"Excuse me?" I said staring — one brow up with one hand on my side.
Eloise stared deep into my eyes, the piercing deep hazel of her eyes had become dulled and clouded — as if she had weathered a million storms and suffered through the coldest steps. That was the first clue that helped ease my way through her now emerging madness.
Eloise closed her eyes momentarily, giving me time process that her pink and blue Hello Kitty nightgown had gone, replaced by a colourless and translucent cloth draped over her body like a veil.
Eloise began, carefully mouthing the separate syllables of each word, something she had never done before, "I need you to understand, I have gone through this scenario many times and there are only a couple actions that we can both take where this ends well."
I found myself conscious of my staring, manually blinking a couple times hoping that it would speed up my processing — it didn't.
"Erik focus! My name is not Eloise anymore! When we get to Eriklaand you have to refer to me as the Prime Deliverance, covering your eyes with your hands anytime you speak to me!"
"But, you were... the bathroom... and we were... finished season 7 of the office... and now you're... Prime Delissio?" I mumbled, pointing towards the living room and then to Eloise, and then to myself, a terrible jumble of confusion.
"Look, eight hundred and six moons ago I sat upon the ceramic, allowing myself to cleanse the unnecessary from my body, Had I known that the jingle of the feline food product coupled with the germanic words I was reviewing for an exam in my previous life —"
"Uh yeah you have class tomorrow," I interrupted, remembering the earful that Eloise had given me minutes ago after I had insisted that we finish watching the last episode of the season.
"You don't get it, Erik! You have to come with me now!" Eloise exploded, grabbing my hand and dragging me into the bathroom.
Eloise turned to me, her face huffed in frustration as she handed me three multi-coloured spotted spheres, each no larger than an Advil.
"Take those and close your eyes." She instructed, clasping her hands together and closing her eyes as she begun to hum a deep note.
My initial doubt washed away by a strong instinctual feeling. I reached out for the spheres with a shrug, trusting my spouse unconditionally and calculating that whatever happened after taking the spheres would probably be significantly better than spending the whole day in class.
I rolled the spheres in my hand for a bit, surprised by how cold they felt. With a shrug and a curl of my lip I threw hazard into the wind and swallowed the spheres.
The next moments coalesced into eternity. I stared into the cloudy eyes of Eloise as the colours in the bathroom began to swim. My senses converged into a maelstrom, the cold of the tiles against the soles of my feet translating into a cacophonic brilliance within me, an energy not unlike but completely different from a rainbow churned within my body, exploding out of my pores and drowning me in my own deliverance.
I felt my feet go first, collapsing forward but finding no ground. Instead, I fell and I fell, grasping at the tendrils that wriggled just barely out of reach. As I reached for my eyes I felt a coldness upon my face, one that filled me with a dread so malevolent that my fingers crumbled into dust. I opened my mouth to scream but instead began to laugh, the maddening sound of my cackling filling whatever void I occupied in time and space. The dread continued to consume me, my body decaying and my dust floating away into the yellows and reds of the universe, swirling and swirling and swirling.
Universes collapsed and re-emerged around me, brilliant lights and sounds touching me as my corporeal self struggled its hold.
It was my sense of smell that emerged first from the void, the familiar smell of morning dew and rich vibrant nature guiding me back. Then I heard her. The sound of Eloise's voice anchoring me back to reality, its soft sound eviscerating whatever hold the negative energies had on me.
"Welcome home Erik."