Entry #19

Adan,

I have been having the strangest dreams, recurring over and over in my mind, sometimes when I am not sleeping. I wonder if Carmen suffered the same visions, for I cannot bring myself to sleep well some nights. In the day, I cannot escape these dreams. I thought I saw Carmen walking past my classroom one day. I saw a head of red hair being blow in the window, a pair of slender shoulders wrapped in a black shawl. When I burst from my class, I saw no one there, just soldiers gambling with the stable boys, and Doctor Gil tending the garden outside of his infirmary. There are times I will be reading in the library, and I will expect to see someone's shadow move across my book. Other times, I am simply coming back from refilling my bedroom's dish with water. I will turn a corner, and no one will be there, just the sound of dripping water. I can never find the source.

The other night, I was coming back from the library. I had been reading privately, avoiding the mess hall which has been taken over by the soldiers, enjoying the “control” that Lope has exerted over all of them. So far, their duties have included drinking, hazing, and overall aggressive behavior. The soldiers have always been rowdy, even mischievous like school boys, but never such bullies. I am not sure what has come over them. Maybe it is like Father Leoncio says, maybe it is the power that has gotten to them.

I am sorry, I have departed on a tangent. Let me return to the source of this letter, Adan. I had shut the door to the library. I had a candle in hand, the flame only mildly dancing in tune with the evening breeze whispering through the corridor. I was turning to leave when I heard -

Thump.

It came from the library. My hair stood on end instantly. That sound had not come out of the library for quite some time, yet I had not forgotten it. How could I? That day had been so peculiar. I took a breath, and pushed the door to the library back open. The book I had put back on the shelf had fallen onto the floor. I did not even know someone was behind me while I stooped to replace it, I only saw him when I looked upon the window pane ahead of me. The same tall, dark figure with the hunched shoulders, rocking swiftly back and forth. I whipped around, but it was gone.

Thump.

Thump. Thump.

I dropped my candle, the light was huffed out before it even made contact with the floor. I tore the door open, and took off down the corridor for my room. I fumbled with my key, unlocked my door, flung the portal open and bolted it behind me. Like a child, I ran for my bed, the last island of salvation from what had to be stalking me in the hallway. I panted and prayed to my Maker, to all that was Holy and would listen to me. I clutched my rosary and Mama Gondu's charm close to my heart and burst into tears, praying and praying, begging for safety as my door was rattled and shaken.

As quickly as the violent assault happened to my door, it vanished. My prayers turned into whispers, and faded as I realized there as a new sound in my room. The sound of wide leaves brushing one another under the guidance of a common wind. I slowly pushed my cover away from my head. Tall bushes with fanning leaves had grown in my room. Orchids choked the walls. Vines were coiled up my wall, and there were puddles dotting my floor. The fragrance filling my room was an unnaturally sweet floral scent, and the mineral edge of freshly fallen rain. I imagined that Paradise could have smelled like this. Still, despite such a heavenly impression, I could not help but have my suspicions, and my fear was growing. The sound of dripping water was beyond my door, the door now cracked open to let the candle light from the corridor in.

I swung my legs slowly over my bedside, and stood. I drew a robe about me, and neglected to bring a candle as there was already a wall lined with them beyond my threshold. Did I dare to leave the confines of my room though? Was it even my room, now that it was in fact a jungle?

I stepped outside. The corridor seemed unphased, unlike my chamber. I walked the short distance of this small hall to the main corridor. I turned, and found nothing changed, nothing out of place until the candles at the end of the stretching corridor were snuffed out. Then the next pair, and the next, and the next, and the next. Bursts of smoke tainting the air with a charred smell, silver wisps swallowed by the darkness. I managed to save a candle from its stand, and turned my back to shield it, but it was quenched in my hand anyway. Looking back, I could see a silhouette standing at the window yawning wide at the end of the hallway.

“H... ello?”

The lights all flared to life, showing puddles across the floor. Vines were choking the walls, and orchids were rotting on them. The silhouette at the window was rocking back and forth, bent at the shoulders, its head hanging low and twitching. It wheeled around, and stalked closer, and this was the last I saw of it as the lights went off; this black figure coming toward me that I suddenly could not see.

I stumbled back, my heel striking a root, and I crashed into what I thought was a puddle. The water possessed the depth of a lake, however, and I began to sink. I awoke in my bed, sweating and screaming for help, but I was alone and the sunlight was flooding in.