Dark Skies - Prologue

The Echoes

There was a hand on Michelle’s waist. She hadn’t noticed it at first. Lying on the cold floor, curled under the ragged remnant of what had probably, at some point, been a blanket and drifting in and out of a restless, sleep-deprived daze…maybe she’d thought it had been a fragment of a dream she was having? But no. It moved, curving around her hip, pushing away the fog and forcing her muscles to involuntarily ripple to life, tensing and tightening.

“Lia…?” She whispered, a throaty little symbiosis of a squeak and a croak exiting her slightly parted lips. Nothing. No response. The hand moved again, drawing back slightly. More noticeably a hand, now: a slow caress of long, individuated fingers on bare flesh. Cold…ever-so-slightly cold. She felt the little hairs on her arms above the elbow start to prickle. The codependent stratifications of muscle in her stomach and her thighs were almost painfully tense; taught; trembling. Her eyes were wide open. She could hear her heartbeat. That was when she felt breath…a wispy draught of air…grazing over the contours of her neck; up and around her ear and chin. She felt frozen in place, her body primed for movement but her mind stuck in a moment of paralysed uncertainty, just…it moved again. This time inching downward, fingers spanning and tracing; lazily, softly clawing…

In a flurry of motion, she rolled onto her stomach, knees bent up under her and hands splaying out on the floor, pushing her up; she stumbled dramatically, trying to get back against the wall, get some situational awareness, and…

“What the hell…?” She sighed out breathlessly, her heart hammering behind her ribs as she surveyed the lightless room. Nothing, just…an empty floor, and a rumpled, pathetically undersized excuse for a blanket, and her backpack off to the side. She was alone. “God,” She sighed, letting her body collapse back and against the wall. She reached up to her right shoulder, trying to massage some of tension out, letting her eyes drift closed. “Fucking Echoes.” She hissed. Shaking her head briskly - trying to argue against the need for sleep - she stood properly, moving for her backpack. She unzipped it, pulling out an oversized hoodie and stuffing the blanket in its place. “Time to go,” She sighed to herself, dragging the hoodie up her arms, zipping it closed and throwing the backpack over her shoulder.