The Horrific Tale of Silver ✖

Turn- 5

"What happened to you? You look like shit. Why the hell were you up last night?" Silver asked her brother.

They were video chatting and this was the only conversation
they had for the last ten minutes. Jeff was still half asleep. He was sitting on a bean bag chair,  trying to keep his tired eyes open. He had coffee and ketchup stains all over his navy blue T-shirt. Silver was sure Jeff wasn't getting any sleep.

"How many classes did you miss this time?" she asked, diverting her gaze from the dirty white wall behind Jeff.

Resting his chin on his palm, he asked. "How did you know that? I mean, what- what? I'm not missing my classes. What gives you that idea?"

"The fact that you haven't slept for more than twenty four hours and you t-shirt had a big stain of coffee on your clothes that's at least three days old. So, tell me now or give an explanation to mom and dad."

"I never should have video called you today."

"And, yet you did."

"My professors have given me a deadline. I'm failing four of my classes."

"Four? Are you serious? Dad's gonna kill you. How can you be failing four out of five classes? What do you do all day?"

Jeff blinked rapidly as if Silver's voice was hurting his eyes. "That's the question for another day. Can't you come here and help me, Silver? I need you."

"You know I can't and even if I could I wouldn't. You have done this to yourself, and now you have to get out of it yourself. You hear me?"

Jeff was just a second away from falling asleep. "What did you say?"

"You are ridiculous. I should have brought you straight home the last time I caught you jumping off your college campus." Silver tried to keep her voice down.

"I was exercising and I didn't expect you to be there." Jeff was suddenly alert.

"Don't remind me, it was terrible."

"It wasn't."

"Oh, it was. A weekend shoot to cover your college event was the worst thing I have done to keep my job. I had to practically run for everything Tracy asked for, and that's not even the worst part. She wanted me to get her a new dress because she wanted to impress a guy she met on campus and it was you."

Jeff winked. "It was the best time of my life. What are you complaining about? My friends spent all their time and energy trying to hook up with you. One of them even took his shirt off for you."

"He did that to get on camera. He was stupid, but less stupid than you."

"I'm not stupid." Jeff made a fake mad face.

"You were talking to a dummy you thought was a person."

"It was very real looking." he defended himself.

Silver brought her face closer to the screen. "Or you were just totally drunk. Thank God, Tracy didn't know you were my brother."

"She still doesn't know"

"Oh, God no." she took a sigh of relief.

"Well, you know..."

The screen froze. Silver pressed random buttons on her keyboard. She pressed escape multiple times but nothing happened. She had no other option except to turn the PC off.

She waited for two minutes before turning it back on when everything in the office room went dark. It was almost night and the very low light coming from outside made it impossible for everybody to see anything.

Low murmurings began. People didn't know what to do. Some cursed while some were happy to catch a break from work.

"Dave, are you there? What's happening?" Silver called.

When no response came, she opened the torch on her phone to check where Dave was. She saw Emilia and Cody making out on Cody's desk.

"That's awful." She moved the torch towards Dave's desk.

His seat was empty.

"Where the hell are you?" she muttered.

She heard one of the guys calling the maintenance department for help.

Silver got up to get away from the murmurings.  Leaving the voices behind her, she walked a little further and that is when she saw of a hand. She moved ahead, not knowing someone was standing in front of her.

Maybe it was Sydney, she thought.

She took a step further, the outline of the arm grew darker. She moved her eyes, expecting to see someone but all she could still only see the outline of the arm.

The arm moved in her direction and she ducked. "Hey, stop! What you doing? I'm here." she yelled.

A hand came from behind and touched Silver's back. She couldn't control herself and a scream left her mouth. She covered her eyes, sitting on her knees.

"You alright?"

Silver opened her eyes, the lights were back on.

"Hey, it's me, Dave. What are you doing down there?"

Silver looked behind. The only thing behind her was the door to the production room. "Someone was right there," she pointed behind her.
"I saw an arm, it came right towards my face."

"No, you must be mistaken. It was too dark to see anything. It must be the door." Dave helped her to stand up.

"No, the arm moved. I'm telling you. Maybe it was somebody from the production unit."

"It can't be. The room is locked for renovation, remember?" he said.

Dave took Silver back to her seat. She looked back one last time till the red door disappeared from her sight.