𝐖𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐍. ˢᵗᵉᵛᵉ ʰᵃʳʳⁱⁿᵍᵗᵒⁿ ¹

010

010. 𝗮 𝗱𝗲𝗲𝗽, 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗱.

𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐍𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐘 𝐌𝐈𝐃𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 she found herself standing in front of her window again. The sky was dark, everything was quiet, and the ladder was still there, leaning against her house. Behind her, her room was fully decorated how she liked, the posters on the walls, her dresser haphazardly organized, and everything else that reminded her of Michigan. At nearly midnight, yawning, she was staring at the house across from hers and she didn't know why.

She thought for a moment about the ladder. And this was new— thinking. Lori never contemplated sneaking out before, at least she never thought too hard about it at all. She was the type to just do. And this was her chance.

But she let go. For some unknown reason, she let go and turned away towards her bed and crawled in. She closed her eyes fast, and turned her back so she wouldn't have to face it— face what, she did not know exactly. There was no reason she could think of, for why she didn't just go. But she fell asleep before she could think any deeper, as the white curtains swayed in the breeze.

Her mind was still dizzy when a thud came from across the room.

It had not been nearly four hours since she went to bed. The room was still quite and still breezy, the stars were still shining and the crickets, they were still chirping in the grass. The night was existing like usual, but now there was a thud right in the room and the girl's ears had heard it clear. It disrupted the quietness.

Although, it wasn't cautiously loud enough for her to jump just yet, but it certainly wasn't light enough for her to not notice. Lori's eyes were slowly opening, but the darkness in the room was profound and the exhaustion she occupied was making it hard to focus on anything. Her mind was boggled, shaken up but still carried the daze that comes after waking from a sleep, the daze that sort of makes everything seem like a dream when you first open your eyes, but then everything comes to you in a matter of seconds and suddenly— there's a figure in your room.

A shadow suddenly lingered between the white curtains of the window, the silhouette of a man. It was slowly starting to approach the girl on the bed, tiptoeing to be quiet. When Lori realized that this wasn't a dream, or that this wasn't an effect of the after-sleep daze her mind was heavy with, her jaw fell to the floor and her eyes widened in horror as the silhouette made its way over to the side of her bed.

Then, she screamed.

Well, she would've screamed if the person had not completely lunged forward at the right moment, and placed their hand over her lips to keep the sound in. Before she could jump out of bed, before she could bite the hand at least, she opened her eyes— from having them roughly shut as some sort of stupid reflex— to not only see that it was, in fact, a man who had broken into her room, but also realize that the man happened to have a distinguishable head of hair that anyone could spot, even in the dark. She recognized the swoop of his hair almost instantly.

    And now, she was mad.

She pushed the hand away from her face with a strong jerk. "What the hell are you—!" without even watching her volume at all, she spoke out, her voice sizzling angry.

Steve had quickly replaced his hand back over her mouth, this time placing a finger over his own lips, mumbling a small "shh".

"Lower your voice, god damnit..." He whispered so low, she could barely make out the words he was saying, while he slowly took the time to look around the room in each direction as if someone happened to be watching.