Her eyes strained to shut. She could feel the tiredness like a living thing inside her chest, slowly but surely draining the energy from her body. Everything seemed to be moving at a slower pace, filtered by a hazy fog across her vision. She knew that her body was yearning for sleep. But every time she closed her eyes... the scene played out again.

She sat at the end of her bed, knees curled under her chin, staring at the opposite wall. She'd been in this position for hours. Her muscles cramped against it, but she felt as if she had no energy left to move. She'd been awake since yesterday morning. It felt so long ago now, yet she knew it was only about 48 hours. Her exhaustion wasn't only due to a lack of sleep.

Blink.

Blood splattered across the wall.

Blink.

Brain matter across her bedspread.

She glanced down at the bed. Clean. Wall. Clean.

But she hadn't cleaned. The moment she'd been able to process what had happened, she'd sprinted to the key and out her door. From there it was foggy. She remembered falling to the floor and the feeling of breath catching in her throat. The world had felt like it was spinning much faster than usual, blurring around her.

When she'd been able to regain rational thought and a steady rhythm of breathing, she'd picked herself off the ground. It could've been hours or mere minutes since it happened. She couldn't tell. All she knew was that her parents hadn't come home yet.

She hadn't wanted to look back at the scene, not really, but her eyes had glanced back before she'd been able to stop them. It was the same urge that makes you look at a car crash as you drive past.

But there was nothing there. It was clean. He was gone.

Really, that had shocked her nearly as much as the actual event. She'd stumbled back in the room, searching for any sign of him. But it was empty, and the only sign of movement apart from herself was the darting shape of a rat disappearing out her window.

Now, her eyes stole a glance backwards, to the centre of the room. Spotless. It nearly looked cleaner than before he'd died.

But had he died? She didn't think it was possible to fake a death that realistically - but it also didn't seem possible that the whole mess had magically disappeared.

She forced her heavy eyes back to the wall. Her brain power was impeded by a lack of sleep, but she didn't think she'd even be able to figure out the situation with a fully functioning brain. There was only one thing she'd felt certain of. That wasn't going to be the last she'd see of him.

And sure enough, hours later, he was back. She'd actually managed to fall asleep, even if it was only light and due to exhaustion, and was filled with guns and blood and nightmares she couldn't tell from real life. It was sleep and she found herself grateful for the respite. But all too soon, the tapping pulled her from it.

Tap tap.

She tried her hardest to not look towards the window. She'd locked it for a reason.

Tap tap.

She shifted slightly. She'd fallen asleep still sitting in the same position as before. The cramps had disappeared and were replaced with a dull ache, a sign that her body had resigned to staying this way.

"C'mon Cooper, let me in!" A muffled voice replaced the taps. "What's wrong? Can you move?"

He's not really there, she reminded herself. You can just ignore him and he'll go away. If he goes away, you can go back to being normal again, and the kids at school won't laugh, and Kyle and Stan won't think you're crazy, and Kenny won't look at you like that again. So just ignore him.

"Cooper, are you okay? What's happened?!"

Her eyes twitched backwards. As much as she didn't want it to, her resolve was slowly melting. Why would she be imagining him? Why was he suddenly so worried about her? His persistence in her life was infuriating and made no sense. None of this made sense. She buried her head in her knees and tried to think about anything else other than the masked guy at her window.

It took her a little while to notice the noises had stopped. No more tapping, no talking. She raised her head and felt a bitter sense of pride. She'd done it. Now she knew what to do, she could handle this. Just ignore him. Easy.

She slowly started moving her body out of the curled position, noticing every crack as the bones were allowed to sit back in their normal places. She twisted to see the window, ready to bask in her tiny triumph. All she had to do now was -

Crash.

Authors note: Hey, I hate these in stories so I'll keep it short. Sorry (again) for the giant break in updates. Life's a lot. Kudos to anyone that actually comes back to read this chapter! I'm trying to get back into updating regularly, but I'm just a gal in uni with no formal writing experience that expects herself to write published-novel worthy chapters. Basically, I'm a perfectionist and hate nearly everything I write, so I've got a bunch of chapters built up that I'm constantly re-writing. Anyway, sorry again, and hopefully I'll be less shit from now on.