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The voice was small and soft, almost like a scared child lost from their mother in mall looking to an adult for help. Joan almost expected the book to answer but snorted at the thought as her aunt slowly opened the page and the scene before her began to dissolve into black particles.
"Hey, baby."
Still surrounded by darkness Joan turned around to watch Agatha-Joan clad in the infamous cheerleader uniform run over to Patrick in his basketball jersey. Patrick grinned down at his girlfriend hugging him tightly around the waist returning the warmth with his arms around her upper back.
"You looked hot out there."
The giggle left both Joan's because of how stupid that sounded coming from the lips of the guy who snorted milk a lunch just a few weeks ago, but her aunt found it disgustingly charming as she drew him in for a kiss.
Happy couple evaporated again and in the distance formed a heartbreaking image of Heather laughing loudly with Agatha-Joan on top of the bright pink bed in the Henderson household.
"God, homegirl, I can't even!"
"Like, seriously though. He just, and I couldn't even, like, do-!" The sentence wasn't even finished before a horn like laugh left Agatha-Joan and Heather shrieked at the noise, bending over and pointing with a red face as the two continued to silent laugh so hard tears were in their eyes. Joan smiled sadly at the sight of Heather Holloway alive and happy. The image once again slowly dissolved into particles and hid away in the never ending darkness, and Joan was left with the ringing of shrieking laughter.
Alone.
"...hello? Can I... can I go home now?"
Who was she talking to?
Joan wanted to bash her head in the wall as she turned around 360 degrees...
or maybe more or...
less?
There was absolutely nothing except her and it was starting to send waves of ice cold paranoia down her spine. The never ending expanse of an absent void was the definition of anxiety... the core root of a fear driven by isolation of one of the most social species on the planet.
A living nightmare.
"L-listen, I just want to wake up... go home." She tried to reason to emptiness as her hands clenched beside her and eyes continued to scan for any sort of... anything. All that existed was the echo of her voice. "80's... 21st century, honestly I'm okay with either as long as it's... not... here."
Silence.
A deep breath.
Out of annoyance, Joan opened her mouth to scream at the top of her lungs for the hell of it but a scream from beside her winded her as a fearful Agatha-Joan sprinted right through her before tripping over a root with a groan.
