Her worst nightmare- Short Story - A finishthestory entry.

The contest: https://steemit.com/finishthestory/@bananafish/finish-the-story-contest-week-27

The moonlight descended on the east side of the Wagner Tower like an ancestral bone dust. The ectoplasm of a vague awareness crossed a tenant’s mind seeking for oblivion: finally, the dull blows coming from God knows what remote corner of the old building had decided to quit and he would have slept. However, between the seventy-fifth and seventy-fourth floor, a particularly fine ear could have still seized an intermittent, stifled counterpoint of voices.

"I feel that this unusual condition is helping us bring out some interesting perspectives, Mendo." In breaking the silence, the psychotherapist's voice had soon lost its initial momentum.

"..."

"I want you to know that this time won’t be billed, go ahead if you feel like it." She tried to assume a playful expression. Hidden underneath her short suit jacket, Dr. Wallace's fingers were nervously playing with a fluorescent orange rubber bracelet.

"No-one is ever suspended, not even now with seventy-four floors of nothing underfoot..."

"Well, this is certainly a positive observation..."

"Shut up, you don’t know a shit." An almost calm remark, pronounced with a firmness that hit Dr. Wallace like a bucket of frozen water.

"Have you ever thought, doctor," Mendo continued, sharply spelling out his last word, "that the fear of emptiness, the horror vacui as they defined it in the Middle Ages, is nothing but the unconscious and desperate attempt to look away from the ultimate truth?"

Since the elevator had blocked its descent, the patient had confined himself to a corner on the opposite side of the entrance. His left leg was now dancing grotesquely, animated like it had a life of its own and in contrast with the cadaveric stiffness of his other body parts.

"I never thought of that." Dr. Wallace wisely responded in brief, observing for the umpteenth time the assistance number carved on the elevator control panel.

"Mmmm...” A growing moan on the other side of the narrow cabin.

The doctor instinctively thought of her daughter that night, when the wind had hit the fixtures of the old house in the mountains so intensely that it produced an endless banshee howl. The little girl had made a sound of compressed horror, just like that.

If only she had known, she would have never asked Mr. Anatoliy “Mendoza” Volkov, an extraordinarily subtle personality, to follow her downstairs after that emergency therapy session in her office. On the other hand, he was one of her first and most challenging patients. Furthermore, he used to pay awesomely.

"Because the void swarms." Now his eyes were on the doctor, sunken out and bugging out at the same time.

"Soon they'll free us, do you think you'll keep writing that song you were talking about?" Dr. Wallace ventured. She realized that the silk shirt was soaking with her acrid sweat.

"It's the Yellow King's dominion, he comes from the void, it's him who made me do those things. I did not want to." His whine ripped open in a sinister vocal of terror.

"Mendo .." She did not know what to add. Now the doctor's hand, behind her sweating back, was pressing the assistance button convulsively.

His wide open eyes. They had stopped staring at her and now they were pointing up, right behind her shoulders.

"Mendo, what's up?"

"The Yellow King. He's here."

Dr. Wallace felt the cold touch at the base of her neck. Not again! She had no permission to talk to Mendoza and now this. It is too late in the evening to fight off a god. Even before any conscious thought took hold; her body was reacting as it was trained to do. She was sitting cross-legged. Deep slow breaths and a deliberately induced relaxation to free her mind of the physical realm as much as possible.

She opened her spirit eyes, True Sight showing her multiple plains of reality. She chose to manifest in the void- the realm where the powers of wanting, of starving and hunger were strong. Mendoza showing as a sickened orange- brown blob with streaks of black trailing it. These were the tentacles of plasm by which the Yellow king fed. Without moving her eyes followed the tentacles to the swirling yellow mass glowing with a maleficent aura.

Dr. Wallace focussed her personality in a tight defensive ball and called out.
"Sir who-ever-you-are you are trespassing. Wagner Tower is a private space for exclusive use of the Multi-dimensional Peace League. Please leave the area and the patient now or face imprisonment."
The next moment a huge black tentacle shot at her. Her goading had worked, she dodged the tentacle by bouncing at random angles till it withdrew. Dr. Wallace deliberately let out a psychic scream "SOS HELP. Warden under fire! SOS"

The Yellow King Sprouted a red glowing net which was spreading and moving towards her at the same time. In moments it was very near, now shaped like a funnel with the Yellow King's essence at the narrow end. Dr. Wallace now tapped into her memories and chose one - eating a double cheese burger after a brutal days work. She shot the emotions of bliss and satisfaction, of savoring a happy moment and feeling of blessedness down the red funnel. While amplifying white energy about herself.

With a screech of revulsion the Yellow King disappeared in a burst of light. Why don't these eternal gods behave normally? Dr. Wallace finally stepped back into her body exhausted and cold. The lift doors were open and several assistants were waiting to take care of her once she surfaced. A groan of pain and aversion escaped her lips when she saw the Super himself in all his caped glory. Waiting for a debrief? Why does he look so smug? A feeling of dread stabbed her heart when she saw Mendoza lying on the gurney- dead.

Dr. Wallace was really scared now. They would hang her out to dry. This was her worst nightmare come true.

#finishthestory