was here though.
Something was here with me.


I do not believe in ghosts,
but this was something.
You see movement
in the corner of your eye.


You try and focus on it,
but your mind doesn't process it.


It is just a blur.


I felt a hand on my shoulder.
I twisted and Salome was there.
In front of me.
She disarmed me.


She pointed the gun in my face,
a couple of steps back.
She said "What do you see?"


I... I was too scared.
She stared around.
Looking at a point over my shoulder.


I turn to look,
I followed her gaze.
I saw nothing.


I said so.


She looked at me for a moment,
and then back at that spot above my shoulder.


"There was nothing to see. The test was to study how easy it is to induce fear into you."
A lie.
She was too agitated to lie well.


She hugged me and returned my gun.
"Let's get out of here."
Never before have I seen
her in such a hurry to leave.