Ethereal

Chapter 2

I wondered briefly what he had been doing in the lake, along with his friends. Had they been filming something and I just hadn't noticed? Huh, maybe I'm going crazy...

He was still holding my arm, even though I had stopped and was now facing him.

For a moment I was transfixed, staring into his eyes, which were green, with tiny silver flecks in them...

Taking a deep breath, I remembered that he had just grabbed me. "Let go of me!" I shouted, wrenching my arm from his surprisingly strong grip and legging it down the rest of the walk.

He didn't follow me again, and I was glad. My mum was going to the hospital? I could feel the butterflies in my stomach.

She was going to be okay, right?

I cursed the fact that I didn't have enough money for a taxi, or even the bus.

The hospital was pretty far... It was in the nearest city, which was still an hour drive at least. And I would be walking.

I realised I was chewing my nails in frustration, and quickly took my hand away from my mouth.

How was I going to get there? I couldn't just not go, I was all she had.

And where was she right now? In a car with two strangers.

Was she awake? Would she answer her phone if I called her?

Fishing my own, crappy phone out of my pocket, I groaned in annoyance.

Water was already dripping out of it, when I flipped it open and pressed the on button, it flickered for a brief second. But the edges of the screen had clearly absorbed the water, and the graphics were seemingly messed up.

It quickly faded to black.

There was no way I could afford a new one. And anyway, my mothers phone must be in just as bad a condition. There was no way I could reach her.

What was I going to do!

I figured I would go home, and hunt around the house for some spare change. Maybe I'd find enough to get a bus across to the city.

And then what?

I couldn't think clearly, my shoes were squelching, every step I took seemed to push more water out of the shoes, and I hadn't been wearing socks. So the backs of them were rubbing into my heels painfully. I would have blisters for sure.

My jeans clung tightly to my legs, and my blouse was hanging down limply, completely soaked through.

It didn't help that my hair had become knotted in the water.

When I eventually reached my house, careful to avoid being seen by my neighbours (not that it mattered - like everyone, they tended to ignore me) to avoid embarrassment, I reached my hand into my back pocket for my keys.

I felt a deep sinking feeling when my fingers came back empty.

No!

Could this day get any worse?

I tried the usual trick of slamming my shoulder into the lock, hoping it would break. But that didn't work, of course not.

The one day the bloody lock does its job - really?

I sighed in annoyance, but there wasn't an awful lot that I could do. My keys had clearly come out in the lake, and they'd probably sunken right to the bottom by now.

And then I heard a ringing.

I frowned at first, looking down at the dead phone I had just taken back out my pocket. No... Definitely still dead.