~ 6: Weird Findings ~

I was extremely exhausted by the time the day ended. Well, it had ended for everyone except me.

With sleep making my eyes droop, I drank three cups of coffee to keep myself from sleeping away on top of my keyboard.

"Just a little more," I kept telling myself to pull myself closer to the goal that didn't seem very far off. "Just a few more words. Just a few more minutes..."

However, after a while, I passed out right after my unconscious mind had cleared off the table and made a comfortable space so that I rest peacefully. My head was cradled in my crossed arms and I took myself away from this world into another that I didn't know felt so real.

My mind, which never usually created dreams of any kind, suddenly seemed to have an urgent story to tell me. It felt urgent for I couldn't get up from it despite everything I tried to do to get away from the vision I was seeing.

I stood in a dark passageway and stared at the corridor in front of me that held some mystery at the end of it. For right there, the torchlights were alighted and lit up the hallway brightly.

I took a step forward to go deeper into the hallway and see the golden beauty of the olden day's architecture that was carved on the ceilings and the walls. But with every step I took, a pair of lights would disappear from the front for the distance between the darkness and the lighted passage never reduced.

I stared at the corridor in curiosity and started to walk quicker. But it was the same difference except for the fact that I felt someone following me from behind me. I started to run to close in the distance, but it appeared that the darkness wanted to swallow me along with the being who kept tailing right behind me.

I stopped to pick up an extinguished torch, panting and trying to unveil the reason behind the light being sucked away from the torches. But when I tried to look into it, I let out a gasp. The previously burning torch now had water in it. I screwed my eyes at the absurdity and turned to look at the passage that had lights going off as it would in a ghost movie.

Suddenly, the corridor went dark leaving me in darkness for what seemed like an eternity. I stood in complete silence, trying not to whimper by seeing the darkness around me and not being able to walk in any direction in the fear of tripping down some hidden hole like Alice in The Wonderland.

When I felt my heart reach my throat from the panicky situation, the torch in my hand flared up with a blue flame. I was so startled that I stepped back in terror. Someone caught me by my shoulders and I froze in my place like an ice statue that was ready to melt.

I tried to step away, but the hold on my shoulders was rather firm and didn't leave even after I tried to shrug it off lightly. I clenched my jaws, to prevent myself from letting a cry slip out due to the building fear in my throat that felt like acidity in one's stomach.

The squeeze on my shoulders made me turn around very slowly as I wanted to take to my feet like a rabbit that found itself in danger. I wanted to take to my feet immediately, but my intrigue wanted me to turn around to see the creature holding me back before running away at the speed of light.

The torch in my hand reflected off the glowing golden eyes that stared right at me. I screamed, not caring about the way the echoes reverberated off the wall and filled the whole passage because of the beast baring its sharp teeth at me.

The torch fell off my hand and before I could get to know what happened to the passage I had strayed away into, my eyes were wide open and so was my mouth that couldn't stop the cries from escaping it. My head remembered that I was on the floor, struggling or fighting an invisible force that had ceased to exist long ago.

"MISS!" screamed a voice behind me, stopping me from yelling on the top of my lungs at the scare that I had gotten from the nightmare. "There's nothing to be afraid about! We were just checking the room for any intruders."

"Oh, that was only a nightmare," I said with a sigh, breathing in deeply as two of the security guards helped me up. "I'm really sorry for the way I acted. Is there anything you needed from me?"

"If you could provide your ID to prove that you work here—"

"We got enough information about you," said a security guard who came out from the main doors. "We just never thought that the CEO had asked someone to stay up this late in the night only to be working away. We shall leave you to finish up, Miss."

"How can you say that she belongs in this building?"

"The CCTV. I got the footage checked. She has a position that is close with the CEO's since she had met up with him. Plus, she has been here for the whole night and didn't come in from the front after the cutoff hours."

"I am sorry for creating such a ruckus and having you come to look for me," I said with a bowed head to not only hide but also prove that I was really apologetic. "I just happened to be given a task and ended up sleeping as I couldn't complete it sooner."

"That's alright, Miss. But please do be careful and hurry it up here. We have caught many intruders in the past week so we just wanted to make sure you weren't one of them."

With that, they left the premises and I let out a sigh of relief. I started to rethink the nightmare I had just seen that had felt too real, although it was impossible as such creatures were either extinct or had either ceased to exist ever since the new world had been created.

