Paralysis.
Her eyes dilated as her mind shrank, and cold ghastly tendrils slowly slithered and inched across her dark flesh; she could feel each individual hair rise as they reached out to the expansive void that encapsulated the woman. Her skin puckered, and her eyes exploded open as every light died with a defeaning silence. One.
Suddenly, every decision, every choice, and every thought before this moment was one grim mistake. She, at that moment, knew at least that. If she could, she'd think past the hot tears, think past the cold blood, and shame herself on her choices that led her to the brink-and over the edge-of her mind. Two.
But she didn't have the capacity to question her sense of right, for in this moment, her mind was deteriorating into the primal state humanity once arrogantly thought was conquered over a millenia ago. At the apex of this mental coup d'etat, logic and reasoning desperately tried- yet utterly failed- to wrestle control of the human mind back from the primordial fingers of fight or flight. Soon enough, any and all complex thought was executed and tossed aside as primal instinct surged in. Three.
She was feral now.
As her mind smoothed over, images of horror and malicious intent clouded her vision and tears readily streamed down her flustered cheeks, like cracks in obsidian. There was no telling what lied beyond the human eye, what lied betwixt nothing and everything, but they existed in her rendition of reality climbing, crawling, and rising up from the oblivion in her corrupted psyche. The terrors swirled about her as the conjuring was complete. Four.
She lashed out wildly, and she cried. She cried as adrenaline pumped and pumped through her, breaking through the ice in her frozen veins. She cried as her body desperately- futilely- attempted to beat back shadows. She cried hot tears and wailed as she could feel the life being choked from her very lungs, and her heart stopping she could feel her soul rip away a-
Five short minutes later, the lights flickered back to life. The four young-band intoxicated- teens who decided to leave their fifth companion alone in an abandoned house finally let up on their childish prank. Admittedly, they left poor Lucille in the settlement for far longer than they had devised, but the alcohol in their systems muddled their sense of time- not to mention their decision making.
As the warm feeling swished in their sluggish bodies, they stumbled through the broken front door with raucous laughter. But their cries died in their throats; for there was only remnants of a victim of a joke- not a single Lucille in sight. In her place were deep, desperate scratches in the walls, and broken fingernails at the end of the ravines.
As their minds quickly sobered, they collectively realized one thing: the mind of Lucille had snapped- and they were the perpetrators. Fingers were pointed and accusations were hurled like boulders over castle walls; and sometime amidst the arguing and indicting, the lights died.
Somewhere behind them all, beyond them all, was a deep wail.
All she needed was five minutes.
