Darkness Watching (Darkworld #1) (2 page)

Was it a ghost? I’d always thought ghosts would look… human. If I believed in them, which, up until now, I thought I didn’t.

All around me, I could hear the other students chatting, laughing. No one screamed, cried, or ran for the doors. It was as though my own private bubble of horror enclosed me like the cage I’d envisioned earlier. Trapped.

Then I heard a faint whisper, almost like a breath.

“Ash.”

I would have screamed if I’d been capable of making a sound. I knew beyond doubt that those eyes, that voice, belonged to something that wasn’t human.

The eyes blinked again, becoming part of the shadow once more as the hall lights came back on. For a moment, a swathe of blackness remained in the rafters, like a single patch of mist left behind after a fog has lifted. Not a single speck of dust disturbed the area around it.

Then it vanished.

I still couldn’t breathe. Those cold eyes remained imprinted on the insides of my eyelids, light purple, glowing and staring.

Staring at me.

I blacked out for a minute. When I came to, I heard Mr Darton’s low mutter into the microphone—not that anyone listened. Whispers filled the air, ordinary conversations. People talked about their plans for the weekend, not about monsters with violet eyes or piercing, unnatural coldness. The more studious skimmed through revision notes. I looked down and saw mine scattered all over the floor. I didn’t remember dropping them. I didn’t remember anything but those awful eyes.

I’ve cracked.
Did staring violet eyes fall under the category of stress-induced hallucinations?

Cara tried to laugh off her moment of panic.

“I didn’t
really
think it was the end of the world,” she insisted.

The end of the world. Maybe that was what I’d seen. A sign.

Ridiculous.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. My parents tiptoed around me like I was a bomb about to go off, thinking I wanted to do my final interview preparations alone. Like I could concentrate.

My nerves seemed laughable by comparison. This fear went bone-deep, like I’d tapped into some kind of primitive instinct against an unseen danger. The fear of a child lost in the woods, seeing monsters in every shadow. Fear of the unknown, not of muggers or rapists or murderers. Unlike Cara, I didn’t actively seek out the supernatural, despite railing against it. I wanted nothing to do with it. Especially now.

I spent the evening wandering about the house, trying to control my rising panic as little by little, it sank in.
I’m not asleep. I’m not going to wake up from this. Whatever happened back there―it was conscious. Either I’m mad, or I can see things that aren’t there.
I didn’t know which would be worse.

And that voice…

How did it know my name?

Eventually, my mum insisted I go to bed. “Ash, you’re up at six tomorrow. I know you’re nervous, but try to get some rest.”

Sleep? Not likely.
Macbeth shall sleep no more. Wait, that’s the wrong book.
I buried my head in my hands.
Shit, I really have lost the plot. I can’t even blame caffeine.

I usually picked Red Bull as my beverage of choice when attempting to get in a few extra hours of revision before dawn.

Goose bumps prickled my arms, even though I’d turned the heating to its highest setting, and I felt a cold draft against my skin as if I sat near an open window. The light-headed feverishness persisted.

Focus!
I skimmed through my notes for the thousandth time, as the clock ticked away the remaining hours until morning. Every time my eyes flickered shut, the scene in the assembly hall replayed like a video clip.

I knew I could never rest until I found out that sinister creature’s identity.

So I got out of bed, took up my usual place in my swivel chair, and logged onto my laptop.

But I realised almost immediately that I could spend hours on the Internet, trawling through hundreds of obscure websites and get absolutely nowhere. Googling “ghost” brought up a procession of fake photographs and videos of hauntings, ranging from floating orbs in old English pubs to transparent figures in family pictures. On the more sinister side, I found images of exorcisms and Ouija boards.
Bad idea.
In the dead of night, every creak of our old house made my nerves jangle. Okay, I’d seen
The Exorcist
before, during an ill-advised horror movie marathon with Cara. Why should this be any different?

Because it might be real.

