"AHHH!"
In a small town in a small house a girl in her very late teens bolted up from her bed with a scream. She started to pant heavily, sweat rolling down her body as she began to realize what just happened.
It was a dream.
It was all a dream. The falling, the water, the platform, her parents- all of it was just a dream. She slowed her panting, and sat in place for a few moments.
First day alone and she was having nightmares. That was simply marvelous.
Heather wiped her forehead and successfully smeared the sweat on her forehead all over her hand instead of actually getting it off of herself. A bit disgusted with that thought, she looked woefully at her hand before she set it back down on her bed.
It was her first day on her own and it looked like it was not going to have a good start. Normally she didn't ever stay in her house alone, but this was a special case.
Around two weeks ago she and her parents were going to the nearby city's mall promotion. They were having a raffle giving off some prizes and her father was the only man she knew that loved to participate in raffles. He didn't care what the prizes were; he just liked the suspense. Her mother had been interested in an opening sale in a store there, so it was pretty much settled that they were going there.
Heather wasn't all that interested in the majority of the stores, so she decided to stay with her father. It was one of those raffles where they had numbered balls inside a machine that a person would turn until one of them came out. The price to try it was free for the first attempt. They then charged money for any more attempts, but her father would have no part of that. He'd always said the fun was in the suspense. Trying any more times would be considered more like gambling to him.
Heather tried the machine first. She spun the machine and she got a number that didn't earn anything. She moped for a brief moment after that because it was one number off from a monkey stuffed animal she liked. Her father laughed at her, and then tried it out himself.
He hit the jackpot.
The scene that ensued involved a lot of disbelief before it eventually turned into sheer joy. The prize was a month's stay at an expensive hotel at a tropical island for two. Whenever her mother came over to see who had won the raffle she couldn't have been any more excited to hear it was her dad.
Her parents had never had a honeymoon. They spent all the money they could on their wedding, which even then wasn't much since Heather's grandparents couldn't help pay for it, so they were never able to afford a honeymoon.
Her parents were both concerned about her staying alone, but she wouldn't let them be. She was eighteen years old; a legal adult. It was completely alright for her to stay by herself. She wasn't about to let her parents give up that once in a lifetime opportunity just because she was scared to be by herself. She tried to hide that she felt that way at first, but they knew her too well. She would be going to college in a year and she had to learn how to be alone even if she was a little scared. Of course that's what she told them.
In reality she was scared out of her mind.
Heather was always a bit of a timid person, but she tried not to let that get the best of her. The people she was raised around always tried to encourage her to do things that she felt were frightening, and over time it begun to work. Somewhat. She learned from years of experience that she had to do things while scared even if she had the urge to cry at the prospect of them. Sometimes when she chickened out of something scary something even worse would happen in return. That was what scared her the most, and in effect scared her into doing things she was afraid of.
Her parents had left last night, promising that they would contact her regularly and that they would absolutely try to figure out what program they could use in order to see each other face-to-face during the December holidays with a computer. Yes, this would not only be the first time she was truly alone, but it would be her first holiday without her parents as well.
They would be gone the entire remainder of the month, and would be back around a week after the New Year started.
This left her all alone in her home.
Heather decided that she had spent enough time simply sitting in her bed, and got up. She didn't care to change out of her pajamas since she already knew that she wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon.
She went in her kitchen to prepare some sort of breakfast for herself, but before she did anything she took a moment to look at the nearby back door. Just like she left it the day before, it was locked.
She nibbled on her lip as she reached up into the cupboards, trying to decide what to eat and most certainly wasn't going to spend ten minutes checking every lock in the house. No, she would not do that again. She did that last night, twice, and she didn't need to do that again. All of them were securely locked tight, sealing her abode away from the world like the day before. They most certainly did not get unlocked last night. No, they most certainly didn't.
She decided that she wouldn't eat quite yet. She couldn't muster up much of an appetite anyway.
She would just go clean up for the day. Maybe she would do something relaxing for a few hours. Possibly knit for a little bit. Knitting sounded nice. Knitting a scarf seemed to be a good idea. Her other one was starting to thin. She would catch a cold going out to buy groceries if her neck and face weren't adequately covered.
She stopped biting on her lower lip and turned towards the other room. Her home wasn't very big, so the next room over that was connected to the kitchen made up both the dining area and the family room. The kitchen itself was barely large enough for three people to stand in there at the same time, let alone a place to eat. She walked out of the kitchen and then she turned in the direction of the bedrooms, intending to go to the bathroom to brush her teeth.
The sound of clothing rustling together stopped her in her tracks.
She froze.
'What was that…?'
No, no it was nothing. It was just her imagination starting up. This happened all of the time whenever she was scared after all. She imagined some of the worst things that could ever happen in life when she was just nervous about what type of apples she should buy. This was all just her imagina-
The sound of clothing rustling started again, only this time it was louder.
