COMFORT [ben clark x f!oc]

SEVEN

In the middle of a dark room laid a motionless girl. Her body was sprawled out on the floor next to her bed.

Her bed was her safe haven, her protector of the looming dangers in the dark of the night. It felt wrong to strip it of its innocence by laying on it for those hellish seven hours.That simple object was there to shield her from all the evils. So what was she supposed to do if it wasn't able to protect her in the other dimension? That's right, nothing. It would just prove that all she felt when sleeping was a false sense of security and that anything could get to her while she laid on it. That would break all of her fantasies of its infinite power.

So she laid on the floor, phone in hand. A soothing melody serving as a distraction of what was going to happen in a matter of minutes. The time went on too fast and too slow at the same time, taunting her.

'S' vremena na vrijeme, kao da cujem stope..' the music sounded out thought the dimly lit room. The only source of light was her phone. No matter how much she was trying, she couldn't help but think back on what she did the previous night.

How would her dad feel when he finds her on the floor, no longer there? She couldn't do that to him, yet she did exactly that.

'S' vremena na vrijeme, a znam da nemam prava..' the song continued. It just proved how the world would continue spinning despite their suffering. It just let them live through hell and continued spinning for those unaware of all the horrid things the seven teens were facing every night.

The midnight was approaching, seconds ticking away, and Mia found herself not ready for what was to come.

Since Savannah, what happened has been recurring every night. At 12AM the sky turns red, the world becomes lifeless and mute, and shadow-like monsters start to roam around.
Because Ashlyn originally thought the sound they made were phantom noises, we decided to call the creatures - phantoms.

We've figured out a few things during the past couple weeks of this happening. For seven hours, we're stuck here. Even thougyht time is moving here, time is stopped at 12AM in our world.
This place seems to be influenced by our world, but doesn't physically influence ours. Injuries that happen here can be felt but not shown in our world and vice-versa.
And we always return where we left off in each world.

'..ti nisi vise moja draga..' the girl closed her eyes and the music stopped. This was the night she died.

She waited for the impact, but it never came. Those claws never found their way to her. But a gentle hand did. With a firm grip, it tugged on her arm, bringing her back into someone. That someone was a short, ginger haired girl. She planted a finger over her lips while whisper-shouting "Duck!"

The group complied without a word. They were crunched down, behind the seats on both sides of the bus.

"Still here?" the hispanic boy asked, looking at the ginger. She nodded her head as a way to answer him while making as little sound as possible.

"What do we do?" asked a worried Taylor. To that, Ashlyn didn't have an answer, but Mia did. "We kill it." she wasted no time in saying.

"How are we going to do that?" Tyler asked, skeptical of her capability to think straight after what she did last night. Perking up at the question, the energetic boy proposed "We could have Logan shoot it through the window?"

Ashlyn was quick to shoot down his idea "No, the gun is for emergencies only." Losing his temper yet again, the dark skinned boy raised his voice "This is an emergency!" Raising her voice too, Mia rebuttaled his statement "An emergency is a swarm or one of us is about to die."