Browsing occult websites only made my terror more acute. People in forums seriously debated the existence of demons, ghosts, and spirits. Some claimed to have been possessed. Others claimed to be in cahoots with Satan.

What am I even looking for?

I typed the word
demon
.

If in doubt, trust Wikipedia.

But I saw no mention anywhere of violet eyes or living shadows.

Maybe I should do a medical search instead. Hallucinations. Or see an actual doctor?

What, and get locked away? I’m not mad!

Institutionalisation wouldn’t do my academic career any favours.

A lot of professors are mad.

Oh, be quiet.

Talking to yourself, now, are we?

I groaned. Enough Internet for me.

I caught sight of the pale spectre of my reflection in the window behind my desk.
Cara has a point. I do look like a zombie
. Or a ghost, watching through shadowed eyes…

It started out as yet another exam dream. I sat in the school hall, looking at an unfamiliar paper, as all the other students began to write with frantic enthusiasm, pens racing down the page.

I didn’t revise this at all
. Panic rose within me. I looked around desperately. Everyone else scribbled away. The clock ticked, seconds passing. Minutes.
Shit.

I felt a familiar surge of dizziness; my breath stuck in my throat, my heart pounded. I stared at the back of the seat in front of me, which seemed to waver and shimmer before my eyes, turning to blackness―

And a face grinned at me. Sharp teeth formed a malevolent smile. Violet eyes stared at me, unblinking. I could see nothing else for the smoke, which completely obscured everything before my eyes.

Then my chair tipped backward of its own accord. In slow motion, it leaned back, teetered for a moment. The demon grinned as I sat there, powerless to move.

The panic inside my chest spilled over, and I tried to cry out. But I couldn’t move my jaw, couldn’t open my mouth. I was frozen to the seat as it hit the floor with a soundless thud.

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t feel anything.

And I couldn’t speak, couldn’t scream.

I lay on my back and, around me, people continued to write, like robots programmed to scribble endless pages. No one spared a glance for me. I was trapped there on the floor, and no one even knew I was trapped.

The eyes blinked, then vanished.

My heart restarted with a jolt, hammering in my ears. I fought to escape the trap. My eyes felt as though something heavy weighed them shut, but I managed to force my eyelids apart. The sight of my digital alarm clock greeted me, sideways; I’d fallen asleep at my desk, my head resting on my laptop, the cold edge digging into my face.

I tried to lift my head, but I couldn’t. I tried to open my mouth, but my jaw remained locked.

Impossible. I’m awake.
Trapped again, this time for real. Not a muscle in my body responded to my pleas. I couldn’t feel my hands, but I knew my right hand rested under my chin where I’d used it as a pillow. I couldn’t feel my face, either.

I’d lost all feeling in my entire body, as if something invisible lay on top of me, pinning me down.

I tried to cry out, but not a sound escaped.

Move!
I thought, trying to lift my head. The weight continued to press on me. I recalled one of those web sites I’d browsed had mentioned poltergeists that sat on people in the middle of the night, leaving them unable to move. Terror washed over me, cold and merciless.

Every short breath hurt my chest.
Let me go. Please. Please―I’ll do anything, just let me move.

“Anything, Ashlyn?”

That voice.

What do you want from me?

Somehow, not being able to see the speaker made it a thousand times worse. It felt like a thousand invisible hands gripped me all over, numbing all sensation. At the edges of my vision, I thought I saw dark shapes, but no eyes, no mouth for the voice.

Demons.

Finally, the messages between my brain and nerves seemed to hit home, and I managed to raise my head, to lift my arm an inch. Slowly I regained feeling in my limbs. I shifted, twitched my hands, my feet.

Even then, I knew they watched me.

That day, the fear began.

sh! You’ve got something in the post!”

Groaning, I pulled the covers up over my head.
Not now. Any time but now.
I knew it was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

“Later,” I told my parents, when they showed me the
three
large envelopes, all addressed to Miss Ashlyn Temple. “Why three? Isn’t one rejection letter enough?”