UNTITLED

five

A squeal escaped me as he picked me up, spinning me around, laughter following right after.

"Put me down, Alex!" I yelled when he held me up from the ground. 

Due to the height differences, he was able to refuse my demand, smirking right into my face.

Rolling my eyes at his childishness, I narrowed my eyes, trying to look as intimidating as possible.

"For God's sakes, put me down, Quintol."

The blond seemed to be deep in thought for a moment.

"Hmm. How about a 'no'?"

The smirk on his face grew into a grin when he saw my annoyance. He blew on my face in an attempt to make me more annoyed, which resulted in a success.

"Put my best friend down, Alex," I heard Elizabeth said out of nowhere. "Or I'll throw your bloody Xbox out the window."

His face fell at that and he turned to face her, still holding me against his chest. I saw him roll his eyes.

"Like you would really do that," he mocked her.

I heard her scoff but even as she spoke her next words, I could hear her smiling by the tone of her voice, "just put Addy down, Alex."

My lips twitched upwards at my nickname, turning into a smile when Alex finally did as he was said and he carefully placed my feet back on the ground. I turned to walk away but he held onto me, not letting me leave. Instead, his arms were wrapped around my waist, pulling me back to him.

His chest was flushed against my back and his head was on top of mine, making me feel weird for some reason. Our position somehow reminded me of a totem pole and my nose wrinkled at the thought of it. I heard someone scoff along with a chuckle. My gaze rose to see that Fred was smirking at the sight of me and Alex while Elizabeth was rolling her eyes.

"You know," I spoke up, tilting my head so I could look at Alex. "I somewhat feel like a totem pole."

Alex raised an eyebrow, "So?"

I looked away from him, still scrunching up my nose. "It just feels weird."

My face fell when I heard him chuckle and I was about to give him a snide remark when Elizabeth rolled her eyes again.

"Come on, lovebirds," she said as she walked out, "or we're going to be late for the show."

I perked up at the mention of our plan for the night. It was an event me and Elizabeth had helped put together with a local music club. I didn't want to be a part of it when Elizabeth first came to me with the project proposal, but after knowing that I'll get merits for it, I immediately agreed to join in.

At least there'll be something good on my record.

I pulled away from Alex and went right next to Elizabeth, linking my arms with hers. We walked out together, a pouting Alex behind us.

From the corner of my eyes, I was able to see Fred walking along with us though it seemed to me that he was floating. I shook my head at the ridiculous thought, smiling to myself.

Elizabeth looked at me quizzically and right before she could say anything, Alex came up behind us. He had both his arms around our shoulders as he squeezed in between us.

"Seriously, Alex?" I asked, scrunching up my nose even as I held back a smile.

Rolling his eyes, he smiled at me as he fully ignored his sister's rants. I shook my head again, turning away from him. He pulled away from the both of us when we reached a junction.

Just when we had moved to the other side of the road, a dreadful feeling struck me, making me shudder. I wrapped my arms around myself as an attempt to get rid of the feeling but to no avail.

A cold breeze blew past me, whistling softly in my ears. The streetlight near me began to flicker and I felt goose bumps start to rise on my skin. The hair on the back of my neck was standing. Suddenly I was engulfed in darkness.

I looked around for Fred, wondering where he was and if he knew what was going on. Fear started to grow inside me and the dreadful feeling was getting bigger, residing in the pit down in my stomach.

Then the wind stopped and the streetlight flickered back on. The bad feeling was slowly dissipating but fear was stuck inside me.

My mind was telling me to ignore it, being the rational human being I am, but my intuition was yelling at me to run away, get as far as possible. The feeling grew, making me feel uneasy.

For some reason, I opted to listen to my brain even though my guts were creeping the hell out of me. My body moved to walk towards the direction the two siblings had gone off to but right when I had turned, I ran into something.

Or rather, someone.

A tall figure looked down on me with his eyes. His skin was ghostly and it alarmed me at first but I was quick to notice that his irises were fully black with specks of red in them. I blinked a few times at him, trying to figure out if he was like the woman from this morning.

But then he gave me a charming smile.

"Pardon me, Miss," he said, quite joyfully. "I'm afraid that I wasn't watching where I was going."

I was guffawed only but for a moment, quickly recovering to say, "no, it's alright. I wasn't watching where I was going too."

"I don't mean to pry," he started and only then had I noticed his British accent. "But what is a young lady like you doing, out alone here late into the night?"

I was about to say something but someone had cut me off.

"Adeline!" Alex called out, "there you are!"

Said person came up behind the man, looking worried and a bit frightened. Alex quickly went next to me as if he didn't saw the man.

"We were already at the cafe when we saw you weren't with us," he said, "are you alright?"

I took a glance between him and the man as told him I was fine. The man gave me another smile and he bowed his head to me.

"We will meet again, Miss Adeline," he said, still with a smile on his face.

With that he turned away and left. My gaze was stuck on his back as he went off. Alex was looking at me worriedly and he turned to look at where my eyes were.

"What are you looking at?" He asked as he took another glance behind him.

I quickly noticed that he couldn't see the man. A smile formed on my lips quite forcefully.

"Nothing," I said, trying to reassure him. "Just lost in thought,  I guess."

Alex looked at me skeptically, "well, okay then."

He held out a hand to me as his lips graced into a smile, quickly forgetting about it.

"Let's go, then. Liz is waiting."