Heather backed up against the wall. It was all her imagination. It all had to be her imagination. It just had to be her imagination.
It wasn't.
At the angle she was at she could see that on the couch on the other side of the room lay a person. Not just any person. She noted fearfully that it was a man. Looking at his body's structure she realized that he had to be several years older than herself. He was wearing a pure black cloak that nearly covered him head to toe. The only part of his body that wasn't exposed was a part of his face, only that much since the hood on his cloak was over his head, and the hood shadowed his face too much for her to see it.
She pressed herself harder against the wall, like by doing so she would be out of sight despite the fact that she was wearing bright blue clothing against a beige wall.
It was her first day alone and first thing in the morning she finds a grown man on her couch.
She squinted her eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable. She could see him fine from this angle; it was only a matter of time before he saw her. The question was if he already saw her. She walked straight from her room to the kitchen, and while that meant she didn't directly pass by the couch that man on the couch could see her go by if he looked out the opposite side of the side she was walking on. In fact his head was on that side. He also could have heard her. She didn't exactly decide to be as silent as a mouse when she was just walking into another room. Did that man already know she was there?
It was quiet; too quiet. The only noises were the birds outside and this repetitive sound coming from somewhere.
The man didn't move. She didn't move. The seconds that went by felt like hours. Did he see her or didn't he? Even if he didn't why hadn't he moved from the couch yet? The noises in the background seemed to be less and less loud with each time her spastic heart would beat. She wanted to clutch her chest, but she didn't want to know what would happen if he was actually watching her. The birds chirping and the bizarre repeating sound continued on, unhindered by the sound of her heart within her chest.
The birds stopped chirping a few minutes later, and Heather found that she still couldn't move. It was like her body was glued in place. It was just her, standing as still as a statue, and that stupid noise that continued to occur every five seconds.
What was that noise anyway? If she were thinking straight she could probably figure out what it was. It sounded familiar. She'd heard something like it before. It was rhythmic, continuous, and wasn't all too loud. It was also very even. It continued on and on like it was someone breathing. It was just too different to be someone breathing. Now that she thought about it, it did seem to sound similar to someone breathing, but she could tell that it wasn't breathing.
It was… snoring?
Heather's body slacked for a moment in disbelief. Was that man asleep?
Well there was no way for her to know; unless she checked of course.
Heather trembled at her own thoughts, and she anxiously wringed her hands together. Going over there and checking was the only way that she would know for sure. On the other hand, if he was awake then she would be in a lot of trouble. Well, she didn't have to get very close, she only had to get a little bit closer and then she could tell. She didn't have to be in his line of sight.
This was a bad idea and she knew it. She also knew that standing in place for hours was not only stupid because she would become sore but also stupid because he would wake up at some point, with her right there.
In this moment Heather summoned up all of her courage, which, sadly but unsurprisingly, wasn't all that much. She braced herself and began to tip-toe along the wall, a new step every thirty seconds.
After she felt she was close enough she hesitantly opened her eyes. She wasn't able to see the majority of the man's face, but she could tell that he was really snoring. The way his mouth was flapping up and down almost like a horse neighing couldn't be anything else. He actually did sound like a horse. How much throat tissue did that man have?
She tried her best to calm her frantic breathing, and began back-pedaling to where she was before. This was her chance. Her only chance.
She kept her eyes glued onto the couch, and felt the wall as she walked back. A few moments later she felt an indent in the wall. She slipped her fingers in the crack and she opened the door as quietly as she could.
She took in a deep, quiet breath, and walked backwards into the entryway, shutting the door in front of her.
She exhaled in relief. The challenge wasn't over yet, but at least there was a wall in between her and the man. She looked to the ground and grabbed the engraved handle in the wooden floor. She slid the handle back noiselessly and gently eased her legs into the hole. Her feet softly made contact with the ground underneath and she slipped the rest of her body in. In order to fit in the crawlspace she had to crouch herself to the ground.
Now came the hard part.
With what she was about to do, it would guarantee the man's awakening, heavy-sleeper or not. The only thing she could do was hide in here and hope he didn't find her. She had to do this, or the odds of him finding her when he woke up would increase. She took another breath in, reached up, and began to pull the bottom side of the handle to close the panel.
The old, jagged wood scraped against whatever it made contact with. The old parts she only knew were in there due to the sounds they made pierced through the silence like a chainsaw. She heaved as hard as she could in order to move it and when she finally got it to the end it collided into the wall with a huge bang.
Heather bit her lips and crawled behind the largest support beam in the entire space. All that she could do now was sit there and pray the man didn't find her. If he did… she shuddered.
There was a notable thud on the floor above her.
