She met up with Strawb in the kitchen. The mission they had was to search for a way out. They needed to escape the house, with all the cops gone and the murderer on a killing spree. The problem was; the house was made for prisoners, it would be difficult to escape. The house didn’t have windows in any rooms, none. But Strawb suggested they checked the cops’ rooms, just in case.
She closed the door to Rickila’s room and looked down the corridor at Strawb, who had just exited Jim’s room. They both shook their heads. Nothing.
Gila looked around the living room of the police living quarter’s as Strawb went to check for a back door. She already knew there probably wouldn’t be any. The house was a prison. It had only one way to the outside; the entrance. Strawb came back, “There’s nothing. What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know?” Gila huffed, annoyed. She chewed her already broken nails, trying to think, but her mind was fuzzy with frustration.
“We haven’t checked the front door yet,” Strawb smacked a palm on her forehead.
“It doesn’t matter. We don’t have the keys and the keypad is smashed,” she dismissed it.
“We can find a way to dismantle and bypass it somehow.The keys should be in here somewhere,” Strawb gestured around the room, indicating the whole police quarters.
They walked back towards the front of the house, Strawb in front, Gila tagging along behind. Strawb stopped, abruptly, and Gila bumped into her headfirst. “What? Why’d you stop?” she peeked over towards the front door. The number lock had disappeared. Completely disappeared. There was nothing on the wall beside the door where it had been.
Strawb reached out, trying to feel for anything, but it was as if the wall had always been blank. The neon sign above the door still read ‘Keypad: ON’.
“What are we going to do?” Strawb said, exasperated. “Where in the world did it go?”
She was walking down the long, dark corridor of the downstairs area. She couldn’t tell if her eyes were closed or if all the lights were off; it was pure darkness. She coudln’t see a thing but it was as though she could sense her surrounding. She knew where she was going, what she was doing. It was strange..
Her hand gripped the banister and she climbed up the stairs. It wasn’t difficult; she didn’t fall, trip or awkwardly miss any steps, but she still couldn’t see.
She was now at the top of the stairs, on the last step, but her feet didn’t take her any further. She was only one step away from the landing. That was what her mind was telling her, anyway. She tried to lift her foot to see if it really was the last step, but it was like the floor was made of tar. She wriggled, trying to walk that one step forward, urgency beginning to rush through her. But it was like an invisible force was strapping her feet to the floor. Her hand was still supporting her on the banister, but when she tried to wriggle her fingers free, they wouldn’t move. It was like her body wasn’t listening to her brain. Or maybe she wasn’t telling them hard enough. She stayed there, glued down by her own body, willing her limbs to work.
There were soft thuds from behind her, she tried to move her head to see who it was walking down the hallway to the stairs, but she couldn’t move a muscle. The person began to climb the steps, slowly, their footsteps booming in her ears. Her heart quickened, and she felt dizzy with fright. Her body was suddenly screaming at her to run.
Her brain told her that she should feel scared. A switch was flicked. Fear and panic washed through her like a wave, and she felt adrenaline course through her blood. The person was only a few steps behind her.
She willed herself to run, and her legs finally listened. She leapt up the last step and shot down the hallway like an arrow. She ran faster than she’d ever run before; faster than she knew she could run. The footsteps behind her grew more hurried and she felt a presence loom behind her in pursuit. She still couldn’t see, but she could feel the person behind her as though she was the person. And that person. That person…
That person wanted to kill her.
She slammed into a black void, a wall of some sort, and she felt heavy hands grasp her and pull her head back. She screamed, thrashing, punching but she couldn’t move.
The adrenaline switch was flicked off, and her limbs grew heavy again. The murderer laughed, and patted her head, turning to leave. The laugh echoed in her head, ringing in her ears, and beneath it she could hear the thuds as the presence drew further away from her.
She screamed at herself to run, to get out of there. She screamed inside her head, till she was mentally exhausted, until her throat was rubbed raw. But she hadn’t even opened her mouth. Her mouth was glued shut, and all she could do was scream in silence. Tears welled up in her eyes, but even they couldn’t fall.
Yet again, came the heavy footsteps and this time she could see something. Only one thing. A knife in the darkness, held in the fist of the unseeable presence.
She struggled, screaming, crying, urging herself to get up and run, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t.
The knife went up and she screamed for the last time.
There was a knock on the door. She gasped, scrambling around in her covers, which were wrapped around her in a tight cocoon. She got out of bed, trying to wriggle out of the blankets, as the person continued to knock. She managed to escape, and tossed them on the floor as she plonked her glasses on her face. The knocking continued and she barely managed to stumble her way to the door and open it before the person could bust the door open.
Do-yun was standing there, her face battered, her eyes glued to the floor, almost as though she was embarrassed. She picked at her broken nails, sheepishly, “Um, I was just wondering if I could borrow some foundation. I’ve run out,” She finally looked up, and her lips formed and ‘O’ in surprise, “Oh, God, you look dreadful,”
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