Everything about her presence in front of him suggested that there was something terrible in her past -- her very recent past, as she had clearly not made peace with any of it yet. And then she began talking. The words seemed to jump into existence in fits and starts, as if they were wrested and hurled into existence by necessity and not by will. He studied her carefully, knowing that the wrong word would scare this one away for good and he would lose his chance to learn more about what had attacked Charlie. And her little man. And himself.
But she was making it very easy to lead into the conversation. He had but to tell the truth.
"Others have," Elias confirmed. His voice was very quiet, gravely and deep. It was not meant to be heard past their table, and indeed was so low that it struggled to make it the distance to the anxious lady sitting with him. "I will keep their confidence, as I will keep yours. But I see no harm in telling you the summation of our experiences: One of us suffered from painful visual disturbances - flashes of light and afterimages of a strange creature; another of us suffered from an aural attack - whispers and conversations that were crippling; and yet another of us manifested a physical injury - a painful burn, specifically, which appeared on the skin for the duration of the night and disappeared by morning. This person also attested to witnessing a strange and slithering something in a hallway.
"I have tried to string together commonalities to each of our situations, but the only solid link I've found so far is that we were all in the lobby that night. Were you?"