She took a long draw off the pipe and held the smoke in. As he watched her, he found himself matching her breath… her draw… the long hold… until the edges of his vision began to fade. She finally let it all out and he breathed again, too.
“It snuck up on me” she said, snapping him back to reality. “… kind of… I mean, I knew it was coming but I couldn’t do anything about it…. you know what I mean?" She hazarded a glance at him, hoping he’d show some sign that he did. He didn’t - or maybe he just didn’t let on. She didn’t want to have to explain it.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t, but that she didn’t. Pathetic… weak, she berated herself. She sighed and passed the pipe to him, turning her attention to the cup of brandy he’d poured for her and shrugged, "I couldn’t do anything about it." It was flat, but it would have to do.
He had asked - twice now - and she wanted to tell him, but this was not something she shared readily. She would just have to push through it, remaining factual, detached, for as long as she could. She set her jaw and continued. "It came me from somewhere in the shadows. I heard it’s whispers… I could almost smell it…” her lip twitched in disgust. “After a while, I almost got used to it tracking me. I ignored it for a while.. I could handle it, right?” A crooked smile twitched on her face, but her eyes never left the rim of her cup.
“It’s whispers were almost comforting; lies, of course, but familiar ones… ones I almost wanted to believe. It would be easier that way. " A sip from her cup; a steadying breath, and she could continue. "It slowly edged closer - and I felt it coming - felt it wrap it’s tendrils around my throat and squeeze." Her hand mimicked what she described as her eyes took on that far-away look they had when he roused her from the nightmares.
"They crawl up the back of my head, cover my eyes… fill my ears… and then it pulls me backward. It pulls me where I am weakest, where I can’t fight… and all the whispers, all the lies… the lies I can’t deny…" Tears welled in her eyes, despite her best efforts. She took a swig of brandy and swallowed them back hard.
"Hey…" he tried to interject, to break her narrative. If she’d glanced at him in that moment, she’d see that he did know all too well what she was talking about; he’d seen it too, felt it’s pull, and was just as helpless against it. He wanted to shake her back to this reality, to save her from this smothering presence. Isn’t that what he’d always wished for himself when it pulled at his throat? But all those useless words just hung thickly in his chest. For the first time since he met her, he feared her. No, not her, but her proximity to that demon that seemed to hunt them both.
She stared intro nothingness for a moment longer, then drained her glass. He opened another bottle of brandy.