Over the Moon (29 page)

At that very moment, I heard the thunderous sound of a massive explosion behind me. I could see a gigantic flash of light flame
out in my peripheral vision. I could hear fire crackling and hissing as
it greedily consumed the surrounding oxygen. The blaze must have
reached the ceiling. I felt the intense heat coming from behind and
above me. Black smoke was billowing through the building. It now
smelled like burning garbage or barbecued barf. I could feel the hot
pricking of the sparks as they flew against the back of my neck. It
must be gaining ground, moving toward me. The fiery flames had
jumped onto some woodpiles at my left. I saw and heard two more
loud blasts explode in front of me. I couldn't tell if they were some
kind of bombs or dynamite that had been detonated. Why would
anyone want to blow up this empty warehouse? Of course, it wasn't
empty. I was in it. My captors had disappeared from my view. Had
they been forced out by the unexpected exploding fire and smoke?

My searching eyes found abandoned propane tanks scattered
among the wreckage on the floor that I had failed to notice before.
The blaze had moved to my right side, causing one of the tanks to
ignite. It made a deafening boom as it blew up and out, sending the
flames closer to where I sat, unable to move. My eyes were drawn
to the discarded cardboard boxes near my feet. I kicked at them,
straining in vain to move them away. The fire had begun lapping at
the boxes, edging nearer and nearer to my chair. I screamed. No one
responded. I began to realize I was going to cook to death in this
inferno. Were they just going to let me burn? I couldn't see them
through the heavy, blackened smoke. It stung my eyes and scorched
my throat. Why had they left me here? Wouldn't my death ruin all
their fun? You can't torture the dead. I wondered if the smoke or
the fire would kill me first. What did it feel like to burn to death?
I decided I'd rather die of smoke inhalation. I took a deep breath.
The dense smoke singed the inside of my nose and mouth, parching
my throat and causing me to cough uncontrollably. My lungs were instantly inflamed. I couldn't hold out much longer. I hoped Andrew
had escaped in time. I closed my eyes, ready to give up, hoping the
end would come quickly and spare me from having to endure too
much horrendous pain. When my eyes closed, the noisy calamitous
fire became suddenly silent, and I could no longer smell the ashfilled smoke.

When I opened them again, the fire and smoke had completely
disappeared. It didn't make sense, but I didn't have time to wonder
over the absence of the heat. Instead, with total and intense trepidation, I saw dozens of rattlesnakes slithering toward me. I had never
seen so many snakes, at least not since Indiana Jones fell into a pit
full of them. I had nightmares for weeks after seeing that movie.
These snakes appeared to be very real, and they were angry, as if
someone had poked them with a sharp stick. Their beady eyes were
all focused on me. I feared they were going to devour me alive. They
hissed and spat at me as they reached my trembling, captive body. I
kicked at them, fighting without success to impede their progress. It
only seemed to make them angrier. They coiled around my exposed
limbs and sank their piercing fangs into my pale and sweating skin
again and again. My screaming was involuntary and uncontrollable.
I was shaking as I felt their fangs, like sharp, hot needles, thrusting
into my flesh over and over.

Next, I watched in terror as hundreds of tarantulas joined the
snakes. They came at me with amazing speed. The floor was alive and
moved like a sea of brown, fuzzy, really ugly spiders that advanced
toward me in rolling waves. They scurried to my feet and began creeping onto my snake-covered body. I could feel their hairy legs crawling
down my neck, in my hair, on my face. I shuddered as they crept under
my pant legs and sleeves. They were biting me, causing large welts
that itched and stung. The snakes seemed to be attracted by the welts
that were erupting on my skin as the spiders bit me multiple times.
I looked beyond the spiders to see yet another poisonous predator
crawling toward me. A huge Gila monster followed the tarantulas.
They moved aside to form a pathway that parted their arachnid army
for this large, lethal lizard. He was joined by another and then another. The first one opened its jaws and fiercely latched onto my leg. I felt
an agonizing ripping as his powerful teeth cut my flesh. The venom
from the snakes should have killed me by now. Why wasn't I dead yet?
My body began to writhe and convulse. The pain was overwhelming.
I didn't think I could endure this torment much longer. The blackness
was mercifully coming back to take me away.

