A scream found its way to my throat. I parted my lips but nothing came out.

Confusion and horror gripped me like claws. I hadn't even realized they had noticed me; my eyes were solely trained on Lisa. I could only watch Mr Jeriff grab her and toss her body over his shoulder. Only when the stairs underneath my feet had begun shaking that I was suddenly drawn to the loud thuds of shoes racing up the steps. My eyes flitted down to the middle of the staircase. Mr Nicholson had his arm outstretched and was coming for me, his eyes gleaming orange and a sneer spread across his lips.

Reality hit me like a slap. I whirled around and bolted upstairs, my voice finally finding its way out. I screamed for my father, desperately hoping that he had arrived by now. When he didn't respond, I dived inside my room and locked the door.

My eyes darted around the room for weapons. Loud bangs resounded from the other side of the door. Without a thought, I grabbed a lamp from my study table, braced myself, and stepped back, my hands beginning to tremble in fright. Immense guilt filled me. Was this it? All those years of studying like crap and worrying about the future amounted to this? Was I going to die by the hands of a filthy stranger?

Just as I thought of this, the banging ceased. 

Silence befell, clouding the room with a veil of uneasiness. Tension weaved its way into every fibre of my being. My eyes drifted toward the only source of sound in the room: The ticking of my wall clock. 

Quarter past seven.

I took a nervous step forward and ducked to see under the door. A pair of shoes still lingered outside. Deciding to hide and attack them once they'd step in, I began to tiptoe my way behind the door. But no, they weren't planning on stepping in at all. Suddenly, a gust of wind blasted through the door, making it burst into innumerable splinters. My shriek was cut short by a large piece of wood that flew across the room and crashed against my head. A sharp pain shot through my skull, stripping me of my senses entirely, and before I knew it, my vision had begun to blur. The last thing I saw was a pair of blazing orange eyes before darkness closed in overwhelmingly...

༻❁༺                                  

They say Naharis brings out the worst in people.

The spirits hover over them and feed them with malicious intent, strengthening their impulsiveness and dimming their conscience. Was it why all of this was happening?

And how was I able to think anyway? Shouldn't I be dead?

My eyes snapped open. A white-washed ceiling loomed over me, bringing with it a sense of familiarity. My body was cushioned on a soft mattress as if I were laying on my own bed. Beads of cold sweat lined my forehead.

My eyes quickly darted around the room. Door? Intact. Body? Intact. Time…

Quarter to seven.

Confusion filled me. As far as I could remember, I had woken up at exactly at the same time before. Wasn't it too much of a coincidence? No, wait, hadn't my room been reduced to shambles? How was it intact?

I shook my head and slapped my face, hard. It was simply a bad dream. Yes, a nightmare way too realistic for my liking.

"Maybe not."

My head whipped towards the source of the voice. On my window sat a girl in her late teens, staring at me with the most wondrous pair of icy blue eyes. Her hair was parted in the middle and hugged her chin softly as it descended in layers till her waist. She wore a long-sleeved nightgown as dark as the night, a stark contrast to her corpse-like pallor. It accentuated her slender frame, its hem fluttering gently in the cold wind...

"Hurry up," she said, her lips curling into an eerie smile, "you will die in thirty minutes."