Darkwoven
an excerpt

She hurriedly stuffed the phone back into her purse and took a tentative step forward. And then another. She dragged each foot along the ground, testing for a difference in the terrain, and put her hands, one of them still clutching her rubber-covered iPod, out in front of her to guard against a sudden faceplant into a vertical surface. The headphones were wrapped messily around its flat body and the little speakers on their thin, white wires dangled helplessly from her fist. She was shivering and suddenly very, very afraid.

“You look silly.” An insult, offered in a strangely childish voice floated from behind her. Pivoting to face the sound, she nearly lost her balance, flailing a little as her centre of gravity reestablished itself. She dug her phone back out of her purse, flipped it open and extended the feeble light in the direction of the voice.

“You won’t be able to see me,” it piped again. “You usually can’t even hear me.” It paused, possibly for effect. “Today is special, because there are things you need to do, and you clearly aren’t going to be bothered to do them unless someone plants a boot up your ass.” The voice laughed, and the sound was eerie and disconcerting in the cold darkness, the crude message completely at odds with the childish lisp.

“Who are you?” her panicked voice echoed. “And where are we?”

The voice laughed. “You’ll find out what you need to know, when it’s important for you to know it. All you’re going to learn today is that we are watching you, and you are fucking things up. You need to stop, or really bad things are going to happen.”

A cold chill raced up her spine, and then she felt it contract, felt her self shrinking as though she was being chided by a parent, or a teacher. She looked down at the blackness where her feet usually were. “How am I… fucking up?” The words escaped from her involuntarily. Counting quickly, she could think of, perhaps, two or three things she was currently fucking up. She felt tears welling in her eyes and mentally shouted at herself. It was a VOICE. It was her IMAGINATION. She couldn’t POSSIBLY be taking this personally.