I closed my eyes. I visualized Andrew's face. I wished I could see
him one more time before I died. He was speaking to me calmly in
my head, telling me it was an illusion. There were no snakes, there
were no spiders, and there were no Gila monsters. I stopped hurting.
I stopped shaking. I stopped screaming. I prayed with every ounce of
faith I could muster that his voice was telling me the truth. I gathered the courage to open my eyes. Nothing was there, nothing at all.
The agonizing torment had stopped. He had taken away all my pain
and distress. The relief was instantaneous.

When I stopped reacting to the imaginary predators, pig-faced
man pulled the needle out and replaced it with another from the
ring. "This is despair." He grinned, and the rat man clapped his
hands. This time, I only winced at the pain.

Everything went black. I was immediately struck blind and deaf.
I tried to remember where I was and what was going on before the
silent darkness had descended upon me. My recollection was somehow
faulty. I tried to move my arms and legs. They were totally immobile,
paralyzed. I was oddly disoriented so that I couldn't remember which
way was up or down. My sense of direction seemed to be completely
skewed. The blackness encircled my inert body. It held me motionless,
enveloping me in a cold, hard nothingness. I was alone in this inky sea.
An icy, damp blanket of despair covered me, weighing me down with
agonizing distress, as if heavy rocks and boulders were attached to all
my limbs. I could taste a metallic, acrid bitterness that cut into my
tongue. I shuddered and trembled as I felt the frigid emptiness engulf
me. I felt like I was frozen into my own personal ice sculpture, floating
somewhere in an empty, arctic ocean.

I thought of the stunning beauty of Sonya Parker. She was right.
Andrew was too good for me. It suddenly became as crystal clear as the ice that held me captive. He was completely above me, flawless
and superior in every way. I didn't know how I could have believed
that he loved me. He had to be toying with me, playing some cruel
game to make her jealous. He didn't love me. How could he? He
was so genuinely divine, and I was blatantly worthless. No one could
ever love me. I had absolutely no redeeming qualities. I was a stupid,
little Earth girl. How could I have been so blind to my inadequacies?
Everyone was undoubtedly laughing at me behind my back, making
fun of me and ridiculing me because I was such a pathetic failure. I
could never face the people in this town again. They all knew what
an insipid fool I was. I would never be able to walk into Hurricane
High again. My fellow students must loathe me because I was so
pitifully deficient. I was such an idiot, a loser, a joke. I would never
be able to live this down. Of course, I knew none of this mattered.
If he didn't love me, I didn't want to live. I wasn't going to be able to
endure this bleak desolation or the intense sorrow that threatened
to overcome me and push me into the throes of harsh and unstoppable pain.

I just wanted to crawl off and die! Why couldn't I just die? The
world would be a better place without me in it. Devastation buried
me. Misery crushed me. There was no hope, no happy ending, only
endless anguish. Life no longer held any meaning for me. There was
nothing I could do to erase this extreme grief. It crashed over me in
chunks of palpable depression, pushing me down into a vortex of
adverse emotions. The gloomy desolation was dragging me, pulling me under. I wasn't strong enough to fight against the whirling
undercurrent that grabbed and spun me in circles of degradation and
wretchedness. I couldn't bear this excruciating heaviness that held
me. I willed myself to let go of life. How could I make this suffering
stop? I sank deeper and deeper, like a stone, into what felt like an
endless pool of cold, mind-numbing paralysis. Nothing could save
me now. I was drowning in the thick quicksand of my inferiority and
the demoralizing futility of my wasted life.

All motion ceased. All the energy had seeped out of my body. I
had nothing left. I was limp and completely empty, devoid of even the will to exist. I wanted to waste away into nothingness, to disappear. I was broken, torn into pieces, and crushed. The freezing, harsh
cold that I was feeling began to numb the few senses I had left. My
body was shutting down. I had nearly stopped breathing. My blood
was frozen in my veins. I could no longer feel my heart beating. The
fatal obliteration should claim what was left of my spirit soon. A
complete catatonic stupor was closing in on me.

