FLESH covered LIES

The Start of Something

When I awoke, my head was resting on the great desk in the library. My glasses were tilted and mildly crushed, and I felt so embarrassingly hot. The sweat dripped from my forehead on the book I had been studying before I had gone out. As I lifted my head, I realised that everything hurt, every sore muscle in my body hurt like hell. I glanced around the room, as I sensed the uncomfortable feeling if being watched. I could see no one and first, but then I spotted the bright emerald eyes peering around the edge of the door frame, transfixed with worry mixed with anger. Harissa.

"Hello?" I croaked. My voice felt uneasy and weak, as if it hadn't been used in years. Harissa narrowed her eyes, and frowned, giving no immediate reply. Of course, I had forgotten. Before my little episode I had argued with the siblings, which would explain her angry eyes resting on me.
I suppose my deep sigh let her know straight away that I really wasn't in the mood for this. I saw her gaze soften, and she entered the room properly, a sense of apology in her eyes. She sat beside me, her arms around herself. 
"Are you... okay?" She asked, looking over towards me. 
I opened my mouth to recite my whole "dream" to her, but stopped myself. She knew I liked to write, what if she put two and two together and decided I had been lying about all the things I had seen? And honestly, I couldn't risk that. I had gone through this thousands of times in my head now, and realised that Harissa was pretty much the only person who still completely believed my tales of horror from this place. 
"Yeah. I'm fine."
I wondered if she could see the little shivers, if she was picking up the subtle shaking and trembling, the goosebumps on my arms. 
"I'm sorry about earlier, I know we are all just worried. And what my brother did was a bit out of line." 
I thought back to Jonathan shouting at me, claiming that Tyler had just been playing children's games. The anger rose back up in my throat, but I forced it back down. Now wasn't the time for that. 

"Gerda? What are we going to do?" She put her head in her hands. Her short hair had grown - I had only just noticed. It fell over her hands, like soft waves. 
"I don't know." I replied. 
Unexpected, she laid her head on my chest. Trying to hide my shock, I put my arm around her awkwardly, and we sat there for a few minutes, in a comfortable silence. It was her that broke it. 
"I have this... horrible feeling that something terrible is going to happen to Jonathan."
I immediately tensed up, thinking back to my dream, reliving the horrific experience. To my worry, Harissa felt it. She lifted her head up at my and looked straight at me with pure worry. 
"What? Did I miss something?" 
I shook my head hurriedly.
"We are going to get to the bottom of this Harissa. And then we're gonna get the hell out of here."
Her green eyes lit up with anticipation. "You think so?"
I nodded my head. She smiled, just a small little twitch, but it was something.

 I had only just met her. It reminded me of all my old friends, the ones I had totally lost contact with. All that had been happening here had forced me to forget to even drop them a message. I could imagine how they felt about me now. 

Without thinking, I pulled out my phone, and opened an old group chat. 556 missed messages. They probably thought I had totally forgotten about them. I tapped out a quick message "Sorry I've been absent recently, crazy stuff is happening at the new house."
My old friend Emily replied instantly "It's okay, we still love you don't worry xx"
I smiled to myself. 
"Who's that?" Harissa said. She was leaning over towards me, frowning at the group chat. 
"Oh..." I said quickly, and slipped my phone back into my pocket. "It's no one, just an old friend."
She looked almost hurt, but I ignored it. She was still leaning against me, all of her weight pressed up against my shoulder.

I noticed a sudden warmth in the room, like we really did have hope. This whole thing felt as though it was killing me, and without any proof that anything was really happening that was out of the ordinary in this place, the police weren't doing much. Yet somehow I was sure that if we did all put our heads together and got to the bottom of this, we could end the worry that something terrible truly would happen.

"I know you weren't lying Gerda." Harissa said quietly. "Jonathan's cat was murdered and I promise, I'm just as scared as you are."
"I'm worried about Tyler." I replied, as loudly as I could muster, but my voice cracked mid sentence, and my words softened slightly. "He's so young, and oblivious to the whole thing. He was so excited to move here, and none of us expected things like this to happen. Sometimes I wish we had just stayed where we were, and I was still at my old college with my old friends."

There was a small, but significant silence.

"But then you wouldn't have met me and Jonathan..."
I nodded.
Suddenly, Harissa stood up, quickly and with haste.
"I should probably go find Jonathan. I need to make sure he's okay."
"Uhh yeah, sure." I turned away from her, avoiding eye contact. Then, without warning, she quickly leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.
She mumbled a few words, none of which I fully caught - something like "I'll see you later." and then rushed from the room.

Still in shock, I picked up my glasses, and continued to study.