Insomnia

Chapter 29: Fleeting Truth

My fingers produced a strange rattling noise as they shook the keys. I couldn't make them behave. They didn't want to type the right combination any more than I did. When the keyboard shuddered off the desk onto my lap, I put it back and reclined in my chair, propping my bare feet up on the computer tower. I needed to calm down. There was no backing out now. 

The phone rang in the living room yet again and I heard Mom pick it up. 

"Hello?" she answered. "I'm sorry. Parker isn't feeling up to having visitors yet." I heard her sigh as she listened. "I know. I'll tell him you called." 

Obviously it was Finn or Addie. She thought I was asleep or she might've come in to tell me they wanted to talk to me . . . again. It was the fifth time one of them had stopped by or called since I'd turned off my cell phone when we'd gotten home from the hospital that morning. But Mom didn't seem to mind screening their many calls and visits for me. There appeared to be some kind of unwritten rule that when your kid has a near-death experience, they get whatever they want for a while. And, really, wanting to be alone and get some rest wasn't asking for much. 

I took three deep breaths and sat back up. Pressing my wrists firmly into the keyboard pad seemed to still the shaking a bit. One clumsy finger strike at a time, I typed the e-mail address in the login box. Each click echoed like a pounding gavel in my mind. 

My soccer jersey hung from a hook on the back of my door. The eight was printed in ominous black over the vertical blue and yellow stripes. I omitted the 1 from my normal address, leaving only the 8. I tentatively tried to guess what Darkness might use as a password. 

Darkness—no

Mia—no

Watcher—no

I only had one more guess before the security default would lock the account for an hour. Darkness laughed morbidly from the back of my mind. What else might it be? Out of frustration, I entered the password for my normal e-mail address: s0cc3r. Then one word flashed across the screen. 

LOADING. 

That single word sent me spinning, gasping like I couldn't quite find the oxygen for a full breath. I jammed my finger into the power button on the monitor before anything could come up. Still, I could feel the secret e-mails tugging at me from behind the dark screen. 

My chest burned and the edges of my vision grew dark. More air, I needed more air. I scrambled to my bed and slammed my fists against the window. Then I hit it with the first thing my hand grasped onto, a soccer trophy from last year off my desk. Again and again, I beat the tiny brass soccer player against the glass until I heard it crack, and then it wasn't in my way anymore. The air in my room seemed impossibly thin; each breath was a struggle. 

It was true. It had always been true. Darkness was the stalker. He'd sent Mia the e-mails. No, I did. Whether I was aware of him or not, could control him or not, he was me. 

Images of the past few weeks floated like ghosts in the tomb of my mind, a barren wasteland where they hovered and plagued but never held still long enough for me to push them away. Flashes haunted me: Finn, his cheek already swelling as he glared at me from his locker; Mia, cowering with blood blossoming from her head; Addie, sobbing and screaming for me in her dream until her throat was raw. 

Then the images burst through the flood gates I'd carefully erected to protect myself, one pounding over the next: Mia's parents melting in the blaze; Darkness standing in the road with his maniacal smile; me watching Mia through her window; Dr. Freeburg running his hand up Mia's leg; the bloody paperweight in my hand; Darkness bashing Mia's head until hot, red blood was all I could see. They wouldn't leave me. These visions were my constant company.