Cindy Psi: Spy In Training
Chapter 28: Curiouser and Curiouser

Cindy walked cautiously along a corridor. She couldn’t quite remember how she’d got here – she was on Brunel, she remembered that, and she and Selma were supposed to be heading off to the school to find this teacher; and yet, here she was, walking down a corridor somewhere, and it felt like somewhere very far away.

She looked up and down. The corridor was dim and grey, stretching unforeseeably into the distance in both directions. She wasn’t sure what the walls were made of – it looked like somewhere between normal polymer wall covering and cold, slate-grey stone. She looked to the top of the walls – they glistened slightly as if damp, a bit like she was in a cave, albeit a cave with neatly cut, right-angled walls.

Cindy continued to walk along. She wondered briefly where Selma was. Then she remembered that right now she was looking for her fellow students – where had George gone? She had to find George. She kept walking down the corridor.

The corridor started to expand as she was walking along, and the lighting got better. Soon it was a much more normal looking corridor, almost like the corridor to the medical centre on Adriá. In fact, was that where she was? There was a door – she thought perhaps she’d pop in and see Rebecca.

“Hi Cindy,” said the girl in the bed.

“Oh, hi Tess. I was looking for Rebecca.”

“Rebecca?” Tess propped herself up on one elbow and smiled indulgently at Cindy. “You’re confused. She’s not here. She’s fine now, remember?”

“Oh. Are you ok?” Cindy said.

“Me? Oh I’m fine. I’m fine, Jacinta’s fine. Everyone’s fine. Except Ms Primp. Horrible woman. All that work. And so cold. Just so cold. I mean, what’s wrong with her? She’s giving me a headache just being near her these days. She needs to lighten up a bit. Just let go. You know? Just let go …”

Cindy left the room, leaving Tess to continue her rambling about Ms Primp.

She felt a strong, ominous pull and turned, alert and wary, to her right. There, standing in the middle of the nurses station (so was this the infirmary after all? She thought), was George. He was staring at her intensely.

“George?”

Nothing, although his stare intensified further.

George??

Still nothing, but now she noticed with alarm that his intense stare almost seemed to glow. Wait: it was glowing. And it was getting brighter. His expression was turning into a twisted snarl as his eyes began to glow with an incandescence that, although hard to watch, Cindy couldn’t turn away from. She felt drawn in somehow. It felt like the walls were flowing back around her as she was being pulled toward the pool of powerful, red-tinged, malevolent light flowing from George.

Just before it enveloped her Cindy heard “Cindy?”

She snapped out of it, and turned toward the room where Tess had been. “Cindy?” Came the voice again, this time seemingly from right behind her. She quickly turned back toward the nurses’ station – George was gone, and in his place was the boy from the Skypark, who quickly turned and scurried off. That was odd.

Shaken, Cindy carried on down the corridor.

As Cindy continued along she felt increasingly uneasy. The air hung with an ominous sense of threat. The spectral form of George was gone (what was that about?!?), but a continuing sense of wrongness remained. Her progress along the corridor had slowed, unwittingly, to a snail’s pace. She became aware that somewhere along the way the lighting had dimmed once more and now she walked through a dusky gloom. She glanced behind, but was unsurprised to find the corridor stretched into the distance with no sign of the lighter section or the nurse’s station.

Cindy stopped for a moment and touched the wall. It was the kind of cold that almost felt wet although her hand came away dry. Also, surprisingly, the wall seemed to be vibrating slightly. Acting on instinct, Cindy tried to let her mind slide into the wall like she had when freeing Rebecca and George. However this wall resisted any incursion.

Wait, thought Cindy, is this wall around my mind?

No. No, that wasn’t right. This was a corridor, and she could move along it. Just to reassure herself of this truth, Cindy started walking again.

After what seemed like an age, she saw a door in the distant gloom. She quickened her pace a bit and made towards it.

She reached the door and extended a hand toward the old-fashioned knob. Grasping it, she gasped slightly as the vibration from the wall flowed into her body like so much electricity. It brought with it a deep, subsonic thrum that set Cindy’s teeth on edge and sent a shiver across the back of her neck and shoulders. But turning back wasn’t an option – Cindy felt the darkness of the endless corridor closing in towards her, like a panther stalking prey in a pitch black cave.

As this thought struck her, the sense of something approaching grew stronger. It wasn’t quite that something was creeping toward her in the darkness; it was more like the darkness itself was breathing, and that breathing was malignant, threatening … and very, very close.

Panicked, Cindy quickly opened and went through the door.

She stood on a tiny ledge above a bottomless drop. She had no time to register the slamming and click of the door behind her closing as her mind reeled with the vastness of the cavern, the chasm, in front of her. The drop made her giddy. She could only just make out the other side – more dark grey stone; an inconceivably vast cliff face. On it, she thought she could see movement.

There you are little human

There you are little human

There you are little human

The voices came into her mind in unison, each filled with threat, each terrifying in its own way.

