Free Ancient Blood: The Fallen by Renea Taylor

no further whispers or any other occurrences, and my bladder finally managed to convince me that I was going to have to move, at first lightly complaining its neglect, then as I'd continued to ignore its pleas, it began to express quite clearly what was going to happen if I didn't obey its demands.
    Then it was my turn to plead as I miserably trotted towards the bathroom, coaxing my nagging organ the whole way to just hang in there a few seconds longer.
    Barely having escaped disaster, and with both me and my bladder happy at last, I exited the bathroom and found myself standing in the hallway, trying to summon up the courage to head back towards my studio, and whatever uninvited guest it, hopefully, no longer contained.
    Finally convincing myself to put one foot in front of the other, I made my way down the hall and found myself pausing at the entrance of the room. I peered inside, and let my eyes wonder, for though the room was flooded with light from the over head lamps dotted about the ceiling, revealing every nook and cranny to my saucer sized eyes, I was having problems talking myself into going any further into the room.
    At last, taking a deep breath and calling myself a chicken, I pushed myself to step the rest of the way through the doorway. With breath shuddering out through my lips, I realized I was expecting something, anything and had, unknowingly, been preparing myself for battle.
    However, when nothing out of the ordinary occurred, and though I felt silly for doing it, I began tiptoeing towards my painting table where, reaching out, I hurriedly replaced caps on paint tubes and refastened the top on the jar of linseed oil.
    Quickly finding at that point, that staying within the room any longer than necessary was of an utmost undesirable situation, I turned and fled the room like the chicken I'd called myself.
    However, I'd no more entered the hallway than I began to tingle from head to toe, my emotional state having triggered the unpredictable side of my ability, and a small firestorm filled the air around me, causing me to gasp, for it began to visibly shoot around the small space in arcs of flames, something I'd never seen it do before.
    The searing power of its fury revealed itself in a crackling voice that joined my own shout of “oh shit ” as I ducked into a squat of protection.
    Orange sweeps of fire shot about my head in a dizzying myriad of acrobatics before bouncing off the walls, leaving behind dime size spots, glowing red and smoking on the surface of the walls wherever the flames touched. Then, just as fast as it appeared, the storm vanished, and I was left staring around with my brows dented above my eyes in a huge frown of disbelief as I gazed at the obsidian space of the hallway.
    My mind was stunned, my thinking jumbled. What in the hell  had just happened, I wondered. The display I'd just witnessed had been in a league of ability that, up to that point, I'd never attained. In fact, what I'd just witnessed scared the shit out of me, for in comparison, the displays of my past had been infantile against what had just battered my hallway.
    The hint of burnt matches that still lingered within the darkness was stronger than usual, burning my nostrils and sinuses with its pungent odor as, glancing around I blinked.
    Suddenly I realized that the darkness was so complete it made me wonder if maybe I'd gone blind, then found myself wishing I'd gone deaf as well, for a multitude of whispers assaulted my ears, seemingly to come from all around me.
    Whisper after whisper intermingled, one riding over the other until they became a loud jumble within my ears, deafening me to any other sound but their eerie echo. My body began to tremble, shaking with fear as the darkness took shape and I made to bolt, but I was too late for I slithered to the floor, the darkness not only consuming the space around me, but my mind as well.
    * * *
    From out of that darkness, I regained consciousness, my senses dulled,