DARKNESS FRAMES ME, completes me. Is me.

The ghosts tether me to their bleak existence and it takes every effort in my body to push through the shroud and reach out to Spencer. And he listens. He reaches for me. He runs for me.

But he cannot get close enough to this world that keeps me prisoner. He is real and alive and breathing. And I’m a shadow of a thing.

“Let me go,” I beg, kicking out uselessly at the mourning female ghost with the ruined belly, masses of flesh and the remains of a shredded umbilical cord hanging from her body like macabre pendulums that swing as she moves.

“No.” The singular word is ugly and dark coming from her haphazard mouth. “No. Give me my baby! Give me my baby!” Her hands claw at me, reaching up my legs and digging into my unmarred stomach. She will find nothing there.

No life has ever filled my womb.

“I can’t help you. I don’t know where your child is.”

“Liar!” Her screech fills the space around us. It threatens to drown me. At this point, I know it will not take much to ruin me forever. I am surprised I have lasted as long as I have.

“Please, I’ve told you before. I didn’t do this to you.” I point at her stomach. “I didn’t take your baby.”

“You did this.” The man is speaking now, standing behind the woman who is lying across the floor, still digging into my body like my own belly holds the key to finding her long lost child. “She said you did this. She said we must stay here until we break you.” He stumbles forward, the power he had as he’d soared at me and knocked me down the stairs is all but a memory now. They do not have never expiring power. That is the one thing that saves me. They tire more easily than I do.

Because hatred and horror are tiresome and I strive to live in the light. God, I want to live in the light again.

With Spencer.

“Spencer!” I scream his name. I don’t know why, but I do. I can barely hear him breathing. I can barely hear his footsteps on the wood floors. But they are there, which means he is there. Which means he is real. “Spencer!” I call again. “God, help me!”

“No one can help you here.” The man murmurs, his voice full more of fear and sadness than of cruelty. “She put us here and we will not be released until you are broken. Broken. Broken. Broken...” his voice trails off. “You did this.” He looks at me again, new life and power back in his eyes. “You did this.”

His fists slam into my chest, knocking me to the ground.

And the woman with the empty, tattered belly begins to crawl up my body. She pauses when her face reaches my stomach. She presses her ear to my belly and she listens. It is quiet suddenly and all I can hear is her ragged gasps for air.

“My baby. My baby.” She coos now, for the child that was stolen. Instead of clawing at my skin, she is caressing it now.

And I scream. I scream like I have never screamed before.

When my stomach begins to rise like a small mountain and I feel the faintest of kicks within my womb.

Like a frantic, cornered animal, I force the woman away from me and I stand. My hands instinctively go around my stomach, cradling the life there. It is strange and amazing and... terrifying.

“My baby!” The childless mother screams, pointing at the new shape of my body. “Mine!”

“Give her back her baby.” The man groans, holding his head as if he is being assaulted by shrill noises that no one else can hear.

“Leave me alone!” I scream again, and it sounds wild and uncontrolled. I turn and I run. I run and I run and I get nowhere. Because I am caught in nothingness.

And, yet, after running for some time, I see him. I see Spencer. On the ground of the attic, surrounded by wet things.

“Wake up! Wake up!” I want to fall to my knees and shake him. I want to force him awake.

But he is a fleeting image. A mirage in this hell I’m caught in.

No. He’s real. He’s real.

I push through the ether. I touch the back of his leg, the thing closest to me. I will him to wake up and save me.

He stirs. He’s waking. God, please wake up. I try to speak, but my tongue is frozen in my mouth, a leaden thing with no hope of moving.

Spencer is sitting on a pile of boxes now. He’s putting his leg back on. He looks so lost. So lost and so handsome and so utterly wonderful.

See me, Spencer. Please, see me. The words are a prayer in my mind and, like he has actually heard me and is listening, his fingers reach out. His eyes narrow as if he is catching a glimpse of me, shadow within shadow.

I feel my tongue move within my mouth. It is coming to life finally. But, at the same time, I hear the ghosts moving behind me. They’ll be here soon. They’ve found me once again. Like always.

“Spencer.” I wait, he says nothing. “Spencer. I’m here.” I wait, he says nothing still. “Spencer. Touch me.

“Help me.” The last is a whisper that I can barely force out of my body.

Because he does not believe that I am here or real. He will not help me.

I say his name one more time, putting all of my hope into the brief utterance. His name is as useless a savior as he is proving to be.

My breath catches in my throat as I hear soft giggling. I cannot see them yet, but they are there. They are waiting for their turn. The children.