Hide and Seek 3: The Last Game

Chapter 3: The Looming Shadow

I snuck back into my mom's shitty apartment. I was welcomed by some sweaty stranger already passed out on the couch before 7pm. I tried my best not to wake him up, but my room was too close and the door still hasn't been fixed since my father left. So...6 years ago.

I opened my door but it made creeping sound that was so loud for no reason. The man woke up and looked at me.

"Hey, hey girl. I'm sorry," his words slurred as he spoke. He gestured me to sit next to him. "Come...here..." he fell back asleep.

Ignoring him, I quickly locked myself in my room. My heart was racing and I felt like punching the walls. I quickly sat down. I couldn't stand my mother bringing different guys around. It made miss the man who never cared me. My father.

I took deep breaths. Now wasn't the time for a panic attack. However, as much as I tried to fight it, it won me over. For the last month, mother was getting worst and it weighed a lot on me mentally.

"Fuck," I whispered to myself wondering why I wasn't numb to the pain already. Why'd I constantly have to be surprised to these emotions.

Wanting to distract myself, I texted Mickiyah to see what she was up to.

"Want to do something?"

She responded quickly.

"Please save me from this hell hole," she replied.

"On the way!"

***
The two of us sat outside of her house in the grass. The warm summer breeze felt so nice against my skin and the pink and purple sky seemed like all I needed in life to be happy.

We sat down, painting quietly together, both in our own minds. We barely spoke. She were just so quiet.

"What's on your mind?" I asked her.

I realize she was painting a picture of two people, a woman and man together watching a sunset by the ocean. It looked so vivid and she didn't even add color yet. She was so talented.

She stopped drawing and looked up at me. "How can life be so beautiful and bad at the same time? I'm overwhelmed by it."

"You want to talk about it?" I asked her.

"I hate it here," she then laid with her back on the grass. I joined her, already over painting as well. "I wish I could just break free of my world and go to another world. One without crazy homophobic parents and a racist system and an expensive ass school with shitty people."

"You're right. We're pretty shitty," I laughed in agreement.

She propped herself on her elbows to look at me better. "There's so many rules in life that we forget to live by our own. I just want to break away."

I nodded.

"That's why I'm excited to use the ouija board," she went on then laid back down. To perhaps whiteness something different. Something not normal. A world where there are no rules. Just freedom."

"Well, you are free," I told her. "You just have to look at what you have now and make the best of it. It gets better."

"I can't wait for next week for when we do this. I'd be super excited if we found some answers."

"To The Harmon's case?" I asked. "What do you want to know?"

"I wish people would stop asking me that," she rolled her eyes. "It's just interesting. To vanish out of no where. Losing your entire family. I don't know...Emily lost her family. I relate but to lose them twice then vanish...where is she?"

"Didn't this happen like 10 years ago?" I asked. "She's probably changed her name and settled down."

"Guess we'll find out what happened next week." She winked.

***

That might I fell asleep over at her house. I slept on the far side of her huge bed, giving her space to be sprawled out per usual. There was a nightlight beside her bed that gave the room a cool tone to it. I looked around at her art work.
The artist I loved that drew creepy pictures, shadows, and darkness. Such a bubbly girl with a dark mind.

I studied the pictures and sketches on her wall. They're usually two figures with no faces. Drawings of dark animals. Drawings of oceans with two dark figures in them.

Trying to go to sleep was difficult and I tossed and turned a lot. I was finally getting comfortable when all of a sudden her nightlight started to flicker. I didn't like it. The sketches seemed to dance and move with each flick, creating a weird illusion.

Again, I started to panic. My breathing sped up to a point I was gasping for air. I held my chest, shushing myself. Why? Why now?

The pictures looked like they were moving. Moving towards me. The darkness seemed closer and closer and closer...

"Are you okay?"

I turned around and looked at Mickiyah when I heard her voice.

However...

She was still asleep...

The light stop flickering and darkness was my only friend then and there.

I slowly turned the other way. I swear by every higher power than me, someone was looming over me. I felt it. I felt their presence. I could feel my face turning pale and my heart skipping beats. The word fear was an understatement.

Unable to cope with my anxiety, I got up and quickly ran for the light. Mickiyah woke up, looking around.

"What! What!?"

"I'm so sorry," I said while pacing around. I don't know what I was doing but I needed to hold something. To fidget with something in my hands. Back and fourth I walked around not knowing how to explain what happened.

"I thought someone was in here," I admitted.

The weirdest thing happened next. Mickiyah patted the space beside her then lifted the covers. "Come on, let's cuddle. You probably just had a nightmare."

She got up and turned off the light. Her nightlight was on, not flickering anymore. I laid down and let Mickiyah's warm body lay against mine. She held my wrist, telling me that I was in a safe place.

"You're fine," she said. "You're safe..."

I wish I felt safe...