Time didn’t pass in the dark; it stagnated.
Evelina didn’t know if she had been sitting on the cold marble floor for three hours or thirteen. The blackout shutters sealed the room in a tomb like void. There was no hum of the refrigerator, no street noise, no light. Just the sound of her own shallow breathing and the terrifying, amplifying echo of her own thoughts.
She had tried to walk the perimeter of the room, guiding herself with her hands against the wall, counting steps to keep her mind sharp. Forty steps to the kitchen. Twenty to the hallway. But the darkness disoriented her. She tripped over the ottoman, bruising her shin, and retreated to the corner of the rug, curling into a tight ball.
This was sensory deprivation. It was torture.
But the physical darkness was nothing compare