I closed my eyes and tried to accept my impending death. Again,
I heard his voice in my head.

"I love you, only you!" he insisted. "We will get through this
together." He begged me to embrace that truth. "Tiana, don't give in!
Keep fighting, love! You can do this! You have to find your faith. You
are stronger than you think. Let go of the pain and all the negative
emotion. Take your power back. Don't let them control you! You can't
let them win, love. Use your faith to rise above their evil torture."

I opened my eyes to a bright, intense light. With a sudden burst
of energy, I felt the heavy blackness and the hopelessness fade and
subside like flood waters dispersing and draining away to evaporate
in the warmth of the afternoon sun. I remembered Puck's lines from
A Midsummer Night's Dream. "If we shadows have offended, think
but this, and all is mended. That you have but slumbered here while
these visions did appear." This whole terrifying experience was just
an illusion. It was another nightmare, a lie designed to persecute me
and hurt Andrew as he had to watch my suffering. I had endured
more indescribable torment than I had suffered in my whole seventeen years of living on this planet, but I had lived through it. I was
still here. They hadn't broken me.

"No more!" Andrew pleaded as the pig-faced man removed the
cruel needle from my gray matter. "I'll take you to the ship. Don't
hurt her anymore!"

"Can't we use the guilt one? I really want to see that." Rat man
was begging again.

"Not now!" Rex answered with impatience. He instructed them
to carry me out to a waiting van. He jerked and pulled Andrew outside. His malicious minions threw me in the storage compartment
in the rear of the vehicle and climbed into the backseat. Rex shoved Andrew into the passenger seat and went to the driver's side. I was
still attached to the metal chair. It fell over as he accelerated the van,
forcing me onto my side. The ropes were still cutting into my skin.
This discomfort was nothing compared to the intense pain I had
so recently endured. If I survived this ordeal, I would need a lot of
therapy to help me lose those horrendous memories.

It wasn't far to our destination. I was bouncing around on the
metal floor of the vehicle for what must have been only minutes, but
it seemed longer as my battered body was banged from one side to the
other. This was going to leave some ugly marks. That is if I lived long
enough for them to "Present." That's CSI talk for becoming visible.

The pig man and the rat man got out and carried me to the
door of the pharmaceutical warehouse. I vividly remembered our
last visit here, when Andrew had first shared his startling, secret life,
and the intense joy we experienced together. I was now living the
antithesis of that sublime moment. This was the part of his world
he had warned me about, the danger he wanted to shield me from. I
hadn't understood the real risks then. Now, I knew the price of that
extreme ecstasy wasn't cheap or painless. He had been prudent to
caution me concerning his viciously violent world that I now knew,
without any uncertainty, existed and about the evil entities that were
determined to destroy us both along with the rest of the world. I had
always known his love was worth fighting for, but was it a love I'd
have to die for?

Rex pulled Andrew out of the van, unchained his wrists, and
commanded him to open the door.

"Untie her first," Andrew demanded.

"Open the door, and then we will," Rex lied.

"No! Untie her now!" He refused angrily.

"Can't we use the guilt needle?" the rat man complained once
more.

"No! Just untie her. It's faster!" growled Rex, the grotesque, giant
troll.

They hastily untied me and pulled me to my feet, holding my
arms in a vice-like grip. My wobbly legs seemed to be made of rub ber. I couldn't stand on my own. The two Hellite monsters held me
upright, sandwiched between them. I gagged and dry heaved at the
odor they emanated.

Andrew punched in the security code and pressed his thumb to
the plate. The door opened to reveal the second door.

"Open it!" boomed Rex. Andrew put his right eye against the
small window that scanned his iris. The door opened slowly to show
the third door.

"This is asinine!" said the pig-faced man. "How many more
doors are there? This is going to take all night!"

Andrew entered the password and said, "Just one more." The
door swung open, and we were in the long hall. Dragging me along
with them, they walked down to the last door. Andrew took out the
small key and opened that final barrier to our entrance. He flipped
on the overhead lights.