Utter Fear
Utter fear.
That was the only way Lorraine could describe what she had felt during the vision that day. Lorraines visons had always taken a toll on her. But today's.... Today's took the cake. To see her husband, the love of her life, completely lifeless, impaled, never to smile, to speak to her, to dance with her again... That had taken a part of Lorraine that she wasn't sure she'd ever get back, and now that she thought about it, fear only grazed the tip of the iceberg of what she was feeling.
Ed's comfort during the vision had not helped in the slightest bit, as it would have with any other vision. Every time she looked at him, or every time he touched her, she was transported back into the vision, back to his death. The drive home was painfully quiet, Lorraine having stopped crying miles ago, and she now sat simply staring out the car window, unseeing.
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Ed was quite worried about Lorraine. None of her visions had ever done this to her, taken this much away from her. Even if he wanted to ask her what she had seen, she wouldn't even look at him, much less speak to him. It was as though he wasnt there, that in that moment he didn't exist to her, that nothing did, save for what she saw in the vision.
Ed allowed himself a few glances at his wife throughout the drive, noting how hard she clenched her rosary, to the point her hand began to turn red from how tight the rosary was wrapped around it. It would just begin to turn purple when she would ease up, only for a moment, before she continued again, over and over, for the duration of the car ride.
Lorraine seemed to hardly blink when they pulled up into the drive, the sun just beginning to rise, and as Ed turned the car off, he turned slightly to watch her climb out. She pushed the car door closed, leaning against it for a moment, as though to regain her bearings.
Ed took a moment before he climbed out, making his way around to get their bags from the trunk. His eyes hardly left her as he watched her make her way up the front walk and into the house. She used her key to get in, not stopping to wait for him like she usually did, and Ed made a mental note that as soon as he got in, he would make her some tea and get her into bed.
Ed's plan however, fell apart when he got inside, and he found the door to their bedroom locked, with Lorraine on the other side.
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The pounding behind Lorraines eyes, that spread up to her temples and down her neck, had not ceased since the vision had ended. When they got home, Lorraine had gone inside, and had immediately locked herself in the bedroom, and had not given Ed any explanation. Shutting her husband out probably hadn't been her best idea, but at that moment, Lorraine could not even think about looking at him without feeling nauseous and wanting to scream.
Lorraine now sat on the floor, her back up against the bedroom door, her eyes squeezed shut, and her face contorted in pain as the vision played over and over and over again on a loop in her brain. On the other side of the door, she could just hear Ed's voice, asking if there was anything he could do, pleading with her to unlock the door.
Lorraine did not answer, knowing the moment she opened her mouth, all that would escape would be screams.
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Lorraine did not notice the passing hours. When she lifted her head from where it sat atop her knees, the room was dark, and she knew the sun had just been rising when they got home.
The clock on Ed's bedside table read 11:30 pm, and for a moment she listened. The house was quiet, too quiet, and Lorraine briefly wondered if Ed and Judy were asleep, or if Ed was simply waiting, and had sent Judy to a friends.
Lorraine soon pushed herself up to stand, leaning against the door for support. After a moment she pushed away from it, stumbling through their bedroom in the dark to their connecting bathroom, and she reached in to flip the light on. The light blinded her, and she stood in the doorway a moment, letting her eyes adjust before she stepped in, and she just caught sight of her reflection. She had apparently tugged most of the Bobby pins from her hair in the hours she could not remember, and her hair was now a complete tangled mess. Her eyes seemed quite lifeless, her face still red and splotchy from crying, and she could only stand to look at herself a moment before the nausea returned, and she turned away from the mirror, making her way over to the shower, where she reached in to turn the hot water on. Her skirt was first, her blouse following, and a sound of pain left her lips when a few buttons caught in her hair. She took only a moment to nudge them out of the way with her foot, and took a second to tug her rings off, leaving only her wedding ring in place. She reached over to let them fall from her hand into the ring dish on the counter, before shirking her bra and panties and climbing into the shower. Lorraine only stood in the shower a moment, before sliding down to the shower floor, the stream of hot water beating down on her, allowing her, for a moment, to forget.
She focused on the sting of the hot water, the tile beneath her body, anything but the images that continued to circle her brain. It had always been a living hell, her visions, but this one felt as though she had been drug to the depths of hell to be tortured for the rest of eternity, and a shaky breath escaped her lips, a soft, almost inaudible prayer soon following.
The water seemed to grow cold all too quickly in Lorraines mind, but in reality had been quite a while, and after a moment of the cold, only then did she push herself up off the tile floor. Lorraine turned the water off, and as she stepped out to grab a towel, her eyes fell on Ed's robe, in its place where it hung on the inside of the door.
She dried off quickly, tossing her towel onto the pile of clothes, and she made her way over to tug Ed's robe off the hook, slipping it on. She buried her face in the fabric, breathing in his scent, and for a slipt second was able to calm herself before the vision began to run through her brain once more.
