CHAPTER NINETY - THREE - SAVED BY THE LIGHTS AND RAFAEL.

Mateo's eyes remained clenched shut, his chest heaving as he willed himself to calm down. He registered the quietness of the room, and the absence of the hand and breath of the eerie presence behind him. He slowly opened his eyes and looked around, everything was gone. The spot in front of him sparkled from its reflection of the light above it. Mateo stared at the spot, feeling almost as if the brightness of the light it reflected was mocking him and his distorted mind. The hallucination had felt so real - his mother's dead eyes, her outstretched hand, the feeling of suffocation. The eerie presence behind him that seemed to had dogged into his deepest heart to find out his vulnerability. It knew he had wanted nothing more than to be able to help his parents at that moment. "Mateo, what are you doing down here in the dark?" A voice soft and groggy from sleep asked. He looked up to Rafael standing at the wall close to the staircase - where the switch for the lights were.