Chapter 11: The Invisible Girl in Room Thirteen by Stephen Simpson
I woke up with a start, looking around confused until I
realised, I had fallen asleep in room thirteen and I could not even remember
coming here. My last memory was sitting in the courtyard, texting Oliver.
From the corner of my eye, something moved and then there was a loud scraping sound of something being dragged across the floor. Quickly I slipped off the bed and reached for the light switch beside the door, just in time to see the bed move away from the wall by itself.
I stopped breathing as my body froze in panic. I felt heavy,
paralysed, unable to even twitch a muscle.
Everything was still then as if something in the room was
waiting for my next move.
Quickly I reached for the door handle next to me and pulled
the door open so fast it banged into my shoulder. My feet slapped against the
polished surface of the floor in the hallway as I ran to my room.
It was so late; everyone was sleeping which made my chest
feel so tight with fear I could only take shallow breaths. My eyes were darting
everywhere. The boarding house was so quiet, room doors were all closed, the
fluorescent lights on the ceiling seemed dimmer than usual. If there was a
psycho about, now was the time he would get me or, even worse, if it was Lily
haunting me… I could feel bubbles of panic push up through my chest.
When I reached my room door, I could not get it open fast
enough. I had a feeling something was standing right behind me. After I quickly
closed the door, I sat down on my bed and stared at the door, waiting for it to
open again.
There was nothing.
Only silence.
Did I imagine everything?
Was I going crazy?
Then my books started hurling themselves off my desk one by
one. At first, it was slow and then it became faster and faster, the books
travelling across the room at a greater distance. Whatever or whoever was doing
this wanted to do me bodily harm.
I convinced myself it was Lily doing this.
She hated me.
My mum always got what she wanted, and it was clear from the
dream I had in Lily’s room that my mum wanted my dad. When Lily told her they
weren’t friends anymore, she gave my mum permission.
My laptop slid across the desk and then flew into the wall
behind me, missing my head by centimetres.
I jumped up and saw a figure standing in my cupboard, in the
shadows. It did not move or speak, there was no face, but it stared at me with
a strange reflection where its eyes were supposed to be.
My entire body felt weak with fear and I started screaming
until my neighbour, Violet, started banging on my room door, asking, “What’s
going on?”
I fumbled with the door until it opened, and Violet looked
at me with a freaked expression on her face. “What the hell, Alison?”
“I’m sorry,” I apologised. “Just an awful nightmare.”
She looked at me for a long moment. “Do you need to talk
about your dream?”
I shook my head. “I’ll be fine.” I started closing the door.
“Sorry for waking you.”
After she left, I sat down on the floor in the corner of my
room, pulling my legs up to my chest, keeping my eyes wide open as they swept
my room from side to side for any movements.
I did not think I would ever fall asleep again, but I must
have. Although it felt more like a memory than a dream.
Red flashing lights started spinning around me and I saw a
sheet covered body on a stretcher being loaded into the back of an ambulance.
My dad’s voice cried from behind me, “No… No… This isn’t
happening.” Then he walked through me trying to get closer to the ambulance and
I staggered backwards, barely breathing, wishing something could make sense.
The red lights swept across me with a creeping menace.
A door slammed closed then – a locker door with notes taped
to the front of it, notes with sad messages – and the noise woke me from a deep
sleep I did not even know I was having.
I felt too paralysed to shed any tears. I was falling apart,
and I was fading further and further into oblivion, no more just invisible to
the one, most important person in my life, but invisible to everyone. Was I
just imaginary? A fantasy? A dream?
Lily. Did Lily feel invisible too? Fading away as her best
friend spoke to her boyfriend, the boy she thought was the one, who promised so
many things until he betrayed her and broke her heart, her spirit. After she
died, her soul imprinted itself on her surroundings and even though nobody
could see her, she saw everything.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, trying to tune out my
thoughts, trying to get rid of the feeling that something was wrong with me.
I stood up from my sitting position and stretched my legs
which felt stiff after having them pulled up to my chest for so long. The light
from my window shifted and I glanced down at the Ouija board still lying on my
desk and then the planchette… twisted.
I kept staring at it and then very slowly it started moving
across the board by itself. Unable to pull my eyes away from it, the planchette
continued its eerie drift across the board from the middle to the engraved
word: Hello
Shocked I took a step back from my desk and caught a glimpse
of a dark shadow in the mirror on the inside of my cupboard door which for some
reason would not stay shut anymore.
The shadow was in the shape of a dark figure and it tilted
its head a little to the side when my eyes made contact with the gleam where
its eyes were supposed to be.
It was moving closer to me and frantically I searched my
room for help, but my room was only filled with shadows.
Tears ran down my cheeks as I stood there frozen in fear. A
feeling of hopelessness filled me as the dark figure glided across the floor
toward me.
There was a noise like water gurgling down a plug hole, as
it whispered, “Lily. It’s time to come back.”
My eyes widened. I started running toward the door. I had to
get out of this room and there was nothing that could stop me.
As I ran down the hallway, I kept looking over my shoulder
at my room door which I had left open, until I literally ran into Sinéad. We
almost fell over from the impact, but she steadied us and kept us from
sprawling to the ground.
“Are you okay, Alison? It looks like you’ve seen a ghost!”
Only then did I notice all the traffic in the hallway. Girls
were running in and out of the bathroom, chatting as they walked in groups to
get to class.
Sinéad and Amber walked me back to my room and when I slowly
took the first step into my room everything looked normal. There was not a sign
of the horror I left behind only moments earlier. I dared a glance at my
cupboard and the door was closed.
“We’ll wait for you while you get ready for school,” Sinéad
suggested.
Grateful I nodded my head and quickly got ready for class.
Together we walked to the school building where I saw Oliver sitting on the
kerb outside the entrance. I walked closer to him while Sinéad and Amber
stepped past me, saying, “Bye, we’ll see you later, Alison.”
I greeted him, “Hey, Oliver.”
He frowned. “We were texting and then you just stopped
replying. I was worried.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket and saw I had more than
twenty notifications. “I’m sorry. My head is all over the place.”
“You’re okay, that’s all that matters.”
I sighed long and deep. “I feel like I’m in a nightmare I
can’t escape.”
He looked at me concerned. “So, I’ll see you this weekend at
the camp-site?”
“Yeah. There’s no way I’ll be staying in my room while
there’s no-one around.”
“Creepy, is it?”
I laughed softly. “Very.” I started backing away from him.
“I'm gonna be late.”
The school bell rang, and he turned away. “I better get
going too. I’ll see you later?”
The trees to the side of the school building cast long
shadows, but I side-stepped them not wanting the darkness to touch me.
Comments
Post a Comment