Chapter 57 THE FEELING OF NOTHING
Rachel picked herself up at once, briskly wiping off her tears which only created mundane patterns over her face due to her smeared makeup.
She dazzled about like a drunk, lost woman at first before finding her way towards the telephone on Santiano's table.
She quickly dialed a familiar number on the telephone and she awaited it to be answered from the other end impatiently.
As she waited, Rachel bit her lips nervously, her shoes tapping against the marble floor as they delayed to pick up the phone and her thumb subconsciously making way towards her mouth with her teeth slicing bits of her nail.
“C'mon, you bastards!” She cursed, her tears beginning to fall off her face in streaks again.
“Has he bailed on me?” Rachel continued to herself, biting the tip of her thumb as she struggled within herself not to jump into conclusions.
It didn't take long before Rachel let the telephone fall out of her hand and she began to push all the files and items that had been on Santiano's table to the floor, her crazed self having no form of self control which was accompanied with her dangerous screams which caused her throat to burn.
This she continued to display with no one watching, but herself. Her rage flared up with each second, her heart pounding heavily within her as the feeling of betrayal stuck right back at her but not until a faint voice brought her back to her senses.
It was a recurring, “Hello, miss Devereaux… Rachel Devereaux, is that you?”
At once, Rachel reached for the phone once again, almost dashing her floor into the sycamore wooden table.
“Kill her at once! Rafael is coming— he is on his way, I said!” Rachel said into the phone with fierce urgency like they were her last words.
VANESSA'S POV
My eyes flickered open at once as I regained consciousness. The bright lights that shine brightly in the room like burning fire caused a loud strain to my eyes, forcing me to squint hard as the sharp light hit my retinal with great force like it was delivering a blow into my eyes— so heavy that it could blind me.
Slowly, I began to open them again after I thought they would have adjusted to the great influx of lights— slowly, accelerating them all at once, I opened them, getting my eyes used to gaining cognisance of where I was.
It was a room— a very large room I could say as I examined its vast corners which stretched almost widely in width from where I was laying down.
The room didn't look anything like the room back at the Devereaux mansion nor was the interior design any similar and I heaved a sigh of relief unconsciously as this variable of not being at the Devereaux mansion crossed my mind.
Wherever this was, it definitely wasn't the Devereaux mansion and I could assume safely that I was already away from Santana Rafael Devereaux and from his family estate.
I let out another frail sigh of relief, but it wasn't for long as I soon began to ponder where I was. If I wasn't in the Devereaux mansion at that moment, then where the hell am I and how did I get here?
The last I could remember was meeting with some men at the end of the tunnel I had crawled out from in the Devereaux family mansion and when one of the men— the man who has an umbrella over his head precisely reached out to me, the world turned black and everything went blank at once.
I was pulled under into a space I couldn't feel. It felt as if I was drifting in nothing, just an endless vast space that has no beginning or ending to its existence.
Nothing felt real, it was keen to be in existence, not even my will to do something as basic as breathing could cut through this void.
My eyes wouldn't open to see what the world around me looked like and my mouth would open up to let out a scream— not even mutter words.
Not a single muscle in my body wanted to move— it was as if they wouldn't even want to listen to me if I tried to bulge them to get me up from the mundane void I could picture myself in and get them moving.
The fraction of my soul seemed to continue to drift out of my body the longer it took for me to get out of what seemed like a lucid dream to me.
It wasn't only the world that felt dark and blank, but my mind and head were both clear and empty as my consciousness continued to drift through a big hatchet pod of nothing that felt more vast and endless like space.
But slowly, an image began to flicker in my mind— just like the sparks from a firecracker, it began to come into existence, taking form and shape as the sparks gathered about until I could make out what it was.
Then, the image spoke to me, their voice very distant and somewhat ancient, yet close and surreal at the same time within the endless void I was floating in.
“Where are you, Vanessa? Come back to me, please.” The voice said, tugging at my heart with a cruel pull.
My heart ached at their voice, the first emotion my entire body reacted to since I had been in the endless void of nothing and I could feel a faint tear try to force its way out of my closed eyes.
I felt blind in between and I let it out, the tears slowly rolling out of my eyes and my lips parted slowly, my mind processing a word I knew I was bound to say.
All at once, I could feel the muscles in my body come back to life— like they all needed to hear that one voice before my whole body could be powered up again.
“Rafael…” I muttered unconsciously and the next minute, my eyes flickered open and I was welcomed back into the real world by an oddly bright lighting.