(C) 2019 Chris Toney – All Rights Reserved

Written By Chris Toney

Cover Illustration by Kabir Isah

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She didn’t yet understand the ability she had.

   Several years before Ariel married John Trace and took his last name, she was known as Ariel Greene. She had been raised in a fundamentalist Christian church known as the Southern Saints, she dressed modestly, and almost never listened to secular music. Ariel was Caucasian, thin but not slender, about 5’5″, and typically wore her brunette hair straight, cut to a chin length bob. This was her first year in college. She had spent two years traveling abroad with a ministry hoping to meet an eligible man when she began to take an interest in nursing. She had spent 2 months helping the victims of a natural disaster and discovered that caring for patients came naturally. So when she didn’t find her future husband after two years, she decided to go to college for nursing. It was now January 2016, the end of the first semester of her freshman year. Ariel was devoted to good workmanship, she was raised that way after all, and wanted to do her absolute best in all she did. So this evening, along with Priscilla, the only real friend she had made so far, she stayed in the nursing lab until after midnight and studied for the following day’s midterm exam.

   Ariel had a hard time making friends at college. She was an extremely conservative Christian, so much so that other Christian students had a hard time relating to her. They said that she didn’t have a very realistic outlook on life and that she’d never find a compatible husband. Even Priscilla, the one girl she felt close to, had a tendency to cancel on Ariel for a chance to hang out with more socially engaged students. Ariel was truly alone at that school, except for Jesus of course.

   The girls had studied for nearly 7 hours and were getting a bit sleepy. Priscilla, tall and slender with light brown naturally curly hair, stood up and said in her soft, sweet, high pitched voice, “Alright Ariel. I think I’m gonna go crash.”
   “Okay,” said Ariel, she had a bit deeper, upper mid-range voice, “I’m not far behind you.” Priscilla gathered up all of her books and notes and other materials and put them into her backpack. She zipped it up and looked at Ariel studying and taking notes for a moment.
   “You want me to wait? How long you gonna be?” said Priscilla.
   “I’m good.” Ariel had already picked up a bit of hip vernacular from hearing the other students talking to one another. “My crib’s in Stacey Hall, it’s a fifteen minute walk, on campus, through lit areas.” Ariel had a “sophisticated college girl” voice that was beginning to surface from time to time. 
   “Wow,” said Priscilla, “how’d you manage that? I thought only rich kids lived over there.”
   “I don’t know, I just kept praying for a decent, safe place on campus and I got a call that my financial aid was enough to cover at least two years there if I wanted it. So, I said I’ll take it.”
   “Yeah, I would too. Alright Sister Ariel…” the girls all called her ‘Sister Ariel’ because she was so sweet and modest, “… good luck on the midterm. Stay safe. Turn out the lights when you leave or they’ll bar us from staying late anymore.”
   “Will do. Be careful going home. I think it’s raining… in February.” Priscilla disappeared out the door.

   Ariel sat quietly as she read the last three pages of the chapter she was studying in her textbook, trying to make sure she had covered everything. Gradually she began to feel that the room was a little different than earlier. It was so quiet, subconsciously she wondered why. She took inventory in the back of her mind. Priscilla had filled the room up with her presence. Her headphones were loud enough that Ariel could make out the Christian pop music she was always listening to. She also tapped her feet, so that added some noise as well. Plus her breathing, that was probably part of it. But there was something else. The room was feeling a bit colder, emptier, desolate. Ariel stopped and closed her textbook, sitting very still, contemplating the feeling. This was a familiar feeling. It was hard to explain… it was as if some silent dark presence was always waiting to catch her alone. She didn’t believe in ghosts, just the Devil, a literal Devil, and perhaps demons, but only in a certain sort of way. But the Dark Presence challenged her skepticism. Sometimes it got really strong, especially when she wanted to revisit certain memories, as if it didn’t want her to remember those things. Since getting out on her own and going to school, she was getting bolder and more independent, and deep down she estimated that she would eventually have to face this presence in order to get past it and uncover the truth. That was her job as a Christian, to chase the truth, and if the Devil was hiding something, it must be important somehow.

