Snippet #2473515

The woman beckoned her closer. Deirdre knew her though she couldn’t place her. The face was the same as the one that looked back at her in the mirror. As she drew closer she felt a pull to the woman.

The medieval style gown she wore was blue with trim of white and silver. Her hair was long and part was pulled into a silver net. Her eyes were sad, her hands knotted together.

“They have not found you. We need to help them.”

Deirdre shook her head. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

The woman closed her eyes, head turning away in annoyance. “Now is not the time for being coy. We feel it, don’t ignore it. He was close, he held you...it was....”

She looked at Deirdre once more.

Deirdre’s lip quivered. “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you are talking about.” Even as she said it, a knife drove itself into her stomach.

“Yes, you do. You know it with every fibre of your soul though you refuse to see what is in front of you.”

The woman stepped closer and touched Deirdre’s cheek. She realized that it was her own that hand that brushed the skin there. “Do not hide. We are not in need of rescue though we do long for them to hold us. Never weak, never fragile but the guilt...”

The woman stepped even closer and Deirdre gasped as they became one person.

“D! Holy crap, breathe!”

A hand came down on her cheek and Deirdre inhaled. Her face stung.

“Oh my god, I thought...what the hell is the matter with you!”

Heather was staring down at her, her blue eyes wild with fear. She was lightly shaking her hand. Blonde hair hung slightly in her face.

Deirdre shook her head. “I-I don’t know.”

Heather grabbed her and hugged her tightly. “You scared the shit out of me. I came home from work and you were still in bed. I check on you and you are all opened eyes and mouth wide but not breathing. You were pale...fuck are still pale. I thought you were dead.”

Deirdre weakly hugged Heather back. “I’m sorry.” She began to shake and tears fell. The apology wasn’t really for Heather it was for the overwhelming sense of guilt that suddenly rushed over her. She remembered the man pacing asking her how she could do that to him. Another on his knee. It slowly dawned on her that the men in that daydream were the same in the others....the man who the blonde turned into in the bathroom and the one who rescued her...they were all the same people including her, the woman he called Guin.

Something was very wrong. Dreams of King Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere seemed to taking over her life. Was it stress? Was it a brain tumour?

Heather let her go. “Look I am worried about you. I don’t want you cooped up here all day. Come out with me tonight.”

Deirdre flopped back on her pillow. “No, no nightclubs.”

Heather grunted, “No even better. Rave. Just think big crowd, dark room, lots of moving bodies. You can get lost in it for a while. You know how hard it is to see, no one will know who you are except that your body moves and maybe your clothes glow a little. What do you say? Let’s get lost.”

Deirdre looked up at her roommate. Lost. I already feel lost. The very idea of a crowd, a pounding bass and the ability not to see who was around her was appealing. She felt tired though not able to sleep anymore.

“Alright.”

Heather jumped up from the bed. “Shower and get dressed. We head out in an hour.”
***
She knew most people at the rave would be wearing hardly anything in the way of clothes. They tended to dress in as little as possible. Deirdre didn’t feel like being mostly naked and wanted more to disappear in them than stand out.

Pulling on dark jeans she added a black tank top that had a white skeleton torso decal. Her hair was simply pinned back from her face. In the black lights the skeleton would glow but the rest of her would blend into the darkness. Deirdre stepped into the living room.

“Really? Black to a rave? Good god woman when did you turn all goth on me?” Heather stood there in a mini skirt of neon green and a crop top of neon orange. Her stomach was loosely wrapped with neon ribbons and they adorned her arms as well. Her makeup too was done in neons that would reflect the lights. Her blonde hair was pigtails and curled into ringlets.

“You look like a maypole with all those ribbons.” Deirdre tilted her head as if inspecting her.

“What the hell is a maypole?” Heather asked as she slipped on a pair of running shoes, also neon green.

“For the May day celebrations a pole is erected and maidens dance around it weaving ribbons...”

Heather gave her a look that stopped her words. “Why do you know that?”

Deirdre paled. ”I was going to the May day celebrations while Arthur was gone looking for more knights. It was there that Meleagant ambushed us...remember?”

“And it was then that we met Lancelot.”

“I only wanted to watch the maidens dance, to enjoy the feasting with my ladies and the men...”

“Yet so much changed that day.”

“D, earth to D, I asked how do you know that?”

Deirdre shrugged. “I read about in the literature class. We were talking about poems and stories as they were written for special events.”

Her words sounded forced and hollow but Heather gave a small laugh. “Whatever. Let’s go.”
****
The floor vibrated under their feet as the music kept up its steady pounding beat. The crowd was moving,a thrumming of its own. Bodies gyrated against each other though you could barely make out who was male and who was female. The room was pitch black save for the black lights and other neon light that set parts of people’s clothing glowing.

She lost Heather to the crowd instantly. For a brief time she was able to follow where the glowing ribbons went but eventually the black, faceless crowd swallowed them. Heather became one with the thing that was the dance floor.

Deirdre wanted to forget about the woman. She couldn’t even bring herself to say her name though it was always there, a tickle on the back of her mind. She stepped into the crowd, all black save the glowing white bones and gave herself over to them.