rubbed at her eyes as she struggled to
see through the sleep that covered them. Her mind buzzed and her chest was
tight with anxiety, she was conscious that she would be leaving Brendan soon
and she would have to carry on her journey alone.
Brendan headed for the nearest taxi which sat directly in
front of the concrete steps. He went around to the back of the car and opened
up the boot, dropping the suitcase in without even flexing a muscle. He slammed
the boot of the car shut and turned to look at Madison who stood motionless on
the pavement - the same blank expression once again present on her face.
Brendan’s eyes wondered over the forming bruise underneath Madison’s eye, he
was too much of a gentleman to stare, but he couldn’t help but notice how she
tried to hide it.
“Thank you for helping me, I really appreciate it” Madison
said flatly. Her arms felt heavy as it hung down by her side, her whole body
was tense and throbbed from the whole ordeal of tonight. Madison smiled shyly
and reached for the door handle to the back seat of the taxi. Brendan grabbed
the handle before Madison‘s fingers could touch the cold solid metal of the car
door. She felt her face flush at the prospect that her fingers were so near to
his - she could almost taste the sweet scent of his aftershave.
He pulled open the car door and held it out wide for her, an
endearing smile stretched across his lips. He faced Madison, but his eyes
wondered back towards the open doors of the Underground main hall. Madison
watched as a flicker of concern and anxiety flashed through his crystal blue
eyes, she frowned confused at what had caused such a reaction from Brendan.
Slowly Madison tilted her head towards him, her gaze wondering curiously back
around to the Underground and what had grabbed Brendan’s attention so abruptly.
Madison’s eyes flickered over the brick wall of the Underground, then over the
transparent glass of the double swing doors into the brilliant golden glow of
the main hall. In the center of the large white room and under the golden glow
of the florescent lights stood the two hooded boys. The hoods of their black
jumpers pulled up over their heads as before, their bodies motionless - frozen
in time. However, this time both their heads were tilted upwards towards the
ceiling instead of the normal slouched position they had remained liked through
the duration of the train & underground journey. The florescent lights on
the high ceilings of the Main hall shone down on the two boys illuminating
their faces. Since Madison had first laid eyes on the two youths, their identities
had remained masked by the black deathly shadow of their hoods. Now, for the
first time the light was able to penetrate the darkness, revealing their
identities to her. Madison gasped, sucking in a sharp gallon of bitter cold air
into her lungs. Her chest ached and forced her to exhale quickly, almost
choking on her own breath. The eyes of the two boys were hollow, covered in a
black mass of darkness that remained over the area of where their eyes and eye
sockets should be. Their skin was pale, almost transparent. Thin blue
spider-like veins were visible underneath the thin layers of skin. Their mouths
hung open revealing a large black hole of which Madison could only imagine
would be utter horror if looked directly into it. Their faces were ghastly,
twisted in a way she had never seen before. Each boy’s expression was mimicked
by the other – identical like twins or the repercussion of an experiment gone
horribly wrong. Their faces were aged beyond the years of their teenage bodies.
Every hair on Madison body stood on end as she gazed at the
two boys, unsure what she was really seeing to be real or some kind of weird
hallucination due to lack of sleep.
She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t open her mouth to
allow the sound to escape. Her body was paralyzed by uncertainty, a veil of
dread crept over her – stopping her from calling out to
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