R U There?

CHAPTER 10: Blood-Curdling

I stood far away from Ryan, occasionally eyeing him as Lyla paces the room panickly. I really hope she didn't see too much... I gulp as the pacing comes to an end. I look up and see Lyla looking at the book we eventually collected.

"How did you know we were here?" I spoke up trying to distract her from anything that had happened in the past 20 minutes. She looks at me with a unreadable expression. Anger, anxiety, sadness maybe?

"Well..." She spoke sharply. Ryan and I both awaited her response through the tense situation, the suspense killing us by the second. "God, don't worry... It'll sound crazy." She exclaims with a quick flash of a frown which she tries to hide. I just chuckle a bit as Ryan joins in with my laughter.

"Lay it on us, we have been through some crazy shit tonight." Ryan says from besides me, as we are still a few feet away from each other. I nod agreeing with his vague response, mentally reminding myself to thank him for not giving away our situation as Lyla's may be something with completely further differences to ours.

"Well..." She gulps looking down at her feet. "I was sitting at the dining table having dinner and I... I feel scratching up my arms." She pauses before she starts to speak again. "And not like soft unnoticable scratches. Painful ones, carving into my skin." She blinks back tears quickly wiping them away.

I shut my eyes, seeing Lyla's familiar dining room before us and her family as well as herself at the table like she said. Whatever this vision was, it didn't seem in my control. The family starts to eat quietly without conversation, sad really but I cant exactly say anything as my parents are anything but alive. The only thing strange in this vision is that Lyla keeps scratching her arm on occasion.

She seems visually uncomfortable as she coughs roughly into her arm or well into her sweater. She looks at her arm before her eyes widen with slight fear. Blood. Freaking out she stands from the table startling her family before she rushes to her room me following her behind unknowingly as I do so. She walks into the bathroom and splashes water onto her face as she looks into a mirror. The longer she stares at her reflection the more distant she looks.

She sighs and snaps herself out of it before taking off her sweater revealing a shirt beneath it. She gasps audibly at the sight of something carved into her skinny arms. Numbers to be exact. It read in messy, bloody writing: '3-10-2001'. She was taken back from the carved numbers before her. As soon as her caramel eyes shut and open its gone though. She shakily sighs as she starts to wash the blood out of the sleeve her face now not visible to me. She curses under her breath as she can barely get any of the dark blood out. She sighs angrily and gives up throwing the sweater into the wash basket her head still hung low. Her head tilts to look at herself through strands of blonde and brown hair but when she sees herself she jumps back and my eyes widen. Her eyes were dripping with blood and her nose was bloodied too. She stands up quickly to look at herself in the mirror but there's no blood.

She then runs out of the door and the vision within my mind fades away as I open my eyes. Ryan and I share the same look as we look into each other's confused yet not surprised gaze. 

"Guys?" She snaps us out of the confusion as we turn to her teary eyes. 

"Oh Lyla," Ryan sees her held back tears and hugs her tightly making me feel guilt as jealously runs through my blood. Why am I so jealous over her? Why do I have such feelings against her? Why am I-- "We saw what happened... as crazy as it sounds..." He chuckles as he carresses her hair comfortingly. He stops hugging her once she looks like she can speak without tears and I unknowingly look at the ground as I glare towards it. 

"I..." Lyla starts to speak again but stops short due to going into a coughing fit as we saw before. She coughs into her elbow and lifts her head as she has some blood in the corner of her lips and on the inside of her elbow. She looks at us with widened eyes as she looks at the blood on her arm before fainting.

"Shit!" I catch her in my arms before she hits the ground. What the fuck? Is she sick? She was never a blood person despite wanting to be a doctor of sort, rather that being a mental health doctor or surgeon doctor or whatever. I hand Lyla over to Ryan and he holds her in a bridle style way as he had a worried expression. I grab the dusty book from before and open the exit door. "We need to get her to somewhere safe now," I whisper softly and Ryan shakes her head. 

"The last place we would want her to be right now would be a hospital!" He whisper yells and I raise an eyebrow at his comment. "Look, what I'm saying is, she wouldn't be good in a hospital as stupid as that sounds. Wouldn't she have more of a chance being vulnerable to this... thing?" Ryan speaks whilst looking into my eyes with a much more serious expression than I have ever seen. 

"Ah, maybe you're right." I pace before thinking of a good enough idea. "I think she needs to stay away from any place like that so, she can stay at my house." I explain and Ryan nods following me as I open the door and leave. I run to my car and unlock it seeing a split flashback of the creature's gown again. I shiver at the thought and watch in the view mirror as Ryan places Lyla down softly. I wait patiently as he sits in the front with me and buckles his seat belt as I have. 

My mind thinks back to the memory of Lyla we saw. Then I think of the numbers, 3-10-2001. That's this year and it hasn't yet occurred but it is next week. Was it special to any of us? I think of an event special to me but can't think of anything that occurs on that date.

So what happens next week?

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ILY ILY ILY

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