Blood everywhere; she was slipping on it. Her hands and feet drenched in blood, as she trudged through a house that must have been beautiful before it was destroyed.
Its once cream wallpaper, now chipping, was painted red with blood. A chandelier that lay shattered in pieces cut into her feet, sending jolts of agonising pain up her legs. However, despite the ache, she ran to escape the fate of those poor people crumpled on the ground.
The remains of what must have been a human body was surrounded by detached limbs, discarded on the ground around it. The eye sockets were hollow.
Tears stained her cheeks as she ran up a flight of stairs and into a small room. There was no possibility of evading the murderer, yet the girl hid inside a wardrobe.
Unbridled terror suffocated her as a weight settled upon her chest, weighing her down a thousand tons.
The smell of blood and death wafted through the air as light footsteps sounded outside the door.
"I know you're in here, come out, come out, wherever you are..."
My eyes flew open. I was momentarily confused about my whereabouts, but, it didn't take me long to realise I was safe in my bedroom.
Sitting up in bed I tried to calm my racing heart as sweat trickled down my back.
"There'saninjaturtleinmybed!"
Alexis yelled as she sat up in bed next to me. Still delirious from the nightmare, I rubbed my eyes and blinked several times in the darkness.
As my eyes focused, I turned my attention to my sleep-talking friend who was still mumbling about... a ninja turtle making out with her in bed? What?
"What the hell are you talking about, Alexis?"
I asked as she giggled at something in her dream, before adorably scrunching her nose.
"He screams like a girl though, so you can have him. I'm just gonna..." She snuggled closer to me and rested her cheek against my shoulder.
"...Sleep." She started snoring.
"Yeah that's right, go back to sleep with your... ninja turtle boyfriend."
I whispered, as I gently pushed her cheek off my shoulder with an index finger.
Ninja turtles, seriously? I shuddered.
I set Alexis back down on her side of the bed as I dragged myself out. My head felt like someone had played whack - a - mole with it, only having used a sledgehammer instead.
Clutching my forehead, I stumbled to the adjoint bathroom. Switching the button on, I instantly hissed at the sudden piercing light. Groaning, I walked to the sink and splashed ice-cold water over my face.
The blissful water immediately worked its magic, as I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Come out, come out wherever you are..."
The nightmare.
It had been the same dream again, the one I had dreamt on countless nights. However, I couldn't shake the feeling that it was somehow different this time.
Then it came to me.
The pungent smell of blood.
The agony.
Unlike before, I had lived the dream.
"Rosalind, are you okay?"
I turn around to see Serena, one of my best friends, standing in the doorway with tired, worried eyes.
Her violet hair sat on top of her head in the messiest of buns. She rubbed her eyes and came inside the bathroom to stand in front of me.
"Yeah I'm fine, why wouldn't I be?"
I lied through my teeth with a fake, reassuring smile plastered on my face.
It was not that I could not trust her, I trusted my friends with my life. It was just that I didn't want to upset her at this time of night, when she'd be unwinding from a hard day's work.
"I had to pee and I saw your bathroom light on, so I wondered if you're okay. You're not normally up at this hour."
She scrutinised my face and I couldn't help but fidget under her prying gaze.
"Are you sure? Completely one hundred percent, absolutely, positively sure that you're okay? Because you look a little pale..." She inquired with a frown and scrunched her nose.
Was it that obvious I had a nightmare? God, what was I, five?
"I had a nightmare, okay? There, I said it! You happy now?" I threw my arms up.
Her expression turned grim. For a while, she just stood there and stared at me.
"You've been having them a lot lately, was this one different?
I took a deep breath in and let it out to clear my thoughts.
"I don't really want to talk about it at this time of night. I'll tell you later."
I gave her a small smile to show her I was okay. She gave me a slight nod in return and turned to leave without any further argument.
Serena was one of the very few people who knew me well, so she knew exactly how I was feeling. She understood me, which was why she let this topic go so easily.
Standing in the doorway, I turned around to turn the light off, but before I could, I caught my eye in the mirror and my heart stopped.
A pair of eyes, alien to me, starred back.
They were a dull, lifeless green. The pupils were thin and pointed like a cats.
I squeezed my eyes shut as something warm and wet trickled from nose, the metallic smell of blood assaulting me once again.
Ever rode in a speeding car with the windows down and all you hear is the defeating sound of the wind rushing past?
I heard that sound now, only louder.
What's happening to me?
The chaotic wind-like sound was accompanied by low chanting in a foreign tongue. I tried to concentrate, but the voices grew louder, morphing into violent screeches.
I trembled and collapsed to the floor. The shrieks inside my head left me paralysed.
But, with one last blood-curdling scream, it stopped. The screaming, the rushing wind, the migraine. Everything halted as quickly as it had started.
I blinked several times as a suffocating weight lifted off my chest allowing me to breathe. I do not know how long I stayed like that. It must have been around ten minutes.
I got back on my feet with care and with slow, calculating steps, walked towards the mirror.
There were dark circles underneath my eyes, my full lips swollen and torn. My long hair looked a lifeless black and the loose curls tangled. Serena was right, I looked pale. But I didn't care; I was just relieved to see my eyes were my own again, back to the sapphire blue.
I tightly clutched the sink, trying to decipher what was happening to me. Was I hexed? Did a Witch or Warlock put a curse on me?
