The Key to Midnight

heart was thudding with terror that she couldn't understand. Her vision blurred with a fierce anger that wasn't real, for she had nothing to be angry about, yet her fury was so powerful that it was shaking her to pieces.
        'You're one of Them! ' she cried, and she had no idea What she meant by that.
        'Who?'
         'Them!'
         'Who?'
        'I hate your guts,' she said, trying to jam her knees into his crotch and break his hold on her.
        'Listen, listen to me,' he demanded, holding both her wrists, struggling against her determined assault. 'Listen, damn it!'
        But she dared not listen, because if she listened, the walls would complete their inward journey, and she would be crushed. Listening to him was what had gotten her into this trouble in the first place.
        'Stop it, Joanna!'
        She rolled off the couch, pulling him with her, kicking at him, twisting in his grasp. She tore loose and scrambled to her feet. 'Get out! I'll call the police. Get the hell out of my house,' she shouted, and she could feel that her face was wrenched into a mask of blind fury.
        It was an inexplicable rage - except somehow she knew that she would be all right if she could force him to leave. When he was gone, when she was alone, the walls would roll back. The air would no longer be so thick, so difficult to breathe. The terror would subside when at last he went away, and thereafter she would find peace again.
        'You don't really want me to go,' he said, getting to his own feet, calmly challenging her.
        She slapped his face so hard that her hand stung as if an electrical current had blasted through it.
        He didn't move.
        She slapped him again, harder, leaving the imprint of her hand on his cheek.
        With no anger in his face, with an infuriating compassion in his eyes, he reached out to touch her.
        She shrank back.
        'Give me your hand,' he pleaded.
        'Get away.'
        'I'm going to lead you through this.'
        'Get out of my life.'
        'Give me your hand.'
        She backed into one corner of the living room. Nowhere to go. He stood in front of her. Trapped.
        She was shaking violently with fear. Her heart was knocking in her breast. She couldn't get her breath; each inhalation was shaken out of her before she could draw it all the way into her lungs.
        He took her hand before she realized what he'd done. She no longer had the strength to wrench away from him.
        'I'm going to stay here until you close your eyes and cooperate with me,' he said quietly. 'Or until the walls crush you or the ceiling presses you into the floor. Which will it be?'
        She slumped against the wall.
        'Close your eyes,' he said.
        Tears blurred her vision so completely that she couldn't see his face. He might have been anyone.
        'Close your eyes.'
        Weeping, she slid down the wall, her back in the corner, until she was sitting on the floor.
        He dropped to his knees in front of her. Now he was holding both of her hands. 'Close your eyes, Joanna. Please. Trust me.'
        Sobbing uncontrollably, Joanna closed her eyes, and immediately she felt that she was in a coffin, one of those hulking bronze models with a lead lining, and the lid was bolted down just inches above her face. Such a narrow space, shallow and dark, as black as the heart of a moonless midnight, so utterly lightless that the darkness might have been a living thing, an amorphous entity that flowed all around her and molded to her shape, sucking the heat of life out of her.
        Nevertheless, cornered and in an extreme state of helplessness, she could do nothing but keep her eyes closed and listen to Alex. His voice was a beacon that marked the way to release, to freedom.
        'Keep your eyes closed. No need to look,' Alex said softly. 'I’ll be your eyes. I'll tell you what's happening.'
        She couldn't stop sobbing.
        'The walls aren't closing in as fast as they were. Barely creeping inward now. Barely creeping… and now… now they've stopped altogether. The ceiling too… not descending any more. Everything's stopped. Stable. Do you hear me, Joanna?'
        'Y-yes.'
        'No, don't open your eyes yet. Squeeze them tight shut. Just visualize what I'm telling you. See the world through me.'
        She nodded.
        The air wasn't normal, but it was thinner than it had been