Revenants and Hallucinations

14 - Explanations

Chan finally convinced his mother that he was okay to go to school. She'd kept him off in the morning but with a lot of persuading - and a promise that he'd take it easy - she let him go in after break. So the guys saw him the first time that day during lunch as he'd had to go straight to class when he arrived.

"Heyyy, are you alright?" Chan was the last one to the table, everyone immediately fretting over him to make sure he was okay.

"Yeah I'm fine" he sat down in between Jeongin and Hyunjin.

"What happened after you left on Wednesday?" Chan sighed, leaning back into his chair.

"Hannah told my mum about the headaches and nosebleeds so she took me to the hospital"

"Oh, was it okay?" Jeongin got his lunch box from his bag, unwrapping his pre-made sandwich.

"Apparently I have transient insomnia and I might have anxiety" they all paused, looking up at him with creased eyebrows and worried faces.

"Oh, shit" they definitely were not expecting that.

"Yeah" he sighed, letting his head rest in his arms on the table as he groaned. He really didn't need this in his life.

"Did you tell the doctor about the..." Minho trailed off, the others apart from Felix confused but Chan immediately understood, realizing he was referring to the boy that he'd freaked out about when Minho and Felix were over at his house.

"Oh, yeah....well kinda. He gave me a bunch of questionnaires and stuff and one of the questions was about nightmares, so the boy and the voices must have just been nightmares" he shrugged.

"But you were awake when you saw him when we were over?" Felix made a point. Oh yeah? He was definitely awake when those two calmed him down and he could definitely still see the boy.

"It was probably a shock factor, psychological, all in my head you know? He also said that the lack of sleep could cause hallucinations" He tried to justify it for himself rather than anyone else. He also tried to ignore the voice in the back of his head that told him the boy looked very real, and his hallucinations were supposedly 'mild' according to the documents from the doctor.

"Boy? Voices? Headache-S, nosebleed-S? as in multiple?" Jisung spoke up. Chan sighed, realizing he'd have to explain everything again to the rest of his friends. The number of times he had to do this was getting exhausting.

"After the first couple of nights of being in the new house I heard voices whispering in my ear, every time that would happen I'd get an excruciating headache followed by a heavy nosebleed. Then I started to see a little boy in my room but turns out it's all just nightmares or hallucinations" Chan shrugged as if it wasn't a huge deal, but the wide eyes of his friends would say otherwise.

"Do they know why all of this is happening?" Seungmin spoke up.

"The doctor said it's 'cause of stress from school, so he got me off extra school work, like homework for the next two weeks to give me a short break" he smirked snd wiggled his eyebrows, trying to put some humour into the situation.

"I'd say lucky, but with everything else that comes with it, maybe not" Changbin spoke up.

"He also said that transient insomnia can be caused by a change in environment, e.g. me moving house. So it should go away or reduce eventually" another thing he tried to ignore was the fact that he'd moved 3 other times and this never happened to him any of those times.

"Anyway let's move on, my mum hasn't shut up about this over the last week" Chan groaned again, concluding the story.

"Let's change it to a happier note" Changbin smiled, clasping his hands together.

"Ooh! I have something!" Jisung jumped up like an excited squirrel. "Did you know that in the 90s there was a teacher at this school that got stabbed to death by a student?"

"Jisung...I want you to look up the dictionary definition of happy" Changbin glared at the boy.

"Sorry," he definitely wasn't sorry. "I just found out about it the other day and forgot to tell you."

"Did you say stabbed?" Chan looked up.

"Mhm, 6 times" he nodded and Chan paused for a second, realization hitting him like a truck.

"I've gotta go. I might not be back" Chan rushed out, not giving them time to answer him before he grabbed his bag and rushed to the library.

He shoed some first years that were using the computer to play among us away and immediately began to search.

'Miroh High stabbing' a couple of results came up, all articles on the same story from the early 90s.

Chan felt sick when he clicked on one of the links. The first thing that came up was the woman's photo. He didn't want to match up the similarities to the woman he'd seen staring at him through the window during class, but he couldn't help it. The only differences were that in the photo she was smiling and her face was a lot less pale. She also had no stab wounds in the picture. Apparently, the student committed suicide at his house later on.

Chan didn't realize his breathing had picked up.

It's hallucinations, they'll be gone now that I have medication. But how would he have known what she looked like, and how she'd died. We probably learned about it in first year or something.

His hands were trembling as his thoughts overflowed, fear coursing through his veins.

Calm down, it won't happen anymore, it's just the lack of sleep.

He clicked on a couple more of the different articles and they all said the same thing, the different pictures making her match even more to the woman he'd seen before.

He couldn't help himself, searching up his new address and writing 'death of young boy' after it.

Nothing about a young boy dying in his house came up, there was something about witches but Chan didn't bother with that.

What did catch his eye though, was a link to a murder in a few streets over to his in the 70s and he clicked on it.

The man in the picture looked familiar and Chan couldn't put his finger on why.

'Jungwoo was murdered by his own coworker. He was beaten to death by a baseball bat, as admitted by the man who killed him." Chan paused at that. Skull caved in? Hit with a baseball bat?

The man in his back garden.

That was why his picture seemed so familiar, just minus the blood and gaping hole in his head.

It's just hallucinations Chan, just hallucinations. You just need to sleep, the lack of sleep and constant stress is causing the hallucinations. They're. Just. Hallucinations.

The bell rang and Chan swiftly shut everything off, grabbing his bag and proceeding to head to class as his hands trembled.

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I always feel inclined to like...sign the chapters off?? I guess. I don't know why I can't just leave them blank lmao.

Also, I apologize, this chapter is significantly shorter than all the rest.

[Forgot to name it again lmao, no ones surprised]