I tried hard to think who would do such a thing, but groaned when I realised there were too many to count.
"Ross, come on, you should get some rest now." Serena said behind me.
Surprised and more than a little disoriented from what had just occurred, I turned back around to face her with a frown.
"What are you doing? I thought you went back to sleep."
"I brought you a glass of water, thought it would make you feel a little better. You should go back to sleep now, please."
She handed me the glass and I gulped it down in a single breath.
"Now come on, no more standing in the bathroom like a retard, go back to bed." She took my hand in a firm grip and led me back to my room.
•♤•♤•♤•
The next morning, my head felt like it was stuffed with lead.
Groaning, I sat up in bed and waited for my eyes to adjust to the bright sunlight filtering in through the thin curtains of my window.
I realised I was alone in my bed; meaning Alexis had already left for work. Dragging myself out, I shuffled into the bathroom, trying hard to keep last night's incident out of my mind, and freshened up.
The smell of French toasts wafted through the air towards me, causing my stomach to demonstrate the mating sounds of a whale.
Smiling dreamily, I patted my stomach.
"Soon tummy, very soon."
I walked into the kitchen and saw Victoria, one of my best friends, flipping French toast on the pan as she swayed her hips to a tune she hummed.
She wore a white men's button down T-shirt that came down to her thighs. Her glossy chestnut hair was in a loose braid falling down her shoulders.
I noticed Serena was on the kitchen island sipping on her coffee as she petted her fluffy white dog, Pooka, in her lap.
"Heeeyy sleepyheaaddd."
Victoria greeted with a huge smile. She wasn't wearing her violet eye contacts as usual, so I could see her warm honey brown eyes lighten as she saw me.
"Good morning, guys." I drawled as I opened the massive fridge and grabbed the milk carton.
.... Which was empty.
Alexis. She had the habit of putting stuff back in the fridge even if it was finished. We'd told her so many times to dispose of them in the bin that was right next to the frigging fridge.
Getting rid of the carton, I grabbed an unopened one and chugged the milk down.
"Dude, manners." Serena scolded.
"Dude, I don't care." I replied.
I grabbed the plate loaded with French toasts, bananas and strawberries, digging in like a starved lunatic. I always had a hearty appetite, seeing that food was my one and only true love, but even I had to admit, I was eating a lot these days.
Serena, Alexis, Victoria, and I started living together in this apartment since we turned eighteen. We had met in grade nine and we all got along perfectly, we had been inseparable since then.
I had moved out of my parent's house first and the three followed suit. It wasn't anything spontaneous, we had been planning to do this since we met, we just needed to be old enough. All of us had told our parents before hand, so everything went smoothly.
I finished with my breakfast and with a satisfied stomach, got up to clean the many dishes in the sink. Thanks so much, Alexis. She was probably the messiest person I have ever known. But I had to cut her some slack because she needed to leave for work quite early.
I heard Tori and Serena leave the kitchen when they cleaned up after themselves. Serena asked if I needed help but I told her I would be fine.
I reached for a dirty glass next to the sink, but it slipped through my hand and shattered all over the floor.
"Oh, crap." I muttered under my breath.
There was sharp glass scattered over the marble tiles now. Okay, maybe I needed help after all.
Tori rushed into the kitchen barefoot with her arms flailing in panic.
"Please tell me you didn't break anything from my mother's Crystal set, otherwise she will roast me and feed me to Remington!"
Remington was her mother's ferocious guard dog that had a particular (and, in my opinions, hilarious) disliking towards Tori.
She made a beeline towards me to see what I broke.
"Dude, calm down. It wasn't your mother's crystal, just a glass."
"Oh, thank sweet jelly beans." She sighed.
I rolled my eyes and bent down to pick up the shards as Tori moved to help me.
I stepped aside to give her space but I felt something sharp cut into the heel of my foot and I leaped up with a pained cry.
"Ow, ow, OW! Ooofff! Sweet mother of pearl what did I do to deserve this!"
Hopping on one foot, I brought my injured foot towards me and saw small shards of glass pierced into my flesh. I heard Tori panic as she helped me with carefully removing them.
She ran as hundreds of tiny pieces of broken chandelier glass wedged deep into her feet, the pain made her eyes water and cry out in agony. The blood slowly pooled around her, as it coated the jagged glass, making it look like hundreds of, shattered, blood red rubies.
I gasped as I was ripped out of the vision. My hammering heart causing me to breathe frantically. The pain in my foot imitated the pain I felt in the vision just seconds ago. I blinked several times and a teardrop fell onto the now red glass.
Blood red rubies.
I saw the ground rushing towards me and braced myself for impact, but right before my head collided with the ground, a pair of soft arms grabbed me. I vaguely heard Victoria yelling for help as my head rested against her shoulder. Everything was distorted as my vision swam.
The kitchen furniture looked like smeared paint on a frustrated artist's canvas. The tiles danced and swirled in front of me but a blob of purple blocked my view of them as it grabbed my face. The strange blob was making sounds... was it talking to me? What was it trying to say?
I blinked several times and my vision cleared for a second. What I saw, were two pairs of panicked eyes looking down upon me, but before I could focus any longer, everything went dark.
************************************
*Stuffing face with popcorn anxiously*
What's gonna happen next?! What gonna happened NEEXXT?!?!!?
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-N. Bajwa