Her heart skipped a beat.
It was silent for a moment.
Then there were some more thuds, a little bit lighter than the first time, that were coming in a pattern, like he was looking around himself. It was silent for another moment, but that moment took a shorter amount of time than the one before.
The thuds were decently light, and they steadily began to move around. If the mental estimations she made in her panicky mind were correct, which she felt was necessary to doubt, then the man was sticking to the walls. That wasn't good. If he walked along the walls then he'd be more likely to find the crawlspace door and find her down there.
He continued walking on. With her mental map she could tell that he was walking towards the bedrooms, and true to her estimations she heard the annoying sound of one of the doors squeaking. He didn't seem to move after that, and barely a moment later she heard the door squeaking again, this time as he shut it.
He did the same thing to the next door. He stood in what was probably the door frame for an instant and then shut the door again. He walked away from the door he was at and did the same thing to what she estimated was her bedroom door. Then he did the other one, shutting the door closed when he was done, just like the time before.
Only this time she didn't hear him walk away.
The thuds stopped. There wasn't a single sound, not even a creak of an old floorboard pressured by his weight. Nothing.
Her heart began to pound in her chest. What was he doing? If he wasn't making any noise then he wasn't moving. He had to be doing something, or thinking of something. Why was he even here in the first place? If he was in the house then he had to have been outside it at some point. Didn't he see how small this place was, and that it was in the middle of nowhere?
Heather didn't realize that the facts she had just thought of could be an advantage to someone that wanted to rob a home, but she wasn't even thinking of robberies at this point.
That man still hadn't moved.
It was like he just suddenly turned to stone where he stood. There were no more thuds. There wasn't any sort of noise anymore. The pipes around her were soundless, the air vents didn't seem to be running, and if the birds outside were chirping she couldn't hear them from in here.
Everything was still.
Seconds sped by and nothing seemed to happen.
She wanted to hear something. Any sound; any creak, any squeak, any groan, any squeal, any sound at all she wanted to hear. She wanted to know where that man was. She wanted to know what happened. She wanted to know what she was supposed to think of. She wanted to know why he chose to come into her house in the first place. She wanted to know why in the world she hadn't been smart enough to bring a phone down here with her to call for help because right now she really needed it.
There was a sound. A little creak that wasn't that far off. The sound of soft rustling and a rhythmic puffing sound met her ears.
The man was right behind her.
She felt her face lose color. She couldn't breathe.
There was more shifting behind her. The man crawled around her and then they were face-to-face. She, fully exposed, and he fully covered by his cloak.
He just stared at her. She couldn't see his face at all. All she could look at was the area his shadowed face was at. The urge to bite at her lip presented itself again, but she couldn't do that. She couldn't move.
The man in front of her cleared his throat, and she jumped in surprise. Was his voice light?
"Uhh, err, hi there!" The man in front of her said with a shockingly boyish voice. She had met teenagers with a deeper voice than him.
Hi there…? He didn't say anything other than that, like he was waiting for a reply.
She remained silent, and the man in front of her seemed to squirm.
"Uhm…" He started, and then he sighed before he continued. "Look. I didn't mean to scare ya'." He explained. He reached out to touch her shoulders, but she recoiled away. His shoulders slumped before he tentatively brought his arms back to his side.
"Honest." He tried again, this time keeping his animated movements to himself.
She stayed silent once more, and this time she scooted back a tad, attempting to be subtle with the process of moving away from him.
"It's the truth. I don't really know how I got here, and I was wondering if you knew. It can't be that I just appeared out of nowhere." He said again, this time obviously waiting for a reply.
This time Heather couldn't stop herself from biting her lower lip. She was too afraid to say a word. She was barely breathing precisely. The man in front of her sighed again, but unlike the first time his sigh almost sounded a little bit comical in nature.
"Well my name is Demyx. What's your name?" He asked.
She nearly gulped.
"H-Heather…" She said. The only reason she actually spoke was because she was fearful of what would happen if she didn't comply with him.
"Alright then, Heather, I suppose you better get used to me. I won't hurt you or anything. I promise. I don't normally do this in this kind of situation, but I don't have anywhere else to go. It looks like we're roommates now!" Demyx said, his voice apparently joyful, as he grabbed her shoulder with his right hand.
This is where Heather really gulped. She looked at the hand on her shoulder and then to the area where his face was hidden. The world seemed to distort together for an instant. The urge to bite at her lip was intense, and she didn't know how she overcame it. She looked at the large hand on her shoulder again and she knew that the man in front of her felt the shudder that went through her body. His hand twitched after all, she felt it. She looked back at what was the man's concealed face and found that she had a hard time even seeing the shadows.
The faint glimpse of his pale chin was all she could make out before her vision became black and she felt herself fall over.