Evanescence // Harry Styles

chapter-25

I was dreaming.

I was walking along the corridor of a lightly colored house I remembered too well and I was dreaming. It wasn't interesting, nor was it curious to walk to a place I knew . . .  but even so I was walking, foot by foot, step by step in a rhythmic whim. It was as if my feet weren't really hearing my commands. It was as if they were walking for themselves. I hated that.

"Celine!" I called loudly. I was surprised to hear it thought, it didn't really sound like my voice. It was hoarse, and cracked. But I felt the presence of something else, too. Fear. I was afraid to hear her voice . . . and afraid of not hearing it, too. I didn't know how I got to her house, but I knew where I had to go.

"Celine!" I called, again. "It's Amanda! Will you come out now?"

I took the staircase in front of me, trying to hear a reply. But there was none. I was partly thinking that no one was at the house . . . but then again, my feet had their own intention of letting me find out.

I called her once again before I started walking to the narrow floor. I saw a room at the end of it and I went for it, somehow sure that it was hers. I saw that the door was open, which was odd. Celine was the type of girl who locked everything and everyone away. She wouldn't leave her room open and ajar like that. What was she thinking? Did she leave the door open for me?

"Celine?" My voice was slow till then, as I was entering the door. I had no intention to alarm her, so I said again, "Celine?"

Her room was in havoc. Everything was messed up. Books on floor and sheets uprooted from bed. Her expensive dresses tousled on her chair and there was a sound of water running in the bathroom. I snapped my head to the sound. Why would she leave her tap open?

And for the lack of sanity in my head, I followed the sound to her bathroom, only to witness the beautifully flawed body of Celine Andrews lifeless. Drowned in the large tub, with the red blood flowing relentlessly from the cut of her wrists as if they were ceased to end. Her eyes were open when she died. And at that moment, even though they were fixated at her bare feet, I felt that she was looking at me -asking the same question again and again that had haunted me from the moment I had discovered her body, to the day I was having that dream for a thousandth wretched time.

_

If anyone ever asked me what was the worst part of having those dreams, I would tell the person that it was waking up. I would tell him that the first few moments which were neither dreaming or waking was the worse. The feeling of knowing the presence of oxygen, and not being able to breathe was horrible. 

I gasped loudly as I opened my eyes to find my room dark. And I jumped up on my bed, frantically. The room was quiet, also. And the quietness of the room allowed me to hear the rapid beatings of my heart even louder. They were all the sounds that filled my surroundings. I closed my eyes again, repeating that what I had seen was all a big, confusing dream, again and again. It took several minutes to find myself again, to find a sense of sanity behind all those facetious talks.

I looked up, at last, and turned my head to my window. I saw Harry's silhouette in the light glow of the moon, sleeping with his head leaning against the window bars. It took me a moment but I remembered why he was sleeping like that. We were talking. Chatting about broccoli . . . or something of lesser importance. I didn't remember saying goodbye and I figured that we didn't say "bye" at all. It felt nice, suddenly, finishing a conversation without saying "goodbye".          

I took my eyes off him, eventually, as the briskness of my dry throat had started pricking. And my head was beeping in a tiring way. I drank water from the bottle beside my pillow where I had kept it for emergency like this. I closed my eyes again as I rested my head back to my pillow, counting down the names of different stars before I could find sleep again . . .