It's just a bad dream

Suddenly, the wailing stopped and everything was very quiet. Ana turned her head from side to side trying to find out what happened, but she could neither see nor hear anything. There was an eerie quietness now engulfing everything, making things more mysterious than it was.

Were that person taken somewhere else? Were they dead? What was happening?

She felt all the hair raising in the back of her neck and a chill ran down her spine. Someone was coming!

She heard faint footsteps coming from a distance along with the scrapping sound of a metal touching the surface of iron. Who was it? Were they coming to kill her too?

Ana was terrified and all her insides were churning in terror. She suddenly tasted salt on her lips and realized that she had been crying. This was too much to handle and she really wished she was dead instead. Why were they torturing her like this? And who were they?

The small little tap that vibrated and resonated throughout the place sounded very nearby now. She gulped in fear and felt her whole body go rigid at the sound of scrapping. She desperately wanted to escape from this monstrosity and pulled on her chains like a mad person but it didn't budge an inch. She was only getting more scratches on herself than doing herself any favour.

She heard a growl so strong and angry that it made her heart beat out of her ribs. What was that? An animal? Was that animal going to kill her? Eat her?

She was more scared than ever and felt like a little kid hiding from a monster in her bedroom. But, of course this was only way worse than that. Somehow deep down she knew it was all a dream, and she wanted to wake up from it but felt that her body was too anchored to the moment and rigid from panic to do anything.

The footsteps could be heard very clearly now and Ana heard a small click which opened the door of wherever she was being held. A sudden blast of light instantly blinded her and scorched her face when she started crying out in fear!

"Arrggghhhh!", Ana shouted and jolted awake, completely covered up in sweat!

She was clutching her chest and felt a tightness spreading throughout her body. The wetness on her cheeks indicated that she was actually crying the whole time. The same damn nightmare again!

She sat up in her couch slowly and caught her breath for a while calming herself down and convincing herself that it was just a very bad nightmare and probably none of it were true. But even Ana knew she was only fooling herself.

Because she'd been seeing this ever since her childhood and intensity of it seemed be too real to be discounted as a mere dream. She felt as if she was really in a dark prison, feeling helpless, awaiting torture and death.

The horrible pain she felt in her body, the weird wailings that pierced her ears, the panic building inside her, every single thing felt too much authentic to be ignored. Her parents made her consult doctors, shamans, shrinks everyone since childhood, but nobody could provide a medication or a solution to her problem.

But fortunately or unfortunately she never knew what happened after the bright light entered in her prison, because she always bolted awake after that. This could well be just a dream, but how could she ignore it when it highjacked her sleep almost every day.

She always wondered if she was reliving any horrible memory from her childhood but when asked about it, her parents denied that she had never once been kidnapped or chained in her entire life. Not to deny, she also used her resources to find out if any such prisons existed, but even in the most dangerous prisons, they didn't put on shackles on someone's neck or cut their tongue. That was just too cruel.

She slowly dragged herself across the living room to the dining area tiptoeing not to wake pepper, and grabbed herself a bottle of water from the fridge. Since the breakup, everything had been falling apart in her life. She was very concerned that she might be flailing slowly, getting broken inside day by day and badly wanted to get her life back on track as soon as possible.

Finally, after calming down for some time, she entered the restroom to wash her face. A very tired pair of pale blue eyes and tattered face starred back at her through the mirror.

Ana had a fair complexion of skin which was looking paler and exhausted right at that moment. She took a handful of her blond hair and tucked it into a top bun and splashed cold water on her face making herself feel alive. She once again assured herself that it was only just a dream and she shouldn't worry much about it. She cleaned her face and went to sleep in her bedroom.

It was already three in the morning. Since she had promised her friend, she must at least show up to work the next day. Otherwise, the entire pity party will be at her doorstep the next day and she didn't want that.

Ana decided to try and get some sleep for a couple of hours until the big day where she had to face real life which would be much more cruel than the nightmare.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Next day in office]

"Well, this is new..", Jack noted as soon as noticing Ana entering the office.

"Yes. Hi Jack", Ana remarked sarcastically, feeling embarrassed on how everyone was going to make a big deal of this. 

"So how're you holding up, champ?", he asked with the pity head lean. Jack was the mean PR guy who got on everyone's nerves and Ana hated his guts. She loathed the fact that even Jack knew what happened to her and was now ready to taunt her with it.

"Oh! Just shut up, Jack!", she said dryly and started walking towards her cubicle.

She was squirming inside but didn't let anyone see it. After that uneventful day, this must be the next worst day ever in her life.

She found that as soon as she entered the room, everyone were staring at her and although they only had a handful of staffs, she felt as if a million eyes were on her.

This was exactly why she avoided coming back to office and now she was already regretting it. But how long could she hide anyways? Eventually she must show her face and this was all bound to happen. And it wasn't like her super sweet boss to give her more leaves anyways. She didn't even want to think about that now.

"So good to finally see you..... Come on…. Get in here !!", Katherine said cheerfully as soon as she noticed Ana and came in for a hug.

Ana was not much of a hugger but Katherine sure was, so she simply went for it and let herself be hugged.

"Heyy friend… How's things?", she countered nonchalantly.

"I do have a lot to talk, but looks like we have received some new specimen today and first we have to check that out. But I promise that after all this, we'll go for a coffee and bitch about everyone we hate", Katherine said very happily which made Ana's heart feel warm and finally put a smile on her face. She was glad to be in the presence of something familiar after a long time.

"Sure…. So, are we going to the delivery room now?", Ana asked desperately trying to be anywhere but in her cubicle. She understood that the more time she spent there, the more people were going to gather around her desk asking how she was holding up. That was the last thing she wanted.

She wanted to get her mind off of things and start working on something interesting as soon as possible.

"Just login and check your emails first. Once I have the clearance letter from the boss, we'll go", Katherine said.

"The boss? He's in office today?", Ana asked surprised. This was worse than her nightmare!

Ana's boss Oliver, who is the only heir of the Thorpe Enterprises which owned half the country by wealth and had half the government by power!

Food, real estate, apparels, beauty, manufacturing, metals, you name it, they had it. But apparently the only heir of the Thorpe Enterprises, Oliver, was not interested in any of these and always wanted to spend time in their museum.

He gave a press conference to public once stating that he was very much interested in the arts and culture of the world and wanted to be in the presence of creativity, surrounded by the beauty and intricacy of the various sculptures and paintings they owned and the rich history of the nation. Bullshit! Ana thought. She could see right through his bluff.

He was just another irresponsible nepo kid who wanted to get away from taking any real responsibility by hiding in the museum. Also, he had a weird sense of deriving joy from torturing people around him, especially her.

Now, although she had her dream job, she was stuck with this snob who was not only the Director and CEO of The Museum of Natural History but also the biggest shareholder in the Thorpe Enterprises. Nothing moves an inch without Oliver's say in it.