Haunted {Calum // 5SOS au}

{ five }

A haunting scream filled the cold eerie air, chilling Riley to the bone. It came from a distance but its sound, filled with fear, tore through the corridors and hit Riley like a ton of bricks.

"Calum?!"

Her own voice made her flinch, overly loud and echoing against the walls. Her hands flew towards her face, covering her mouth as she cursed herself for being so careless. She didn't want whatever had caused the scream to come after her as well.

Frozen in place, with her fingers still on her lips as to hide behind her hands, she cowardly whispered Calum's name again, followed by Michael's. She knew they wouldn't answer, but she was so desperate to hear from them she couldn't stop herself.

The thought of Calum being in trouble made her stomach turn uneasily. Or maybe the screams had belonged to her blue-haired friend. Either way, Riley knew there was only one way to find out and although every inch of her body was telling her to not go looking for them, she knew she had to.

As quietly as possible Riley took off into the direction in which the panicked scream had come from. After a little while she entered an area that she hadn't been to before. A long corridor was spread out in front of her and she had to mentally prepare herself before she dared walk through it. Telling herself she would be okay and that she'd find one, if not both, of her friends at the end of it was what she needed to take the first few steps.

With every step she took, the air in the corridor grew colder. Riley crossed her arms over her chest, her hands on her arms to keep herself warm. As she walked on she whispered her friends name, but silence was her only reply.

She did not find her friends at the end of the corridor, and what she'd thought was a dead end, turned out to be a dark corridor leading into another long hallway. A round broken mirror hung from the ceiling, giving her a distorted view of what was behind her and in the corridor to her left. Taking a look at herself, she quickly looked away. She looked horrible; her skin white as snow, almost pallid and her eyes wide and a little bloodshot.

Her glance fell on the wall next to her and she furrowed her brows as she took in the piece of art that covered the mouldy interior. The graffiti looked old, but there was something off about it that Riley couldn't quite put her finger on. She tilted her head sideways, trying hard to figure out what it was that made her look in the first place. As she was about to give up, her eyes averted to the floor and that was when she noticed a few paint splatters on the ground.

Her eyes grew bigger as she realised the paint on the floor was fresh, though the graffiti on the wall wasn't. She shook her head wildly, repeating the word "no" as if to tell herself this wasn't real. It couldn't be real. She needed it to not be real. Her fears were confirmed when she dragged the toe of her heeled boots through one of the splatters, a tail of color following it.

There was a glisten of a cold sweat on her forehead and she knew she had to get out of there as fast as she could. She started running and didn't stop until she ran into an old rusty gate. She grabbed onto the bars tightly and looked behind her to see if she was still alone.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath in, letting it out a few moments later as relief rushed over her. She was still alone, and for the first time that night she was glad to be.

Too scared to walk back in the direction she'd come from, she hoped she'd find a way back to the main hall by going through the so far undiscovered corridor. With a little effort she pushed open the gate and stepped through the opening it created. Looking at the rooms on her sides, an uncanny feeling took over. The rooms no longer looked like they were once bedrooms to patients. They looked more like prison cells.