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Lorraine was dizzy.
It had been going on 12 hours since her shower, and over 24 since she locked herself away, and she was dizzy, more than likely from dehydration. She had taken to the bed after her shower, the covers pushed off the bed, along with her pillow, Ed's pillow being the only thing left. Lorraine had curled up, into a ball, and had not moved for hours. She had not slept, that she knew, though she could hardly remember the passing hours, unable to think of anything more than the vision she could not get rid of.
Every little sound made her head pound, the birds constant chirping from the tree outside the bedroom window, and the movements she could just hear Ed making wherever he was in the house. He sounded close, so more than likely the living room, maybe the hallway in front of their room.
Lorraine shifted, her muscles screaming in protest after her not moving in so long, and she tugged Ed's pillow over her head, trying to block out the lights and sounds.
She should drink something, she should take something for her head. She would only have to go into the bathroom to get water and rifle through the medicine cabinet a moment, and yet she lay there, still unmoving. She found the weaker she grew, the less the vision replayed in her head, and for a bit, she was thankful for it. Her eyes soon grew heavy, eventually falling shut, and after a good 48 hours of being awake, Lorraine finally slept.
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Lorraine was jerked from her sleep in a cold sweat by the shrill sound of the phone ringing, which ended as soon at it started, the silence broken by Ed's incoherent mumblings from the kitchen.
He must have unplugged it, she thought to herself, shifting a bit to swing her legs over the side of the bed, and as she pushed herself up to stand, her vision started to fade, and she stumbled, grabbing onto the bedside table for support as she tried to blink the spots away.
"Water" Lorraine muttered softly to herself, and she was just able to make her way around the the bed and stumble towards the bathroom, flipping the light on and fumbling for the cup she and Ed kept in the bathroom to fill it up. It only took a moment to fill, and she brought the cup up to her lip, drinking as though her life depended on it, and it very likely did, and when the glass was empty, she filled it to drink again. When she had finished, and the spots in her vision began to subside, she deposited the cup back on the counter, leaning against it until her vision had completely cleared.
She could just hear Ed's voice, closer than it was before, and he must have been right outside their bedroom, must have heard her stumbling around, but simply the sound of his voice made her gag, and she turned away from the mirror in the direction of the toilet, just able to get there before she was violently sick, a strangled cry of defeat and helplessness soon following, and Lorraine stayed there for hours.
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The next few days were stolen from Lorraine. She drifted, untethered, not gone, but not completely in her body. She wandered between their bathroom and their bed, going between cowering in their bed, thrust into her vision over and over again and the almost constant nausea that accompanied it, and the steaming hot showers that blistered her skin, but that for a moment had her forgetting and brought her back down to earth, that was, until the water ran cold, and it all started over again. And she prayed. She prayed constantly to God to take it all away, to rid her of it, from the moment she awoke, if she had slept, to the moment exhaustion overtook her.
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After almost 6 days of being untethered and adrift, Lorraine came back to her body. She was weak, and hungry, but alive. God had tested her, she knew that was what the vision was, a test, and she had persevered. She blinked, shifting slightly on the bed, tilting her head until her eyes fell on the clock on Ed's table, and it read 4 am.
Lorraine pushed herself up to sit, shifting to let her feet dangle over the edge of the bed before she was pushing herself up. She took a moment as she completely came back to herself, wincing at the prickling feeling of the blood beginning to circle through her fingers and toes once more, a shaky breath leaving her lips. She tied Ed's rope tighter around her waist, turning, jer eyes falling on the bedroom door, and she started towards it on shaky legs.
Lorraine wasn't sure what she was expecting to find when she pulled open the bedroom door, but it sure wasn't Ed curled up on the floor, wrapped in the blanket that was usually on the back of the couch. He looked disheveled and uneasy even in sleep, and the sight sent a pang of sadness through her heart, knowing she had caused this. For a moment she watched him, waiting for the nausea and crippling sadness that had accompanied even the thought of him for days, and when it didn't come, she stepped forward, nudging him with her foot.
Ed immediately seemed to jerk awake, shifting a bit as he blinked the sleep from his eyes. "Lorraine..." he sighed softly as his gaze fell on her, his eyebrows furrowed a bit as she turned to make her way back into the bedroom, and when the door stayed open, he was scrambling to his feet to follow after her. No words were spoken as Lorraine trudged her way back over to the bed grabbing her pillow and the blanket from the floor to toss them onto the bed, or when they both climbed into the bed, her immediately slipping into his embrace to bury her face into his chest, his arms wrapping around her to gently trace up and down her back. He wouldn't ask her what she had seen, what had cause her to lock herself away for eight days. The only thing that matter now was that she had come back to him, as she always had before.
