Hidden (UN-EDITED; on hiatus indefinitely, sorry)

Chapter Six

I was walking through a hallway. On either side of me were grey bricks that looked as if they had never seen the light of day. I walked forward and my bare feet hit the cold, hard concrete. There was an opening further up and, when I reached it, I realized there were two paths. Two identical doors, both wide open, each led to a different place. I took a step forward and heard a scream coming from the door to my left. I recognized the voice immediately. Zayn, I thought. I then heard voices from the door to my right. It sounded like a younger me; singing, laughing… my memories. I wanted to go down both paths. I wanted to save both. I took another step forward and both doors began to close. I stood, paralyzed. No, I wanted to scream, NO! But I stood there as they both shut tight. I stepped forward once again. I touched the cold brick wall, and it began to crumble to dust. I dropped to my knees and put my head in my hands. When I decided to look up again, everything had completely crumbled. I fell backwards, shocked. I now lay down in the ruins of all that I had once loved. Suddenly, the scenery changed. The dust began to turn from grey to tan. Now, I was lying alone in a desert in the middle of nowhere. Nothing to live for. A single tear slid down my cheek. I slid my hand through the sand, lifting a handful up and letting it fall through my fingers. Once all the sand was gone, I closed my hand into a fist and felt blood running down my wrist. Images of faded dreams reminded me of what I used to have. There was nothing left I could lose. Nothing left to feel. Except pain. Pain was the only feeling left. It wasn’t pleasant, but at least I knew I was still human.

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I woke in a cold sweat, breathing heavily. I looked around. Blue walls. On the couch. Nothing had changed. I began to relax. Thank god it wasn’t real.

“What wasn’t real?”

I turned around to see Zayn on a chair by the window, his mouth full of Frosted Flakes. Great. Now I’m thinking out loud.

“Oh, nothing, just a dream,” I said. He looked at me with his head sideways like a confused puppy.

“Didn’t seem like ‘just a dream’ by the way you were whimpering.” I sighed. Couldn’t he tell I didn’t want to talk about it?

“I… erm… didn’t enjoy what I dreamt about. Let’s just leave it at that.” I got up and began to comb my hair out with my fingers. Didn’t ghosts have hair brushes? If not, they need to make some. It’s so hard to make yourself look okay with nothing to work with.

Once done, I laid back down on the couch. We sat there for a while just like that, him munching on his cereal and me just thinking. The silence was broke by the other boys waking up.

“HEY ZAYN! VAS HAPPENIN’!” said a boy with brown hair as he ran in and jumped on the couch. I moved my feet out of the way just in time.

“Hey Louis,” said Zayn.

“LOUIS, WAIT UP” Niall shouted from down the hall as he ran in. I rolled off the couch to avoid being squashed. (Well, I guess I couldn’t be squashed, but I’ll bet it wouldn’t feel nice to sit on a ghost or whatever I was.)

“Mornin’ Niall.” Zayn said.

Two other boys, one with curly brown hair, one with straight, walked in drowsily. They sat down in a couple of chairs a few feet away.

“Hey Harry, Hi Liam,” Zayn said. They simply waved their hands half-heartedly. My hair, which I had just combed out, was all messy because of the couch incident. What a great start to my day.