Those shiny black high heeled shoes poked her with their pointy toes. A fist in her hair pulled until her scalp burned. The sharp voice told her to either die or get lost. She wasn't worthy of her position.
Someone sighed and Stacey blinked up at Thieren. When had he arrived?
"You're not really handling things well with so many people around, are you?" he asked.
"What?" Stacey asked. "I'm fine."
"For the sake of your roommates and because of your nightly escapades, I think it's better if I bring you back home to sleep everyday," Thieren said. "I don't know why you've become obsessed with the piano at night."
"Someone keeps calling me?" Stacey said, feeling unsure about anything she was thinking or feeling. Time seemed to be jumping and skipping and she didn't know what was going on either.
"Stacey," said a sleepy voice. The shadow of a woman loomed into place beside Stacey. The woman rubbed her eyes. "What are you doing here?"
"Practicing piano," Stacey replied.
"So early in the morning? In the dark? Why aren't you at home? How'd you get here? How'd you even get into the building?"
"Where's home? Is it morning? Why's it dark?" Stacey asked. "When did the lights go out?"
"How did you slip past the guards again?"
"Guards? What guards?"
She had followed the shiny black high heeled shoes. Had something gone wrong? A cold wind blew into the room, making the curtains billow.
The room light turned on, dazzling Stacey. She held her arm up to protect her eyes. Shoes tapped on the ground and a deep voice spoke.
"We've found her. Let's go home. She'll need a good rest to attend the finals tomorrow."
"But we don't know how she got here."
"She climbed through an open window," said the deep voice. "We'll carry her out, get her feet cleaned up and clean up all the bloody footprints she left all over the place. Then we'll take her home."
At the mention of her feet, Stacey lifted her feet to see that they had splinters, twigs and stones stuck to them. There were dirt caked bloody lacerations that were still oozing blood. A flash and she remembered seeing someone pricking her feet while she hadn't been able to scream. Shiny black high heeled shoes had stepped on her to hold her in place. Upon seeing the blood, Stacey suddenly felt the sharp pain and took a deep breath of air in.
"My feet hurt," she said. "They didn't hurt just now."
"Let's go get you cleaned up," the man with the deep voice said. "Little troublemaker, why can't you be more obedient?"
Stacey frowned.
She wasn't a troublemaker. She had woken up playing piano here. How was that making trouble?
"Sorry to have disturbed your rest, Telea."
"No worries, Boss. This little bit of trouble is better than seeing her sleeping or staring at nothing in a daze all the time. Her piano playing has improved a lot too."
Stacey rubbed her head in frustration. She thought she'd been getting better too. What was with all this time skipping business? Why was she so confused again? Was her brain really just being overloaded or was there something else here going on as well?
They said she had climbed through a window. Since when had she recovered enough to climb anything? She could barely walk to the toilet and back these days. Was her brain fried for good?
And why did she keep getting flashes of those black high heeled shoes accompanied by that sharp voice? Was it a dream?
Wasn't she supposed to make an appearance during the finals night? Why couldn't she be better? She was missing out on spending time with her friends.