Snippets

Chapter 1

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Screaming.

My sweaty covers couldn't keep me in an unconscious state any longer as I bolted upright, breathing heavily. My ears buzzed, recalling the atrocious disturbance I had just heard. However, silence shrouded my dimly-lit bedroom, the eerie quiet crawling across the floor, onto my bed, circling around my neck, strangling me with ear-pounding adrenaline.

I hated silence.

Before my breathing had slowed, the air conditioning kicked on. I jumped again, blanching visibly as the fans inside the ancient unit chortled to life, whirring noisily. Mentally slapping myself for being such a scaredy-cat, I shook violently, attempting to rid myself of the queasy feeling that had wrapped my stomach in a knot. Knowing sleep was far away, I climbed cautiously from the bed, walking timidly to my second-story window situated at the far side of the room.

Glancing out, I breathed a sigh of relief, feeling my stomach untwist: the street was empty. The lone lamp lighting the area flickered intermittently, giving the alley a creepy aura that made my skin crawl even from inside the safety of my apartment. Scowling, I pulled the curtains briskly closed and stalked back to my bed.

It was foolish to be thinking that I could be found here. They wouldn't even consider this area; I needed to stop worrying so much, it was starting to take a toll on my health. At this thought, I glanced at the mirror to the side of my bed. Only darkness occupied that place on the wall. Oh, right, I shut the curtains.

Feeling suddenly self-conscious, I tucked my thin legs under the sheets once again, crawling beneath their suffocating embrace to find what I hoped to be more peaceful dreams, but sleep didn't come.

I stared at the ceiling, wondering if counting sheep actually worked...

Screaming.

That definitely wasn't a dream. Once again I bolted upright, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from joining whoever was already making the racket. After a moment, it stopped. My body was quaking uncontrollably, the sound all too close, all too real, and all too... familiar. Squeezing my eyes shut I pulled my whole body under the covers, grabbing my lumpy pillow and hugging it tightly. I swear if someone else was in the room they would be able to hear my heart beat drumming wildly against my chest, it was almost unbearable to wait. For what? Oh, right.

Finally, the scream comes again: same pitch, same length, same chillingly close proximity. I couldn't stand the tension. Well, I was lying down, but even still the tension coursed through my body, leaving me feeling weak and helpless like a lamb.

You were brave, my mind reminded me, what's wrong with you?

Key word there: were, I retorted bitterly, I'm not who I once was.

Why not?

Stop it. You know why. I rolled over, uncomfortably warm beneath the sheets, despite the air conditioner wheezily gasping Freon into my bedroom. When my face hit the room's air again, I tensed, my nose daintily testing the oxygen supply and wrinkling in disgust.

The stench.

A chill ran through me--my apartment was airtight. I made sure of that the first month I was here. How could the stench have penetrated?

My mind, drowning in a sudden surge of adrenaline, was slow to come to a conclusion. Lucky for it, the sound of my door clicking open solved the source of the stench. My blood curdled in my veins, my survival instincts kicking in.

I found myself worming my way under my bed. Warm, yellow light pooled into my bedroom, silhouetting the figure in the door. It was huge. And rather... animalistic.

The sound of nasally breathing reached my ears, and the stench had grown stronger, coming not from the infiltrator as I had at first suspected, but simply drifting in from the street. Apparently they left all the doors open...?

Pushing my panicked thoughts away, I stuffed the urge to cough and instead held my nose, breathing through my mouth like a dog. I tried desperately to stay silent, grasping for any idea of who it might be. Then it hit me, and I literally gagged on a scream, choking it down as quietly as possible.

If it was who I now thought it was, it doesn't matter where I hide. She'll always find me. Even here, with them, where I know she'd never look. The sound of unshod feet clopped their way across my hard-packed dirt floor, straight over to the side of the bed I'm hiding under.

As the feet come into view, I nearly suffocated on my own oxygen, wishing myself dead.

Black. They're black.

But sparkly.

A sinister laugh tore my heart in two, and then all I heard: screaming.

My own...

Waves of panic washed over me as I suddenly awaken to the awful sound of screaming. It took me a few moments to realize the source: myself. Clapping a hand over my mouth in shock, I sat up.

I had fallen off of my bed; my sheets tangled around my body, causing sweat to pour from my skin in droves. Sunlight streamed through my window, and the curtains were pulled back to allow for full light.

I realized I was sitting right where I had dreamed she'd been, and found myself frantically leaping--albeit ungracefully as I was still wrapped in covers--onto the bed, panic and disgust causing me to shiver despite the sweating.

"It was just a dream," I told myself, attempting to laugh. The sound was strangled in my throat as I remembered how she'd laughed. "Stop it. You're going to make yourself sick."

I grimly registered that I already was, and quickly unravelled myself from the bed sheets, barely making it to the privy in time to lean over the rusted bucket.

When I was done, I swiped my wrist across my mouth and wiped it on my trousers, regarding my appearance in the glazed privy mirror. My eyes were wide, like a deer's, and great sacks of darkened skin hug beneath them, betraying my otherwise youthful face. My fine black hair was stringy and tangled, hanging just below my earlobes and parted through the middle in an old style. Turning away from my appearance, I licked my cracked lips, longing for the days long past. Days when I could dress as I wanted, walk where I wanted, say what I wanted. Ah, freedom. People had no idea how fortunate they were to simply live, unhaunted.

My rough fingers toyed with the edge of the shirt I wore as I walk back into my bedroom. I smirk at what my aunt would have thought if she were here: her niece dressed in overgrown boys' clothes! How absurd. Surely she'd have had me tatting lace for at least three hours for such an atrocity.

Sighing blissfully at such light thoughts, I allowed myself to crumple onto the bed. I rolled onto my stomach, my chin plopped in a palm as I stared out the window, my feet swatting at the air. Aunt Leihlah. I couldn't stop the grin that climbed eagerly onto my face. If only she were here, she'd know what to do about this living nightmare...

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I know, I know, abstract chapters... But we need some mystery before we can move forward and solve it. Thank you for your patience!

Let me know what you think.

~ThePirateElf