Reality is a Fleeting Moment

Chapter Eighteen

Izzy POV

I woke up in the middle of the night. "The hell?" I whispered quietly to myself. My head was pounding and my brain was itching, the kind of itch that addicts people to bad things. I paced back and forth in my room trying to put my finger on it; I couldn't. I collapsed on my bed and screamed into my black bed-rest pillow. I dug my nails into the wall, then stood up with a start. I grabbed an old poster out of the garbage bin, opened my bedroom window, and hurled it into the darkness.

My midnight black cello case caught the light of the moon, drawing my attention. I eased it open, then realized something was amiss at the same time I realized what my mind was itching for. I grabbed my phone and unlocked it in one smooth motion, putting it up to my ear to call Leila.

"'Yello?" Leila obviously hadn't been sleeping. "What's up, Iz?"

"Where is it?" I hissed, then grimaced and tried again. "My bad, I mean... Leila, there was music in my cello case, and now it's not there."

"Okay? Why are you asking me?"

"Because you were the last one who had my cello case." I sat down on my bed and started bouncing my leg... why was I doing that?

Leila didn't respond for a moment. "True, true. Just gimme a moment, brb." I bit my thumb nail as the call went silent. Subconsciously, I started running my hand along my pajama pants and hummed the start of Habanera from Carmen. After a few excruciatingly long minutes, Leila returned. "Okay... I found a folder with a few different scores in it. Which one are you looking for?"

"What? There should only be one; I only kept one score in my case."

"No...? There definitely isn't only one."

"Well, all my other scores are under my bed, so..." I paused for a moment, then licked and smelled the air. "Wait... does the air in your home somewhat taste like lithium or... another metal, perhaps?"

Leila was quiet for a moment. "... Yeah... Kinda...?"

I sighed. "Frick... alright, I'll be there in a moment." I grabbed my headphones, then hoisted myself out of the window and onto the roof, crouching on the balls of my feet to minimize the noise I was making. I dashed across the roofs of the houses, ignoring the tantalizing moon trying to coax me into howling. I approached the window cautiously, scanned for Leila's parents' cars, then eased it open and slithered inside.

I heard a wolf whistle from the other end of the room, but ignored it and walked up to Leila, who was holding a black folder. I put on my headphones and grabbed the folder out of her hands. Sure enough, it had several scores in it. My face burned with anger, but I kept it in. "Leila..."

"Yeah?" She asked in response, looking over my shoulder at the scores.

"Someone – i.e. the aliens – broke into my house." I closed my eyes, massaged my temples, then looked back up as I closed the folder. "Do I have permission?"

"What?" Monty asked from his spot in the room. "Permission for what?"

"Permission granted, Iz." Leila beamed as she turned off the light. I pulled out a lighter from my pajama pocket, ignited the flame, held it to the corner of the folder, and watched calmly as the folder burned to a crisp.

"Particular proclivity for pyrotechnics... so that's how fire works..." I murmured, my gaze fixed on the folder. When the flame died out, Leila turned on the light, I put my lighter away and traced the fire on my arm. Suddenly, someone yanked my headphones off. I spun around quickly to see Roxy putting on my headphones, Chica begging to have them after her.

Suddenly, Roxy took off my headphones and stared at them in disgust before looking back at me. "You have questionable music taste..." Chica snatched them from Roxy's hands and put them over her own ears.

"Roxy, what are you talking about? It's literally just a metronome...?"

My face burned red hot as I reclaimed my headphones and turned off the 'music.' "You... uhh... weren't supposed to hear that..." Bonnie stole my headphones from me just as I had turned on a real song. My face burned hotter; the song that was playing was Candy Store from Heathers: the Musical. I scrambled to change the song, but each one was as bad as the last, if not worse.

Candy Store, Say No to This, Big Fun, Open The Door (ft. DayumDahlia), JOYRIDE, Ho Ho Ho, Stalker's Tango, Michael in the Bathroom, My R, that one really bad song that says the n-word a lot by Gangsta Rap...

I was seriously about to crash out at this point. "Are you freaking serious?" I whined to my phone. "Please, please just play a normal song...!" At the moment, my headphones had been passed around the room and everyone had partaken in the horror that was my playlist. I was so tempted to throw my phone out of the window when Leila stole it from me and pressed skip.

To Break in a Glove – Dear Evan Hansen...

My anger was hardly contained at this point. "Why on earth does my phone prefer you over me? This makes no sense!" I yanked my headphones off Y/N's head and put them back over my own ears, turning on my 1701 playlist. I plucked another CD(in a case, duh) from my pajama pants' pocket and handed it to Leila.

Leila took it with a bewildered expression on her face. "What's this?" She tossed it between her hands a couple times, the animatronics slowly creeping forward to get a better look.

"Remember last Halloween when Mrs. Brown asked me to make a playlist based on my best friend's favorite Halloween tradition?"

"Yeah?" Leila looked confused for a moment, then a dawning of realization spread across her face. "Wait, you're not saying that..."

"When I was making the other CD, I remembered that playlist, so I decided to make both. But... it's not just the Halloween playlist." I put on my headphones, turned on my music, and climbed out the window before turning back to Leila. "Happy birthday, from Jekyll." I signed 'love you' in ASL(the letters, since I only had one hand available).

"You too, from Hyde." Leila signed the letters back. And with that, I was gone. Again.