When Avril opens her eyes, she notices that she is no longer in her house. At first glance, she seems to be in an old wooden cabin. The smell of damp wood is strong, and the walls are full of mold stains. It's dark, only a little lamp lit up by a tiny fire inside. Avril stands in the middle of the room, observing.
She takes a step toward the lamp, the floor creaking oddly underneath her feet.
Why am I here? Avril's mind feels like it's in a fog and she feels dizzy. She extends her hand to the light, a headache installing itself in her head.
Ah, I remember.
It had felt like an eternity when her hand finally reaches the lamp, and she feels weird when she stares at what is supposed to be her left hand.
I was going to go in the forest.
She doesn't remember if her hand as always looked so square, or even if her skin was the same as before.
The fire is warm against her skin and her mind blanks even more to the feeling. She looks around the cabin for a door. She has to go outside.
There is a door, only a few meters away. It's
worn down, and seemed to have been forced open a couple of times, but is still
standing. Avril doesn't question why she seems to know this place already, a
strong feeling of familiarity enveloping her. Now, just in front of the old
door, she grabs the handle. When turning to open the door, she feels more and
more dizzy. The door now open wide, she glance up to the outside world. But
nothing is there. There is quite literally the void behind that door, the
deepest black Avril has ever seen. Staring at it for a long time, Avril can
feel the cold loneliness take her by the hand and whisper sweet nothing into
her ears. Random memories pass through her head and she feels a warm feeling being
her eyes. Suddenly, hot tears stars to descend down her face. The sadness
she feels is so strong, it’s like its the only thing left in her now. Loud sobs
wrecks her body and Avril starts to shake like a leaf. She wants to get out,
but she can’t. The open door in front of her is taunting, but it’s impossible
to get through.
She can’t get out.
You can’t get out.
A hand lands on her shoulder and Avril starts to
see white spots in front of her vision. She falls backwards has everything around
her turns dark.
Avril wakes up in a cold sweat, and the first thing she notices is that it’s impossible for her to breath. She grabs at her throat by reflex, and begins to panic.
Why can’t I breathe???Trying to force the air in is not working.
I have to calm down.
In a moment of lucidity, she closes her eyes, concentrating on herself for a minutes when finally she can breathe again. She takes sharp inhales that her lungs welcomes gladly. As she re opens her eyes, her body is still shaking, and when she passes a hand over her face, she feels the remaining wet tracks of tears.
It’s been a while since I cried in my sleep..
As her breathing gets normal, she moves her legs on the side of the bed to get up. Stretching to wake up properly, she moves over to the bathroom. She looks at her face in the mirror, her eyebags a little too visible for her comfort. She exhales a sighs, going in the shower. The hot water washes all the worry she had on her face, but her mind keeps pestering her.
This dream was super weird.. I don’t remember it entirely, but I cried so that’s definitely something.
At some point, her trail of thinking gets her to the subject of last night, and a certain blue haired girl.
Avril cringes at the memory of what she said to her- Cassidy – and feel the tiny bit guilty. Yes maybe, she was acting weird and saying things that Avril didn’t see relevant, but she said she was trying to help. From what, Avril isn’t sure she wants to know, but she tried, and that’s still an act of kindness that Avril didn’t even listen to. And Cassidy also made a face, like she was scared, and frankly, Avril couldn’t erase that image in her head.
When did I become so heartless? she asks herself while scrubbing shampoo in her hair.
If I get to see her again, I’ll apologize for being a piece of shit. Not the first time I’d have to do that.
Avril turns down the water and steps out of the bathroom with a towel around her. She grabs some comfortable clothes and puts them on; she don’t think she’s gonna do anything today. Even though she woke up just a few minutes ago, she's incredibly tired.
She exits her room and goes straight to the couch in the living room, jumping on it, taking all the space she can while laying down. She takes her phone to go on social medias, or more likely, on Instagram. She follows many photographers that inspires her to take amazing pictures, and, of course, she follows her friends too. Steven posts a lot of pictures of him and his boyfriend, while Tania shares too many photos of her white cat. Avril laughs at the picture of the poor animal with a pancake on their face.
She sees that Roxy has made a story, which is unusual, she isn’t very active on Instagram. Avril clicks on it and see it’s a post she shared. It’s from the Acrylic Ghosts account. Avril laughs, out of spite for the radio show, but still reads what’s written on the post, a little curious. It says that they are hosting a live stream on Twitch for Halloween for 3 hours where they're gonna tell some personal ghost stories.
Don’t they have anything better to do on Halloween? she scoffs, scrolling back again on her phone. Then she remembers that she don’t have anything planned on Halloween, and she hangs her head low when she realize that means Acrylic Ghosts are doing better than her.
« What even happened to my social life? Who murdered it? » She already knows the answer to that question, the culprit is high school, of course. She can’t wait to graduates so that she can hang out withs her friends again.
Tap
Tap
Tap
Avril raises her eyes from her screens when she hears something.
What was that?
She sits up straight in the couch, a little taken aback. It wasn’t a loud noise, and Avril isn’t so sure she really heard it anymore. She sits in silence in the living room, so every sound can be heard.
Maybe it was one of my neighbors..
She starts to lower her eyes back at her phone when she hears it again.
Tap
Tap
Tap
This time Avril is sure she’s not hallucinating, because the sound came from right behind her, on the wall the couch is against which is shared with the kitchen on the other side. And it was really loud too. She gets on her feet quietly and walk in direction of the kitchen. She can feel her heart pounds in her chest at the thought of someone being in her house without her knowledge. When she’s a few meter away from the closed kitchen door, she stops, and waits. She wants to make sure they’re really is someone in there but what would she do if this is the case? Avril is not very intimidating, nor tall, and she don’t know what the mystery guest looks like.
I feel like I’ve been in this situation before..
She feels chills run down her spine just at the memory of the dreaded night she had not long ago.
What if it’s same person? How did they get in? It’s locked!
Her mind races to find the solution to this situation, and it first tells her to find a weapon, in case the worst happens, but all of the knifes she has are in the kitchen.
Her breathing starts to get ragged. Maybe it’s a trap; the person tapped on the wall willingly and is now waiting for Avril to come in, and murder her. Avril takes steps backwards, not leaving her eyes from the kitchen’s door. She wants to get out of here. She directs herself towards the front door, and grabs the keys, that didn’t moved from where she putted them, and turns around to quickly open the door. She slips out, and immediately closes from the other side, her shaking hands making it a little difficult. When she's sure it's locked, she grabs her phone and starts to dial 911 when-"Uhm.. hey.."
Avril violently turns around to see someone in front of her eyes. It's the blue haired girl from last night, Cassidy.
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