Hasn't anyone ever told you not to Blink?
Blink and you're dead.
Blink and you're forgotten.
Don't Blink.
You've been warned. Good Luck
x x x x x x x
Meet Tunbridge College's walking mystery. A girl named Blink who eats candy to quell her smoking u...
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He finally found it. The wooden door labelled 4E— fourth floor of the girl's dormitory, wing E and on it a messily sketched 'BLINK' in bold letters. It'd taken him all evening to actually find her in the directory and nearly all night to find the guts to actually take the steps to get there. Sure the building had an elevator, but he realized that would be too quick and would give him less time to think.
Knocking quietly and quickly, he wished that she would answer the door before the group of girls laughing loudly down the hallway reached him. Justin had dealt with his fair share of weird glances today. Was it so weird to have a new student around here?
"Come in!"
Taking a second to breathe deeply, he grabbed the silver doorknob and twisted it before pushing in. When the door didn't budge, he heard a chuckle from the other side. "You have to put your shoulder into it." With that the door gave way and soon he was thrown into the darkness of her room.
It was way different from any of the other dorms he had seen. All the furniture had been removed aside from the wooden bunk bed in the far back corner. She didn't seem to have a roommate since the top bunk was a ball of messy blankets and the bottom bunk was covered in hundreds of art supplies. He looked to the surrounding walls where thousands of small pieces of paper were tacked to the drywall, so much so that you couldn't see the paint apart from one bare section above the door.
How were her walls painted black if the school didn't permit painting the rooms? And doodles, thousands of doodles and sketches adorned the papers on the wall, even covering majority of the stained glass window. Even that managed to be different from the other regular clear windows of the other dorms.
"Are you going to say something or stand there gawking at everything?"
Snapping back to attention, Justin was happy to admit the lack of lighting hid his slight blush of embarrassment.
"I bought you a couple packs of Twizzlers since the store on campus didn't have any," he chucked nervously while Blink snatched the packs from his hands, tearing at the first pack with her teeth to get one between her lips.
"Why do you like them so much anyway?" He questioned, glancing over at the swirls of doodles someone took the time to create.
"My parents used to let me smoke," she shrugged noncommittally, "Carter made me stop, so it gives me something to fill the void. Keeps my hands busy." She offered him one which he refused. Licorice wasn't that good to him.
Standing up from the floor, Blink groaned as she gestured to the door behind the boy. Slamming it closed, his confusion was wiped clear when he saw exactly what she was groaning at. "That little fucker broke into my room and vandalized my shit!"
The wooden door that was once painted an arrangement of colors now had "KILLER" messily written in red spray paint.
"Why don't you report it?"
"No no, it's something we do. I prank him, he waits until I disappear to break in and do something to my room, and the cycle repeats. This was good though," she pointed to his name. "Took me damn near two months to finish that mural on the door. Hit me where it hurts, Killer!"
"I don't get it—" Justin sighed, ready to continue until Blink interrupted. "I thought it was simple...I prank-"
"No," he chuckled. "Why are you being nice to me? One day you talk to me and the next you're threatening me in the cafeteria...I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I did wrong. That's why I'm here." He scratched his head nervously as Blink stared at him.
"Remember a few minutes ago when you told me to report Killer?" Her gaze was back aimlessly on the door, and finally out of her view, Justin felt a little more at ease. He breathed deeply, feeling his shoulders lessen of the tension before he nodded.
"Yeah well, there was a boy who went here last year, you look like him— brown eyes, tall, nice hair and the nice smile. He started hanging out with Wyatt and one day everyone was going to meet down the hall to hang out." Her story was momentarily paused as she took a bite of her Twizzler.
"I don't know, one day he snuck by my room and heard some stuff he wasn't supposed to hear. I warned him to keep quiet but when you're a rat, you're a rat."
"I don't do that to people. I wouldn't do that to you..." He couldn't exactly find the words.
"You don't even know what he heard" her eyebrow raised in a daring kind of way. Almost as if to say, 'if you knew what he heard, you'd probably tell on me as well'.
"What happened to him?"
"Don't blink Justin" she chuckled.
"I don't really get that either." He sighed out of frustration, scratching lazily at his tattooed covered wrist. He didn't get much around here if he thought about it. At first he believed it was a newbie thing, but as the days continued into weeks, he realized things were just really, really...really complicated.
"I'll give you an example," she pushed a Twizzler between her lips before stepping closer to Justin. The tips of his shoes and the toes of her bare feet were nearly touching. "Close your eyes"
"You said not to blink" he argued in a whisper. It was getting near ten o'clock and the co-ed curfew ended at nine— a rule that was severely followed and instituted. He couldn't find himself caring though when he had the pack of Twizzlers in his hand and the thoughts of his moments with Blink weighing heavily on his mind.
"Good, you're getting it." She placed her hands on either of his shoulders, pulling him closer. When their noses nearly touched, Justin gulped because not far behind were their lips. "But listen to me this time"
So he did.
He closed his eyes and listened to her command to count to five.
"Five"
"Four"
Suddenly, the warmth of her hands on his shoulders was gone.
"Three"
"Two"
"...One"
When he slowly opened his eyes, she was gone and he couldn't believe it. She warned him not to blink, given him a clear example. How did she do it? How had she disappeared? She was gone out of thin air.
That is until a hand appeared from the ceiling and snapped once. Then, finally he saw it. Crammed into the corner was a thin steel ladder with the paint job chipping severely. A ladder that led to a purposely created hole in the corner of the ceiling.
And then a voice, "I picked this dorm because it's the only room that is still part of the original nunnery. It's secluded from the other dorms, I like the sticky door, and it has an attic attachment." Her voice carried down the ladder before her hair and face did. She was upside down compared to him, but despite the distance and lack of lighting, Justin could witness the hypnotizing pull of her emerald eyes.
"It's all about imagination, Justin. I'm good at disappearing...my parents made sure of that." She gestured to the clock on the opposite side of the room that was oddly enough, turned completely upside down. "It's getting late"
Nodding and completely speechless, Justin turned and began to leave the room, but before he could fully exit, the infamous words hit him like a harsh brick to his back.
