Chapter 12- Nightmare
That night, I couldn't sleep either.
It was a familiar pattern. I'd said it before, but I've had trouble sleeping for as long as I'd been here. Every single night there was always this sense of uneasiness passing through me, bothering me in the back of my mind. It was unavoidable: no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop my brain from thinking. So all I could do was stare at the dark wall, watching shadows flick across it, and wonder.
"Why can't I sleep?" I murmured softly, closing my eyes for what seemed like the millionth time that night.
Was it excitement from finding out about a little more about my past and the plan to find out more? Was it the grief of remembering my mother's passing? Was it the worry about the professor and Jaxon and Mari that was keeping me awake?
For some reason, that didn't seem quite it.
Over the past few sleepless nights, I'd taken on a habit of talking to myself. "What is this?" I murmured, "I'm so nervous about nothing."
And yet, the still silence continued.
Finally, I sat up, giving up on whatever sleep I was hoping for. I wondered faintly if I could ask Mari for some sleeping pills or something to help me sleep as I dragged myself across the room like a zombie. My mind was sluggish, slow from lack of sleep. In a daze, I stumbled through the hallway and into the kitchen, my footsteps deafening through the sleepy silence of the house. My hand came into contact with the light switch, and light popped on over my head, causing me to immediately groan and close my eyes. So bright.
My throat suddenly feeling raspy, I continued to stumble around like a blind person until my eyes got used to the light. Quickly flicking on the faucet, I grabbed a cup from the cupboard and shoved it under the sink. I let out a long breath, letting the water fill up the cup. The sound of tap water splashing filled the room. Tiny droplets scattered across my hand after bursting out from the tap, and a chill ran down my spine.
Perhaps that's when I looked up.
It took a minute for my eyes to actually process what I was seeing in my bleary state. Out those blue-green kitchen windows windows, shaded eerily in the dark, was a face. It was completely swathed in shadows, covered by a mask with holes in it for the eyes. And through those holes were a pair of familiar glinting eyes, wide and inhuman, a bright yellow-gold tainted blue through the window.
Staring. Right at me.
Noise escaped my lips. I stumbled backwards, my knees suddenly weakening. A piercing sound filled my ears, and I realized it was me, screaming. The sound reverberated off the walls. I leaned back against the counter behind me, that piercing sound gone, replaced by shock. The lights flicked out, leaving me drowned in darkness.
They're here. I'm going to die. They found me. That Halfie woman was following me. The lights are out. I'm going to be taken away. What's happening?
And then a dark shape appeared over me.
I gasped for air, my eyes wide, a tightening sensation filling my chest. Fear coiled around me like a snake, squeezing hard, suffocating me. The dark shape moved, leaning over me, looking awfully human-like. I shut my eyes tight, wanting nothing more to disappear, for that thing to disappear. I pressed my hands onto the cold kitchen tile, scraping across the cabinet behind me, desperately searching for something to hold on to.
The lights flicked on.
I could see it behind my closed eyes. My eyes snapped open, my body freezing. "Get away from me!" I screamed, pulling my arms over my head, my heart jumping at every shuffle of movement, every noise I heard.
YOU ARE READING
Awakening
Teen Fiction"All I knew was that I needed to break down this wall." I was trapped. Locked up deep inside myself. I could only hang in this in-between world, trapped in limbo, sitting on the edge between consciousness and unconsciousness. Between me and waking...
