Not so Imaginary // On Hold // GxB Paranormal Romance

Part Three | Where's the Cream Filling?

T H R E E 

I had just grabbed the matches when the power went out.

My first thought was that the old circuits had overloaded since the neighbors' lights were all still on. Wouldn't be the first time. I fumbled around in the darkness looking for the breaker box, but nothing I flipped brought the power back on. Then I started to hear it.

You know like how a mosquito sounds like when it gets close to your ear? That's what this sounded like at first. A distant humming rose up from outside. But when I looked, there was nothing there.

All the hairs on my arms and neck started to stand up. And not just in the way that you might get when something's creepy, but in a static way. Like there was electricity in the air.

I thought he might know something. I guess that's why I texted Ren.

"Get out," came his message back. "Now!" Okay, I'd been hoping for him to say it was no big deal. No such luck, unfortunately.

He said he was coming to where I was.

I took the diary and shrugged on my coat and shoes. Outside, the buzzing was louder. I wasn't so sure this was a good idea, but he'd said--

"Run!" came another text. He said he'd have to get through the Divide so it would take him some time to find me.

The streetlight above clicked off with a pop, then the next one, and the one after that. I couldn't see them, but the rising static buzz had the same chill to my arms as the thought of the moths.

Pop, pop, pop, the streetlights went off one by one down the street like dominoes as I ran. There was a school with a park at the end of the road. I couldn't think of where else to go, and I didn't know how long I could keep running. I was starting to get out of breath.

A low, chain-link fence ran around the outside of the play area. I swung one leg over, then the other, and tumbled inside. It wasn't going to protect me. Not from flying moths, so I don't really know what I was thinking. I guess I was just thinking, run. And also, hide. 

The play structure was small and plastic with tanbark underneath. A single, enclosed slide ran down from the top of a platform at the center. I ran for it and slid inside. Tunnel slides sure seemed bigger when I was a kid.

So that plan backfired. On either end of the slide, I could hear the buzzing picking up louder and louder until it got so intense that it started to vibrate the plastic beneath me with the sound. Like lying on a speaker. My head began to hurt more and more with every pulse of the buzz around me.

"It's here," I texted Ren. I had trapped myself into a cocoon. A human slide burrito. Or maybe like one of those old Twinkies commercials.

It's hard to say what happened after that. There's a vague memory of something hurting a whole very lot, like the way you would expect if something with sharp talons for arms and legs cut through the plastic play structure encasing you and then also your skin.

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The next thing I knew, I was lying back in my own bed in my own room with the window shut and the door closed and feeling nice and safe and sound.

Until I turned over and felt a stinging, ripping pain across my stomach. Until I felt the skin expecting blood and realized that it had been wrapped with cloth bandages. Until I realized I didn't know how I'd got there.

I reached for the nightstand and fumbled around blindly for my phone with one hand. It wasn't there. Of course it wasn't where I usually put it when I went to sleep. It was still in my pants pocket, the pants which I was still wearing. Because I hadn't actually gone to sleep.

There were several new messages waiting.

"I know you won't get this for a while, but don't freak out when you wake up," said Ren's first message. "You'll be fine as long as you don't take off the bandages."

"I'm chasing down the others," said his next messages, "Text me when you get this."

I did. I replied and asked--he did these bandages?

I was expecting Ren to answer, but what I got instead was, "Such a pretty shame, but he saved your life and now you get to save his."

And it wasn't from his number.

"What the?" I wrote back, "Who is this?"

"That's none of your concern. What matters is that you're going to bring me the book if you ever want to see your Ren again."

The book. "You mean, my diary? And if we want to get technical, I haven't actually seen Ren since we were kids..."

"Don't be a smartass," the unknown replied to that, "Not if you want him to live."

"Why do you want it?" I didn't really know what to think, but I had a bad feeling about this. "You gonna destroy it?"

No answer to my question, just, "13th and Ivy. Midnight. Bring it. Don't be late."

It didn't feel like I had much choice.

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Thanks for reading! This update is a little shorter but it's out sooner, so maybe that makes up for it a little. Your comments and votes make me happy! Thanks again for being awesome. 

Hopeful Romantic