We have you now

We have you now

They have you now

Herself motionless with terror, Cindy saw motion on the opposite side of the abyss. A section of wall seemed to be starting to protrude out from the face of the cliff, and on it was … what was that??

It looked like some kind of human form, only barely distinguishable within an incandescent red glow. Next to it was a larger, green-tinged mass – a Turg, Cindy thought. Behind it, worst of all, a coruscating, massive ball of pure energy, now silver, now green, now red, now orange. As the vision came closer it lifted above the other two forms and starting floating upward across the cavern toward Cindy.

I will take her

I will take it

There will be silence.

This last came from the ball of light with a force that pressed so hard against Cindy’s mind she had to close her eyes for a moment. When she opened them the ball of light was looming, massive above her. As Cindy squinted upwards towards it, shading her eyes, she began to see wisps of hair forming, framing the sphere. Sections began to darken and take slight definition, forming glowing rings for eyes, nose; a darker glow forming a mouth.

It was from this mouth that the voice next came. It was a voice with no tone, no resonance, but with a kind of mass; a weight, heavy and dense, with each word pressing down upon Cindy as she looked up from the ledge.

There … is … more … to … this … than … it … seems.

The voice was so intense it hurt. Was it in her head? Outside? It felt more like a line of force ploughing straight through her whole existence. She felt weighed down with the pressure of it. What do you mean? She sent, but somehow knew the massive, face-shaped light was outputting, not receiving.

There … is … more. You … must … see it all. You … must wake up.

I don’t understand! Cindy cried. “I don’t understand!!”

You must wake up.

Cindy cried out in frustration and confusion, but silently. The force pressing down on her was becoming hard to bear, even as the voice seemed to draw away.

You must wake up.

Now she heard Dave’s voice in her mind. Wake up, Cindy. Wait, was that Dave?

You must wake up.

“Cindy! You must WAKE UP!!”

Cindy was cold, wet, drenched. She looked at Selma, who loomed above her, holding an empty glass, staring intently at her.

“Thank goodness!” Selma exclaimed. “I didn’t think I’d ever wake you!”

Cindy shook off her sleepy befuddlement. “A dream. Right. It was a dream.”

“Yes, it was a dream. But it was an incredibly noisy one.”

“Noisy?” Cindy was confused again. “Did I cry out?”

“No, not noisy like that,” Selma said, adding: noisy like this.

Realisation dawned. “Oh.” Cindy was chagrined. “I see. What damage have I done?”

“I’m not sure. Probably none. I didn’t sense any interlopers. Although it was weird as all heck. I had a look at what you were dreaming. Couldn’t get in there to help at all, but I think I saw a bit of what you were seeing.”

“The infirmary?”

“No, I didn’t see that – was that earlier?”

“Yes.” Cindy was still a bit fuzzy, but slowly remembering what she’d seen. “The cavern then? The lights?”

“Yes, I think so. There was a big chasm and a huge ball of light.”

“Did you hear what it said?”

“Said? Well I don’t know,” Selma sounded puzzled, “It was all a bit surreal. You know how dreams are. Did it talk to you?”

“Yes. It kind of turned into a face and it told me there was more to things than what it seemed and I had to wake up”

“Yeah, then I woke you up. Dreams can do that sometimes; tie in with what happens outside if you know what I mean.”

“I do, but it worries me that I’m not in control in there and can be broadcasting in my sleep.”

“Don’t be worried. It’s extremely rare that that happens – I think you must be reacting to having a bit of downtime and your brain is taking the opportunity to catch up. That said, psychic dreams can carry a little more weight than regular ones. I suggest you spend some time thinking about what you saw, who was there, what they did, what was said. There may be more to it.”

“I’m also … I’m also scared. It felt like they could get to me. In my dream!”

“Well, I understand you being scared of that, but I’ve never heard of it happening.” Selma’s tone was reassuring, but Cindy sensed she shared her concern. Before she could pursue it though Selma continued: “And one other thing … Cind?”

“Yes?”

“Would you mind putting me down?”

Cindy looked at where Selma was with the glass for the first time and realised her feet were about 10cm off the ground. Cindy had reacted instinctively to the water, and without realising it had Selma pinned there against the wall, in a silver ring, unable to move. She caught herself and pulled back the mindline immediately; Selma dropped to the floor, landing lightly for a girl of her build.

“Sorry! I didn’t realise.”

Selma laughed. “I know, I know. You don’t know your own strength. Don’t worry about it.”

Cindy gave a half-smile back, relieved to hear Selma laugh, but still shaken from her dream. “What time is it anyway?” she asked.

“About 8:15. Time to get up and get ready for our appointment I think.”

“Ok. I guess I’ll go shower then.”

“Do that. And Cindy …?”

“Yes?”

“Try not to worry.”

Cindy gave the older girl as good a smile as she could manage. “I’ll try.”

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