I wanted to scream for my mom, my dad, hell I’d even scream for Rebecca, but my mouth was pressed against something. I struggled to sit up right, I was sprawled on my stomach, my mouth pressed against the cement floor I was nearly licking the dirt off it. I tried to keep my eyes on the shadow. He was with Michelle again, but she was already dead. Her eyes were glassy and lifeless. You could see right through them. Her pale blue eyes were no longer vibrant, and the cream color of her skin was already paling.

I watched in disgust as he placed his hands in her blood and proceeded to smear it on the floor. It was almost like he was finger painting. My nostrils flared, I had to do something. I could not move, could not speak. The only thing I was capable of was blinking. Maybe he shot me with a tranquilizer, that would explain why I was so numb. I managed to peek at the drawing and saw an intricate crest with two blades going through it. And above it there was something like a word, if only I could move my head a little, I’d be able to see it.

I managed to move my hands, though it still caused me to go out of breath from the exertion, my hand accidentally touched one of the candles, and I recoiled in pain when my fingertips brushed the flame. The movement caused a candle to be knocked over. It was like slow motion I saw it tumble slowly to the floor, and then, impossibly so, the small thud it made on the floor caused the shadow to freeze. I felt fear pump in every one of my veins as I saw him slowly turn around, and just when I was about to see his face a loud noise blasted close to my ear. It was screeching, horrible, a sound straight from hell. I turned towards the noise and opened my eyes to see my alarm clock ringing the ungodly sound. I sat up quickly rumpling my sheets and hit the alarm clock with my fist to shut it up.

I could not take this; I didn’t know what was reality and what was dream anymore. I thought for sure I was there. I did not even remember falling asleep.

Did I even go to Robert’s house yesterday? I looked around my room for something to prove what happened yesterday actually happened. That it wasn’t some dream, when my eyes landed on it. The book, it was placed on top of my desk. I knew I had to get ready for school, but when I untangled myself from the covers, I did not go to my closet. I went to my desk and opened up the book again. I did not know what I was looking for; I had practically memorized the whole entire book, but there was something there that did not feel right to me. I flipped through the book like a possessed woman and saw the page I was looking for.

In my exhaustion last night, I had barely registered it, but now my fingers were itching to find it. You would never know the difference, hell I didn’t even see anything wrong until the hundredth time of going through it.

It was the last page of the demon section right before the witch craft section but something seemed wrong, like it was unfinished.

I scanned through the last paragraph again reading the words I knew so well.

They are an evil so tightly bound only mortal blood could sustain it in its depth. It lurks in the fiery pits of the other world doomed to live eternity enslaved to their heathen lord. But their shadow rises and brings them forth to our world where they too will enslave our souls.

It was the shadow part that got me. It was the first time they ever mentioned anything about a shadow, but they did not explain it any further. I nearly scratched my brains out in frustration until I noticed it. There was a microscopic fold in the corner of the page. It was nearly invisible. I tried to fold back the page and noticed it was stuck. The two pages were stuck; there was another page underneath.

I could not believe it; how could I miss that? I opened up my desk drawers and looked for something to pry open the pages without ripping them. I ended up finding my bitten and chewed on lucky pencil from elementary. I slid it under the fold and popped it up like a cork. I was kind of surprised at how easy it came up.

I smoothed out the page and read it in a hurry—my clock was still ticking and although I wished it would stand still for a moment, it would not budge. I did not know why I was so excited to read it; I just knew that I had too. But that initial excitement faded quickly when I got to the last paragraph.

I didn’t want to believe it. Whatever the reason, fate was laughing at me now because this could not be right. This had to be some freaky coincidence. I needed to talk to Robert, now.