'Why did I see such a strange dream when such were the ones seen by kids who saw a scary movie the previous night?' I asked myself as I hurriedly packed my stuff and decided to continue my work at home instead of the office that had become a haunting house.

'Did you forget already that you such a one last night with Yusra?' my brain reminded me in a chiding manner. 'I told you to keep away from them but you decided it was alright to watch it.'

'But I wasn't someone to be scared that easily by 'certain' horror movies. People have a phobia of blood and killings, but I'm not afraid of that either. Don't make it sound like yesterday's fantasy drama could cause such an issue.'

'Doesn't that make more sense that it would be the case with the way you are handling yourself?'

'It must be due to the lack of sleep. I will catch up on some good sleep in the meanwhile.'

'Yeah, sure. Sleep at the break of dawn and then be late for your presentation. That would promote you to the streets.'

I laughed at its joke until I unlocked my phone screen and saw the time on its screen. I started coughing until I ran out of breath. I stuffed everything in my bag and dashed out of the room.

Finding no bus to pick me up and send me home, I decided to try for the taxi only to find that I was short of the fare for it. I sighed in disbelief and decided to run in my heels. That was a terrible idea but I knew that it would take me more than thirty minutes to make it home if I decided to walk slowly.

'This is why you should always keep a pair of sneakers in your bag,' I hissed as the jolt of every running step I took jerked up my leg. 'I have been very stupid today because 'someone' decided it was alright to keep awake and have me suffer the torment of the CEO.

'It is partly your fault as well, you know?' said my brain, that always decided to use logic whenever it could get a chance to do so. 'If you hadn't tagged along with your heart's desire to sit with the prankster whom you like so much, you wouldn't have found yourself in trouble. And if you hadn't let that friend into your house despite her begging you so much, you would have gotten that sleep you desired so much.'

'These pranks are honestly not funny anymore, and I was not siding with them or their antics by being with them. I don't think I'll be able to handle it anymore if they cross the line again and try to get me in trouble. I'm probably already approaching my breaking point.'

After painfully running for three minutes straight, I sat down at a bus stop and let out a small cry as I tried to lift my legs and rest them on the long bench where no one was thankfully there. I stared at my heels that had become uneven from the running as one of them had lost a bit of its tip. If I were to walk in it, I would like a waddling duck, which was totally unladylike.

'Why did everything have to go down today itself?' I muttered under my breath as I rested my shoe-bitten feet on the cold ground. 'I shouldn't have listened to Yusra, although she had advised me for my own benefit, to wear those heels. Just how am I return home?'

I rested my head sideways against the back of the bench. I was panting from the effort of running when my body was not used to the methods of the athletes. My body would become weak very easily and I couldn't believe how I had managed to cover not even a quarter of the distance from the office to my home by running in those heels. It felt like a miracle coming true in one's old age.

A bus, filled with a few people, screeched to a stop right in front of me. I just glanced at the number and then looked away on finding that it was not the bus that would take me home. I knew that I couldn't walk another step if I couldn't be carried home. But there was none to do such a chore for me.

"Young Miss," said the driver from his seat. "You seem rather tired to be waiting for your bus. Where do you live? I am sure I can drop you off there."

"Your bus doesn't go to Idlan, does it, sir? I can't see any on the map."

"Oh, but the bus passes by that place very often. I'm sure we can make it to your place before my shift ends."

"Does you go by the Feldia junction and then have a stop somewhere near to the Nyda metro station?"

"Yes, this is the only bus that goes near that area at night and before daybreak."

'Right, I had forgotten about that,' I thought with pursed lips and internally smacked my half-broken head. 'Then I shall board this bus.'

"Thank you for helping me out, kind sir," I said with an exhausted smile.

"You're most welcome, young lady," he said in a loud voice. "We should be there in about twenty minutes as it would be the last stop so rest well."

I had just taken a seat in a comfortable place in the bus, hanging my legs from the seat, when my brain had found a link between my nightmares and my day's events. The golden eyes of the peculiar creature with sharp teeth resembled the glint of gold that had come across his eyes, the fire was a blood-red colour like the flicker I had appeared to have seen Efrain's eyes... But for the water whose colour I couldn't see, I couldn't derive any conclusion for it.

'What is this dilemma?' I asked myself, letting my finger play with the amethyst ring that was wound to my neck by a chain. 'It was definitely a hallucination, but why do my mind and heart say that there is something to do with them?'

I could only break away from the thought when the driver's announcement penetrate my ears, "Off we go. Kindly buckle up. The next stop is in five minutes."