   Although the Dark Presence was unpleasant, Ariel didn’t usually pay much attention to it. She was used to it as it seemed to always be somewhere in her life. But as she stood up to stretch her legs she heard a squeak. It was the craziest thing because it sounded like the wheels on the hospital beds but there was no one in the building but her. Maybe they had mice, or BATS! Ugh. Ariel hated bats. She could tolerate mice before bats, the way they swoop over you with a woosh that rustles your hair. She pulled out her water bottle from her bag and took a long drink, and as she was screwing the cap back on she heard it again, twice. She walked out into the main part of the lab which was full of hospital beds with dummy patients in them. Sure enough, one of the beds was pulled out slightly. She walked in to investigate and realized she could hear something, it was a raspy sound, first at one pitch, then at a slightly lower pitch. It repeated slowly over and over, shhhheee-shhhoooo, shhhheee-shhhooo. It was unnerving. Ariel was starting to get a little freaked out. She followed the sound around the room, getting closer and closer to the source. She finally got right up on it, when she discovered that it was coming from one of the dummies. Her hair stood up on the back of her neck… and then she remembered what it was. She reached out and hit a button by the dummy’s ear and the sound stopped. Someone had left the breathing simulator on. Ariel was relieved. She turned and began walking away when it came back on. It was so creepy sounding. ‘There must be a short in the circuit,’ she thought. She turned around to turn it off again and realized that it wasn’t coming from the same one. She reached over and hit the button on a different dummy and the noise stopped. Feeling uneasy, she turned around to walk back toward the meeting room and she heard another one kick on. She continued walking until she reached the light switch. By then 3 more had kicked on. She heard the squeaking of hospital bed wheels. She was afraid to stop and turn the light off so she continued walking into the study room and quickly gathered her stuff and dropped it into her backpack. The simulated breathing was getting louder and she could hear more occasional squeaks. She didn’t want to run because she felt ridiculous for being afraid, she was probably just overreacting to a short circuit in the dummies, but she was too unnerved to risk moseying. Ariel walked quickly toward the main door, too scared to stop to turn out the lights, and went out to the hallway. She felt relieved to be out of the room as the motion detector lights came on illuminating the hallway bit by bit as she walked. She slowed in her walk after turning the corner, an exit door was just ahead. But then she heard a door open in the direction she had just come from. Slowly, the sound of squeaking and synthetic breathing grew louder, and then she heard, unmistakably, an articulated vox. Something quite clearly said the word ARIEL, and it sounded just like the raspy synthetic breathing. Ariel wanted to scream but only whimpered as she ran down the hallway and out the main entrance.

   Outside now, Ariel couldn’t remember if she had gathered all of her belongings. All she could think of was getting out of that room, and that building. She ran and ran. She remembered suddenly that it was raining, a lot. She didn’t care. After running for several minutes she gradually slowed down to a walk. Stacey Hall was just on the horizon. She was soaked, but her shivering was from fright. It was almost 2:30 in the morning. She was beginning to feel tired… what in the world had just happened? She was already feeling a tad foolish as she questioned the experience that felt so real a few minutes ago. Wasn’t she too old to be afraid like this? She must be experiencing an overactive imagination, she was extremely tired after all. Ariel finally reached the front door of Stacey Hall. She went straight in and up to her room on the second floor. Once in her room, she dropped her book bag and crashed into bed. She felt quite worn out now. She put on some soft music with her phone to lighten the mood and lay there with her shoes still on, head buried in her pillow. It took a while to calm down, but eventually she drifted off to sleep.

——-
   It was morning time now, and Ariel’s cell phone woke her up ringing. It was Priscilla so she picked it up and answered in her groggy morning voice, “Mornin’ Miss P.”
   “Girl, what did you do?” asked Priscilla. Ariel was confused.
   “Huh?” said Ariel, still waking up.
   “The Medical Research building burnt DOWN last night!” said Priscilla.
   “What?!” replied Ariel.
   “I was hoping to God you weren’t in there. They think it was struck by lightning.” Ariel hesitated.
   “Where are you?” asked Ariel.
   “In Englund Hall, eating breakfast.” answered Priscilla.
   “Be there in ten, ahhh…” Ariel noticed that she still had yesterday’s clothes on, “be there in 20… ish.” She hung up. The whole time while she was getting ready to leave, she wondered at the fact that being scared probably saved her from being in the fire. She thought to herself, ‘Does God scare us? I mean, if it’s to help us… but what about the Dark Presence?’ A paraphrased Bible verse popped into her head, “God can take anything Satan intends for evil, and use it for good.” She didn’t know what to think. Learning to trust God was the hardest lesson she’d ever had to learn, especially since she suffered from depression and anxiety, though she hadn’t learned to call it that yet. This was the first time she genuinely gave her feelings of fear and confusion to God. She didn’t know what else to do so she let it go and trusted that He was in charge and would work it all out in the long run. This was the beginning of Ariel learning to JUST TRUST.

   Wearing fresh clothes, Ariel packed her book bag and went to go meet up with Priscilla. She exited the building and the door creaked in it’s hinges as it fell closed, and as she walked away, she couldn’t help noticing the sound it made. It almost sounded like a word… in fact, it sounded like, “Arrriiieeelll.”

To Be Continued