𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐎𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐓𝐘- a labyrinth sequel

𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘- 𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄. Aurelia could see it covering the floor, the body. She could feel it soaking her feet. She could smell it, pungent and metallic, the smell making her eyes water. She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. She moved her blood-soaked hand up to clutch her chest, struggling to catch her breath. The body on the floor was unmoving and eerily still. 

Dead. 

He was dead. 

Aurelia gasped, falling to her knees on the floor beside him. There was so much blood it felt like she was drowning in it. Good. Maybe that was what she deserved. There was so much of it everywhere, she could practically taste it. She couldn't breath. She was choking. She coughed loudly, blood sputtering out of her mouth. Perhaps it was fitting for her to die here. She would have laughed at the irony of it all, but now it was like she felt nothing at all. There was so much blood, it was all the way up to her chest now, inching higher and higher. Aurelia didn't fight it anymore. Her body went completely limp, and the blood kept coming. 

Higher. 

And higher. 

She was drowning in it now. One gasp and she let herself be immersed in it. She let herself succumb to it all, wondering if she was supposed to feel more than she did in that moment. 

You did this. 

You're the reason he's dead. 

It's your fault- 

Aurelia sat up in bed with a gasp, clutching her chest as she struggled to catch her breath. She'd be lying if she said this was the first time she'd woken up from a nightmare like this. She blindly reached for the bottle of water on her end table, wiping a bead of sweat from her brow. She glanced over at the bed beside hers, where Sydney was still fast asleep in her bed. That girl slept like the dead. Once her breathing was back to normal, Aurelia reached for her cellphone and opened her texts. 

𝐀𝐔𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐀: are you asleep?

Instead of receiving a text in response, her phone began vibrating in her hand, and she swiped to answer the call immediately. Of course it was three in the morning and he was still awake. 

"What's wrong?" Donnelly asked, his voice groggy. 

"Did I wake you?" Aurelia asked slowly, biting the tip of her fingernail. "Sorry, I didn't think you'd be asleep already-"

"Would you shut up?" He interjected. "I don't care if you woke me up. You know you can call me at any hour and I'll pick up." It was true. Aurelia thought that students were exaggerating when they said that October was the month of hell for university students. She now realized that it truly was a month of torment. It felt like every day she was getting new assignments before even getting to complete old ones. Even as someone who was great at keeping up, she found it difficult to manage her time. She spent so much time scolding her parents for their caffeine consumption, meanwhile she spent almost every nice hunched over at her desk with one or more cans of Red Bull just to keep her acting like a functional human being. "What's wrong?"

"Couldn't sleep," she mumbled, rubbing at her eyes. She grimaced, still feeling like there was blood soaking her clothes. She glanced down at her hands just to make sure they were clean. They were. 

"Another nightmare?" He questioned. Aurelia hummed in acknowledgement. Feeling another surge of panic come for her, she blindly reached for the bottle of pills in her nightstand and popped two of them. She'd been having nightmares for a while, but they always seemed to get worse whenever she was stressed, and all she'd been feeling was stressed for the last three weeks.