For Nevermore Season 1

in, but she was as helpless as the imprisoned women.
    The man hammered the rod into the door and screamed, “Don’t make me come in there!”
    The woman cried out, then returned to a sleeping bag on a bare concrete floor.
    The man giggled as he moved to the next door, the cell belonging to the woman who was it, and peered through the slit. “Good news, honey. You’re going home.”
    Noella’s heart froze as she realized who she was looking at . . . Melissa Rayburn, the missing woman found dead the day before.
    Oh God. No!
    Noella wanted to wake up, and desperately tried to connect with either her dream self, lying in her childhood bed, or her real self. Anything to free herself from the trap of the monster’s shell.
    But she was stuck.
    Wake up, wake up, wake up!
    She heard a sound from one of the two doors behind her. There was a third prisoner after all. Noella turned, and at once saw that she’d left the man’s body. She turned, terrified that she’d find him behind her, holding the metal rod and poised to strike her. But he was gone.
    There was a soft cloud of torment floating through from the other side of the door. It sounded like whimpering.
    “Hello?” Noella called, but nobody answered.
    More whimpering – a woman.
    She inched toward the door, then peered through the slot.
    Oh God, no.
    She looked on the cot and saw that it wasn’t a woman, but a girl . . . Tori, curled on a sleeping bag in the corner, sobbing into her palms.
    Noella screamed, but no words left her mouth. Instead she woke up, startled awake by the sound of someone in her room. Her eyes shot open as she leapt from her bed, hands balled into fists, swiveling around in search of whoever was in there. But she was alone.
    Noella glanced at her alarm clock, its soft blue glow reading 3:11 a.m.
    She closed her eyes, drew a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, trying to slow her galloping heart. The dream’s embers burned bright in her mind. She stepped back toward her bed, glancing up and across the street to Jen and Tori’s house on her way.
    She froze in her tracks.
    Standing in the playroom, staring out the window, was Tori — still as a statue, her eyes bolted on Noella’s window.
    Noella felt icy talons wrap around her heart. She dropped to the carpet so Tori wouldn’t see her.
    What is she doing?
    There was a soft blue light on in Tori’s playroom, but Noella’s room was pitch dark and her curtains were only open a bit. Noella was mostly sure, but not entirely positive, that Tori hadn’t seen her. She started to rise, slowly, and shaking, then she crept in a hunch toward the window to steal another look.
    Her eyes level with the windowsill, she moved to her right, toward the opening in the curtain. As Tori’s house swam into view again, and then the playroom window, she saw the girl standing in the exact same spot she had been before, like a statue in front of the window.
    Why is she just standing there?
    While Noella could see Tori, she couldn’t figure out what she was doing. She reached down, found her binoculars, then brought them to her eyes, focusing on Tori’s window.
    As Noella adjusted the knob, the fuzzy blur across the street sharpened into a solid shape and a clean view of Tori’s blue Snoopy tee shirt. Noella lifted the binoculars and a chill flooded her body as the girl’s face crystallized into view. Tori’s eyes were closed, but her mouth was moving, talking fast.
    What?
    Noella tried to zoom in to see if she could make out what the girl was saying, but Tori’s lips were moving too fast for Noella to make out any familiar words. It seemed as if she were simply babbling non-stop.
    Noella tried to sharpen the focus more, but went too far and Tori blurred to shadow. Noella dialed the knob back, and when Tori’s face returned to view, her eyes were wide open and staring straight at Noella.
    Noella jumped back, in shock, letting out a small yelp as the binoculars fell from her hands and landed hard on her left foot. “Ow!”
    Noella clenched her teeth, trying to keep a louder cry of pain inside so as not to wake Josie or Randy.
    She stayed on the ground, waiting for the pain in her foot to subside while she gathered enough courage to return to the window. After a few minutes, Noella lifted her head, without the binoculars at first, and saw that Tori was gone.
    Noella swallowed the rising lump in her throat, put the binoculars back on her shelf, then opened her door and went to the bathroom across the