Our Romantic Horror Story

II

Dylan

I wasn't quite sure when the last time I had moved was. I had been laying on the floor of my dorm room, tapping  the buttons rapidly on my game with wide eyes while bopping my head. I always died at this stage, so my concentration levels were through the roof. To the left of me sat my childhood teddy, slumped over from old age and a lifetime of cuddling. When I was younger, I had believed that Father Christmas watched me through its beady little eyes but now one of them had a chip and I was sure that if Santa knew it was me who spilt red wine on my mum's rug last year on Christmas-eve then I wouldn't have received a present the next day. So, I was safe. I think.

After laying on the floor for so long, my ribs were beginning to hurt. I rolled over and went from laying on my tummy to being on my back. The blood rushed to my head. I rolled too suddenly and made it ache. As I result, I lost my concentration and my character died. Straight into the lava with a little 8-bit 'womp womp womp' jingle.

Pouting, I moved to get to my feet and the room spun from my sudden movement. I wasn't sure what time it was, or how long I had spent on the floor exactly, but the sun had began to set behind the trees that stood directly across from my dorm room window. On my windowsill itself sat a shrine of video games that I had collected across the years. Small, anime figurines posed with ropes of blue hair and tiny plushes with felt daggers defended my window from intruders.

When I had moved to University, my mum had advised me to leave my video-games at home and I had laughed. She was not joking.

Posters of my favourite characters and games lined my ugly, blue cork board. My best friend, Kai, always said he was creeped out by the prospect of them watching me sleep but I loved them, regardless of what he said. Ever since I was young enough to figure out how opposable thumbs worked, I had loved video games. It was one of my special interests.

When I wasn't on an adventure from my dorm room in the form of a game, I was writing music or playing piano. My dad had insisted on me learning a classical instrument when I was a kid because he thought it would look good on my personal statement to get into University, but he hadn't expected it to take over my life. Much to his dismay, it was all I could think about sometimes. Especially when I got to play video game soundtracks on the piano.

I'm pretty sure my next-door neighbour, Nate, hates me because of the noise, however, because he had said very little to me since moving in, despite sharing a kitchen. Kai was the only flatmate who spoke to me, but he was down the hall. I was so happy when I found somebody who also liked video games as much as me when I moved here because I was so anxious about making friends and people like Nate don't exactly fill me with confidence.

Creaking open my heavy bedroom door, I paced down the flat corridor and into the communal kitchen. Nate was stood at the dirty hob, cooking some kind of pasta that was boiling over and spilling starchy, pasta water everywhere. He briefly flicked his eyes towards me as I walked in, but quickly redirected them to his pasta.

Nate was the extroverted and social kind of person. At least he was with anyone that wasn't me. He had a lot of friends here already and was constantly having people come over to hang out and drink. Kai and I quite often had to have dinner at the local takeaway instead of cooking because the kitchen was filled with people dancing to pop tunes.

It was a little inconsiderate, but there was no way in hell that Kai or I would say anything about it. In fact, we had barely spoken more than three words to him. He liked to ignore us. It didn't really bother me, since some people were like that during school anyway, so I was used to it. Besides, I didn't like the idea of hanging out in big groups like that; it filled me with dread.