Thirteen Minutes Only || Horror

Part #2

She's frozen in terror knowing that she can't run because the place she used to be teleported to was infinite. The world wouldn't end no matter how far she ran from it but this time it wasn't so. She had limited earth beneath her feet and it had unlimited time on its hand. 

She can't move. Even if she tries to where can she run? Its right behind her door and darting right into the lions den is the last thing she should be doing. There's a window to her left but to her pathetic luck its closed. Locked. Even if she can managed to leap out of her bed, the locked window will be a huge time eater to open.

She can't do anything and she's scared this is it. She shuts her eyes. She doesn't want to see what's gonna happen next. She doesn't want to see that thing charge towards her with the most twisted, diabolical look on its ....face? She wasn't even sure if it had one but she knew that she wouldn't be sticking around long enough to find out for sure. Just then she finds out something else; she's capable of doing something that she couldn't in its realm.

She screamed and she screamed out loud, trying to draw the attention of anyone. It was then that she realized unlike in that alternate hell of a world, here she wasn't alone. If there was something she was sacred of then there had to be something it was scared of too and for hideous monsters of its kind it was usually two things; light and attention of those other than its victim. As for right now there wasn't much light in her room spare for her small blue nightlight so the only thing which could draw it away was attention.

Soon enough her mom burst through the door and she saw it vanish into thin air. The light switch was flicked and the sharp brightness stung her eyes, forcing them shut.

"What happened sweetie?? Why'd you scream?? Everything alright?"

She sits up in bed and is about to tell her everything but then she remembers. She's already told her multiple times and the end result has always been the same. She's always been dismissed for having an 'over reactive imagination' since childhood. Either that or just a repetitive nightmares. Thats what she said last time. As caring as her mother is, the whole idea of her 9 year old daughter being teleported to a hellish world and getting chased by a something that somewhat resembled a modified version of slenderman was too unbelievable for her. You couldn't blame the mother either, she already had it hard being a single mother who's young loving husband died at the hands of a tragic accident.

"Bad dream." Jules says because she sees the thing eyeing her from the corner. Tears start slipping down her face as she feels the glare from it getting harder.

Uh-oh. Should not have said it was a bad dream. It did not like that.

She's scared and she doesn't realize shes clutching the fluffy blanket so hard that her knuckles go ghostly white. The sight of her daughter being so terrified just because of a nightmare disturbed her a lot so she offered to stay with her until she fell asleep. Just then another tiny waddling figure came through the door.

Max...

Her 6 year old brother. He was more dear to her than herself and there was no way she would let him come anywhere close that thing.

Max... please. Run. Run away. Far. Far, far away.

"You know what," her mother said, picking up little Max from the floor, "lets just stay here with Jules for tonight. How does that sound hmm?"

Max, despite being half asleep, squealed like he had been up for a while. She watched his eyes brighten as he leapt onto the bed with his older sister. He momentarily bounced up and down, sending a wave of excited jerks on the springs in the bed. Jukes gulped and no matter how hard she tried to avert her gaze from behind the door, she couldn't. She dreaded the thing randomly poking its head out of the wall or something to scare her and incase that happened she need to be on her nerves for the sake of both her mother and her brother. She was the only one who knew.

 Confused, Max also turned behind to see, " What are you looking at, Ju?"

Ju.

 It was then that she was able to tear her eyes away from there. Ju. That's what her her father called her when he was alive. He made up that nickname when Max had first learned to talk. He couldn't fully form the word 'Jules' on his tongue so their father had shortened it to just 'Ju' and from then onwards it stuck. The day her father died, her mother stopped calling her Ju and she had taken her full name ever since. Herself, she didn't ask why because that might have been the comparative of ripping open fresh wounds she had drained herself into sealing. 

By then, her mother returned dragging a rather huge mattress with her. She threw it by her bed onto the floor, huffed and muttered something to herself; a habit she had developed subconsciously since the death of her husband. Jules never questioned it either. She knew different people had different coping mechanisms. Maybe this was just hers.

"Ju." Max said as he nearly shoved a frantic wave into her face.

"Yeaah?" 

"Are you scared because of a dream?"

She suddenly felt ashamed. Older sisters were supposed to be brave and protective; not fragile and timid.

"What was it about?" He asked, his eyes wide and eager.

"Nothing."

"Come onnn tell mee" he whined, " I won't be scared. I'm a man you know."

A small smile crept on her lips. Indeed a very small one. She ruffled his hair and he broke into laughter.

"Are you doubting me???" he asked with an adorably scrunched expression.

"Nooo why would I ever? I won't tell you because I know its not going to scare you anyway. You're too brave for it" she teased him. It was then that she wondered. Since when had she gotten so good at pretending things?

This was why she loved him so much. He never even knew how much of a favor he did her by engaging her in such childish banters. They never failed to distract her and always helped her to forget about her trauma. The trauma that she never seemed to get past.

Her mother plopped two pillows on the mattress and heaved two heavy blankets through the door way. 

"Okayyy Ma-" her mother stopped midsentence, frozen as her eyes settled upon the crack behind the door.

It puzzled Jules. It wasn't there right now.

But then-

Gasp.

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(yes ik I said I wasn't planning on continuing this but then I randomly got an idea for it anddd you guessed it- I just went for it 😂still clueless on where this is going tho :/)