Animalistic | h.s

chapter fifty five

"I'm so glad you're staying here tonight. I've been so alone ever since Ry left to his so 'individual journey'," Dylan turns off the lamp. The room goes dark. "It's been two weeks of sleeping alone and fearing that abandoned house next to us."

"That's where Amelia used to live, Dy." I say staring at the dark, eyes widened. I'm still in stunned and my hairs are still standing. I can't get rid of Jasper from my head. And I don't want to close my eyes; afraid he would just appear like a ghost. "It's not a haunted house."

"I know, but some nights I hear weird shit coming from there."

Jasper.

I don't say anything. He changes the subject quickly, but I stop listening. I shut my eyes, hard and sit up, rubbing my temples. All I hear in my head is Jasper's voice threatening me and haunting me, Harry's voice saying he wants me to go, other voices telling me that this nightmare will end if I just die, and I scream in my head.

Shut up, shut up, shut up!

I have a heavy lift in my chest, on my back and on top of my head. I feel like I'm being buried, and everything's spinning around me. Everything's shrinking, the air is disappearing, and I feel cold.

I imagine Jasper's possible ways of murdering. I see him slitting throats, blood splattering everywhere, bombing someone's body and other diabolic stuffs, and those imagines take me when I saw him blow someone's head. That was the first time I witnessed a murder and to think that Harry might die in his hands, gives me hard and hurtful pounding in my chest.

My throat is burning. I can't hear a thing. I feel ants, spiders and other insects, hands and blood all over me. Then I realize I'm hitting and scratching my face and screaming.

I snap out of it when I feel a hand slap me across my face. The lights are back on. I blink rapidly, trying to make out who's in front of me since everything's blurry.

"I'm sorry, but I had to do this." Dylan says looking guilty for slapping my face.

"Huh?"

I can't recall what just happened.

The door opens, my mother and Peter walking into the bedroom. Peter is holding a broom and my mother a hairbrush.

"Why are you holding that?" I ask. I lie against the headboard, feeling weary and vocally tired.

"You were screaming." My mum looks at me concerned. "What's going on?"

That would explain my burning throat, "I- no, I wasn't screaming."

"Yes you were. It freaked me out." Dylan's eyes are widened. "You started screaming incoherent words."

"Why is her cheek red?" Mother caress my hurting skin with her thumb. I flinch a bit.

"I slapped her to snap out of it."

"It's fine. No need to worry." I tell them.

"You slapped my daughter?"

Peter scolds at him, "No men should put a finger on a woman doesn't matter the reasons. Seventeen rosaries for this sin. Go."

Dylan mouths that he's sorry before grabbing the rosary on the nightstand and walking out of the bedroom. His father goes after him and closes the door behind him. I'm left with my mother, who's staring at me as if I'm a ghost.

"What's going on with you, Floella?"

I can't say.

"I don't know what you're talking about, okay? I'm tired and I want to sleep." My voice breaks and I begin to cry. The only thing destroys me, but fixes me at the same is Harry. I'm needy and weak.