How to be Alone

Chapter Seven: Trapped With Me

I reappeared, ducked behind the desk, just to watch them. There were automatic gunshots, then one of them shouted to run. They all scattered, sprinting out the doors on either end of the hallway, bashing them open and bursting through to the outdoors. All of them, except one. I peeked my head over and saw her scanning around, her rifle to her breast.

"I don't know what's going on," She said. "But I don't believe in ghosts. I don't know what you're doing, but I don't believe. I don't buy it. You won't scare me."

Her voice was trembling and broken.

"That's a shame," I say. She gasps, and I hear her turn to face the desk.

"Come out!" She yells.

I clench my face, I'm trying so hard not to laugh. "What do you mean?" I say, "I'm right here."

My voice almost broke into a laugh at here.

"You're behind that desk, aren't you?" She asks. I don't reply, I take this moment to vanish and run, hiding behind a cabinet that stood on the side of the hallway.

"I'm wherever I want to be," I say. She had begun walking towards the desk, but now she's turned to face me.

She fires a shot at the cabinet, which knicks the wood and strikes the wall a few feet besides me. I vanish, my laugh and smile having faded, and just wait a moment. I run back to the desk and reappear, looking, and see down the hall that she's looking behind the cabinet. I wait, and when she turns around, I vanish again, appearing where she had just looked.

"You should run," I say. I feel cliche, but it's all I can come up with. She spins around and fires another magazine into the cabinet, and I vanish again. I appear down the hallway from her, behind her, and sprint a few steps forward before I disappear. I duck behind the desk and reappear, just watching.

"What the FUCK?" She shouts. She goes to speak but bites her tongue, just turning around and swiftly walking to the door to leave.

I think that it wasn't enough. I stand and vanish, appearing right behind her and gripping her leg. I vanish and run back to the desk just in time to hear her burst through the door in a sprint. Awesome.

I dash to the cell and peek inside. Anna and Ryan look shook. I remember that shots were fired. I guess they must've heard that in the woods, too. I wonder what they thought.

"They're gone," I say. They look up at the window with fear in their eyes. True, unadulterated fear. "It's okay," I say, almost instinctively. "It's just me."

"What happened? What... What?" Ryan says exhaustedly. Anna is panting in the heat, her shoulders glistening with sweat. Ryan's hair is matted and dark and wet. I feel the heat blasting through the small opening, frying my face.

"I'll find the key."

"In the desk," Anna says.

"I'll check," I say, jumping back to the desk and tugging all the drawers open, shoving pens and notebooks aside. I check them all and glance to the surface of the desk and see a ring of key besides a cup, stained brown from coffee. I take them and start attempting each key, but there's like twenty of them. I'm swapping them through, sticking it in the keyhole, shaking it, pulling it back out, and I get through five of them.

The door behind me suddenly slams open. It leaves a crack in the wall, the drywall crumbling to the ground. I spun on my heel and saw a silhouette standing in the doorway, wielding a combat shotgun, pointing the barrel at me. My stomach turns inside out and I just stand there, staring. I drop the key to the floor. He doesn't say anything.

BANG!

The color leaves my vision. The man and the shotgun fade to smoke. I didn't do that, I thought. I didn't ask to be whisked away. The apparition... He must have done it. Because, I know that I didn't.

I hardly think, just run for the door, but they're closed. They're all closed. Sealed shut. I'm racing around but there's nowhere to go. I see the desk shove and get thrown over. I mean, the desk became a mess of smoke, and then collected into the image of an overturned desk. I'm completely trapped. I silently reappear at the door, hoping he wouldn't be looking behind him. Luckily, I was right.

"—dead. But I guess I was wrong. You're special." He was speaking before I reappeared, but I didn't hear anything he said. He must've thought I could hear him even though he couldn't see me. He doesn't really know what's going on, then, right?

"I see now what your abilities entail," He continues, "You can vanish, turn to smoke. That explains what my boys saw in the forest. It wasn't your death after all." He suddenly and instantly swung around and fired at me, but I was whisked away almost as instantly. That wasn't me, either. I guess that means he's watching over me. He's here to protect me.

I have no idea who this guy even is. The one with the shotgun, I mean. I think he might be like, the Sargent or something. I don't actually know what a Sargent is. It's not really important anyway. I appear again by the door, assuming the same as before. Again, I was right.

"You haven't left, have you?" He asked moments later. He's checking all of the rooms. I look in front of the cell with Anna and Ryan and see that the key isn't there anymore; He must have taken them. I need to do something right now about him, or I'm not getting my friends out at all. I can't just leave. I can't.

I vanish and walk up. I appear momentarily just to see where he is, and silently disappear again before I make a noise. I'm behind him now, appearing literal inches away from him. He's holding the key in his right hand, hanging from his grip on the handle of the shotgun. I reach around his waist and try to grab the key, but his arm thrusts away, and he slams the butt of the gun into my jaw. I vanish, quickly standing up again and going around where he was and appearing right in front of him. I reach again, but he pulls the barrel up to point to me. I disappear once more. This time, when I reappear, I manage to grab hold of the key and yank, pulling it down from beneath his palm. Then, when I vanish, I have the key in my hand.

I crouch behind the desk.

"You can't leave, you won't leave," He says after I reappear. 

CRAP! I can't think of anything to do. People are screaming, some are crying. Most of the cells and rooms had people in them, and now they're trapped in here with me, too.

"Shut up!" He screamed at them.

"Fuck you!" I screamed back at him, clasping my mouth. What a jerk. He starts walking towards the desk so I vanish, quickly jumping to my feet and appearing at the door. In a motion quicker than I can track, I jam the key into the lock, turn, and disappear as fast as I possibly can. A loud bang, followed by a ringing in my ear was all I could make out of what happened. I guess he must've shot at me. I look back at the door and see depressions where the pellets had struck. One of them was not a dent. It was a hole, straight through to the other side.

I feel worried, glancing through the hole as if it would help. I turn back and stare at the desk, silent and empty. I grind my teeth. For his sake, he better hope those bullets didn't hit anybody.