UNKNOWN [SEULDY]

EIGHT

For a split of a second Wendy could see the already rising sun through a gap in the grey blinds that were covering her windows. At quarter past three, when the moon began it's journey once again and bid farewell to the sky, she had turned her tiny but still comfortable apartment into a panic room. The blinds were closed, the door locked and barricaded with random pieces of furniture and every light Wendy could get a hold of was turned on. Even candles were lighted and now almost burned down to the core. Wendy jumped at every sound, gasped at every movement and cried out after shadows of herself appeared on the white walls. She hadn't had any time to paint them yet. The room made her feel even more paranoid than she already was. As long as she could remember there wasn't a single white wall in the house she grew up in. The kitchen was painted in a light green, the color of hope, her older sister's four walls in a magical eye catching purple while her little room in her childhood home caught no one's attention but her own. As a child Wendy loved the sun. The yellow glow of it easily became her favorite color and left no spare thoughts or hesitation in her heart when her mother asked the back then four year old for a color that would grace Wendy's own room. It wasn't until nine years later that the girl found out the color she picked was actually beige. Wendy shook her head in hope of clearing her thoughts. She failed to. It wasn't only the barricaded door that made her feel uncomfortable but also the mess on the floor. Approximately an hour after the apartment transformed into a panic room, which also was around two hours after Wendy had received the text from Unknown, the quite voice in the back of her head whispered possible and at the same time completely insane ideas to her. She had spent two hours examining every little corner, object and even inspected some of her sweaters, pants and dresses that she wore daily, anxious to find some kind of bugging device glued to the wall behind her new cupboard or even worse a tracker sewed into the fabric of her coat and maybe her jeans as well. Another possibility for Unknown to be informed about every location Wendy was at, who she was with and the reason why she was actually there, was obviously a camera and bugs. Wendy rubbed her head as it was hurting from the tight ponytail her hair was in. A sigh escaped from her slightly pink lips. She had searched through her whole house and even her bag without finding a single trace of a bug, camera or tracking device. Her panic and paranoia now had to share the room in Wendy's heart and brain with an emotion she hated most. Her frustration was also one of the main causes of her now pounding head. Wendy's hand wandered from the back of her head to her eyes. She yawned as she stared at the gap in her blinds that let the sunlight pass through. Wendy was simply exhausted. She hadn't had a single second of sleep and the sun was already up. Wendy groaned as she remember the time her lectures started. With slow movements Wendy walked over to the counter top in her kitchen and first jumped then pulled herself onto it. She reached out to grab the phone laying next to her. It was twenty past six and her class would begin at eight. Wendy crossed her arms and cursed at the person hiding behind Unknown. "That person really is a psychopath. I'm too tired to actually pay attention to anything." Wendy groaned in disbelieve. "I can't go to class because like this." She quickly brushed a streak of hair out of her face. It bothered her. "Okay. Calm down. First we need a plan." Wendy laughed at her pathetic behavior. "Great. I'm referring to myself as 'we' now." She took a deep breath as a feeling that tightened her stomach was threatening to over come her once again. "I need to calm me and my weird ocean of emotions down before they get out if hand and maybe, just maybe even figure them out. Secondly I need sleep." She yawned as soon as the thing she desired most was mentioned by her. Her stomach rumbled and her throat was as dry as the desert. It hurt by just speaking a single word as if two pieces of sandpaper were rubbing against each other. She hadn't had any liquid to drink in almost seven hours and her stomach had stayed empty for even longer without new food to digest. Wendy sighed realizing she had to set priorities and getting some food was one of them. She jumped off the grey kitchen counter as she decided on what to eat. There wasn't anything but instant noodles and all the needed ingredients for brownies in her apartment. Wendy groaned as realization hit her. "Damn. I forgot to go grocery shopping." The young woman looked around. "I guess, Brownies it is." Wendy knew the recipe by heart. Baking was the only activity where she was able to not think for once. Not a single thought crossed her mind as she preheated the oven and began to melt the chocolate in a bowl. Not a single word was spoken as she added the chocolate into the mixture of eggs, flour, artificially tasting vanilla yogurt, oil and sugar. Wendy spread the Brownie mixture onto a baking tray. Without the slightest worry that there was a possibility her baked good could burn, she shoved it into the oven. Wendy had to kill time. Fifty minutes to be exact. She looked around her apartment that's messy state pulled Wendy back into reality. Locks, blinds and curtains were opened. She pushed every object which had been moved from it's original place, back where it belonged. The young woman picked up the red folder that had been responsible for another sleepless night. The paper in her hands felt like a bomb that could go off at any moment. Tempting to just let it go off, only to get a glimpse of how it would influence human life but also dangerous as it could backlash against Wendy herself. The girl knew she had to handle it with care as she made her way over to a plain desk which she had owned since her junior year of high school. A drawer was the only part of it that could catch someone's attention if it weren't covered, almost hidden, by a table cloth. Wendy reached for the tiny, almost unused jewelry box and fetched a tiny silver key. She unlocked the drawer, chucked the folder into it and put the key back in the jewelry box just as the timer set for the Brownies went off. Wendy's face lit up as she smelled the familiar scent of the Brownies. She tucked a hair behind her ear and licked her lips ready to let the chocolate calm her nerves.