Tricking Death

Chapter 4 - Ryan

When I woke up again, I was instantly afraid that I was going to find Death standing beside my bed again. Thankfully, my room was empty except for me and sunlight was fighting to get through the curtains. 

That's when I remembered that I hadn't had a chance to close my curtains before I fell asleep, and that I had fallen asleep in the clothes I had worn that day. Now, I was under the covers, in my pajamas, and the curtains were closed. I sprang out of my bed like a shot. 

"Ewewewewew! That is so goddamn gross! Fucking Death!" I was swatting at my clothes as if that would make some kind of difference towards anything while my skin crawled. I swear I could hear someone laughing at me while I gathered up my clothes and ran to the bathroom, which only affirmed how badly I wanted to shower. 

I was about halfway through my ritual of furious scrubbing when my brain decided to torture me even further by wondering if he could be watching me right at that moment. I didn't know all of the things that he was capable of yet, aside from being incredibly annoying and cocky. 

Needless to say, my shower didn't last much longer after all of the safety and enjoyment got sucked out of it. 

When I walked down into the kitchen, my mom was already sitting there in her bathrobe. She looked like hell: her hair was even more dishevelled than it was yesterday, giant bags had appeared under her eyes and everything else about her just seemed dull and lifeless. She looked up slowly when she heard me come into the kitchen but her eyes just went right through me instead of actually registering that it was me. 

"Mom?" My voice broke the spell that had settled over her as a spark of recognition flashed in her eyes. 

"Em?" she said, sounding confused as if she still couldn't believe that I was there. "Are you... Are you okay?" 

I knew that even after a shower, I still looked to be on about the same level of crap as my mother. But I lied anyway, deciding that she probably wouldn't handle the news about my visitor last night very well. 

"I'm fine, Mom." Despite it being an all-out lie, my mother decided that my answer was acceptable anyway and just nodded and went back to sipping from the mug of coffee in front of her. My mom only ever drank coffee when she was severely stressed, so I knew that things were still serious. I would have to be treading on eggshells today to avoid setting her off. 

I felt my phone buzz from the pocket I'd placed it in earlier. Pulling it out, I read the message: 

Where the hell are youuu? Ang is totally flipping out. 

Then I remembered: I was supposed to be working today, and was officially half an hour late for my shift. That time was only going to go up, unless I ran like mad or somehow managed to get a ride from someone. I knew I had set my alarm yesterday after I had finished getting ready to leave for the non-existent ceremony, due to my tendency to forget. I went racing back upstairs to confirm that I had indeed set it, only to find that it had been switched off. 

"What the fuck?" I hissed, picking my clock up and turning it this way and that, as if it would somehow reveal how its alarm had been shut off. 

"Everything okay, Emily?" I turned to see my Aunt Jean in the doorway. 

Despite the crazy swirl of thoughts running through my mind, I managed to organize a fairly normal response:

"I am super late for work." 

Half an hour later, after a quick ride from Jean and a subsequent telling-off from my manager, Angie, for being so late in the first place, I was allowed to get changed into my uniform and start working. We were just a tiny little store in the mall called Coffee Up! and our coffee wasn't even that good, but somehow we always managed to be busy anyway.