At the lake

Chapter 2: Still a Mess

Beep-Beep-Beep!

I groaned and pulled the covers over my head. It was way too bright and way too early. Reluctantly, I sat up in my bed and squinted my eyes open. It was move in day. I frowned.

Tyler was nowhere to be seen. "Ty?" I called out. I rubbed my eyes trying to wipe away the blurriness of my half asleep state. Then I blinked a couple of times. I was starting to panic when my mom burst into my room unannounced carrying a tray of tea. Weird.

"Rise and shine sweetheart it's time to for your breakfast." She sang. Something wasn't right. She danced into my room like she was the happiest woman alive. She never made me breakfast in bed, ever.

"Breakfast?" I asked.

"Yes of course we wouldn't want you starving to death would we?" She cooed, over enthusiastically. What on earth...?

"No..." I answered more confused than ever. Actually, I was starting to feel a little unnerved by my moms out of character behaviour.

"You just stay right here my darling, I will look after you." She grinned. It was a little menacing. As she sauntered towards me my room got darker and darker and my mom looked more and more... demonic.
Confusion and fear washed over me, "m-mom?" My heart began to pound.

All of a sudden, I blinked and she just appeared at the end of my bed, crossing the space between us in a flash. It was like the world glitched.

She slammed the tray of tea and toast on the end of my bed, tea sloshed all over the place while she held haunting eye contact with me. Her head tilted to the side and that's when I lost my breath.

Suddenly, her head snapped down and back up to me, "LOOK AT THE MESS YOU'VE MADE!" She shouted, only it wasn't her voice. She sounded distorted and scary. My moms hand snatched at me with curling boney fingers, trying to claw me to her.

I blinked and she was gone. Letting out a desperate breath, my eyes scanned the room while the rest of me froze in fear.

"M-mom?...Ty?" I whispered. My hands were gripping the sheets with an iron grip, palms sweating and heart pounding.

I fell backwards and dissolved into my bed and into... water?

Dark murky waters swallowed me whole. Falling...falling...

Further.

Deeper.

Lost.

The air I held onto was squeezed out of me and I was forced to open my mouth. Water forced its way into me, over and over. I was thrashing around now, clawing at my neck, gagging for air.

I was drowning.

That's when I saw Tyler floating towards me out of the blackness of the water. He didn't look like he was holding his breath, in fact he was completely expressionless. The feeling of hope dissolved into the depths the closer he and death got to me. I was drowning and for some reason Tyler wasn't here to save me. He looked me dead in the eyes and smiled evilly as suddenly his hands lashed out and curled around my neck. I was still choking on the water but Tyler was here to squeeze the last remaining life out of me.

Despite being under water and the loud thrashing of me struggling to get free, Tyler was able to speak clearly to me. "You deserve this. You just take and take and TAKE FROM EVERYBODY! You don't deserve to live. I HATE YOU!" He yelled in my face as his squeezed and squeezed and squeezed...

...

"Aliya!"

I jolted and my eyes shot open.