Paranoid

2

Thunder strong enough to shake the entire house wakes me up twenty minutes later. I bolt upright and look around, my heart racing with fear. After a few seconds, I begin to calm myself down. It's just a storm. Nothing to be afraid of. Lighting strikes illuminate the windows and throw shadows across the walls. The hair on my arms prickled, and my heart was still beating a bit faster than normal. I didn't necessarily want to admit it, but I was spooked. When the hell was Denzel going to get here?
As if on queue, someone knocks on the door. I scramble to my feet and quickly open the door. Denzel rushes inside, yelling about the awful weather. His jet black hair is soaked, and water drips into his eyes. He pulls a brown paper bag out of the inside of his jacket and shoves it into my arms.
“Here. Dinner. Breakfast. Whatever,” he mumbles, peeling off his drenched jacket and white t-shirt.
“You didn't have to come, you know,” I remind him, opening the bag and peering at the contents. Tons of fries and two burgers.
“Oh, please. You're pale with fear. And look,” he pauses and grabs one of my hands, “you're shaking. You're obviously uncomfortable with being here by yourself. And honestly, I don't blame you. This place is scary as hell.”
“It's actually beautiful. Don't judge a book by it's cover. Anyway, lets go eat.”
I lead him into the kitchen and we both sit on the floor, our backs against the now sparking clean walls. I throw a burger at his bare, damp chest. It drops to the floor before he can catch it, and he sighs.
“Dammit, Ariel. Now my food is contaminated with your dirty floor germs,” he whines.
“Hey. I just spent nine years cleaning this place. The least you could do is compliment the amazing job I-” I stop mid-sentence as another crash of thunder shakes the house. I hear the rain begin to fall harder. This storm isn't going to ease up any time soon. Denzel looks up towards the roof.
“Is this thing gonna hold?” he asks. I look up too and shrug.
“God, I hope so.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see something move across the window. I move away and stare at it for a few seconds. It was in the shape of a person. Was someone outside?
“What is it?” Denzel asks, sensing my fear.
“I saw something,” I respond. “It looked like someone passed by the window.”
Denzel looks at me skeptically. “Did you take your medicine today?” he asks. I frown and look away. Of course. He wasn't going to believe me.
“No. Mom has my antipsychotics. I was going to wait until tomorrow to bring them here,” I reply, a note of bitterness in my voice. Even though it's dark, I can see the sadness in his bright blue eyes. Even though he's known me for eleven years, my paranoid schizophrenia still hurts him. He's always wanted to help me, but this is one thing he just can't fix. And he hates it.
“Okay. Are you sure you didn't just...” he trails off and stares back out of the window.
“Hallucinate?” I finish for him. I can practically feel him flinch. “I can't be positive, but it looked real. I mean my hallucinations look real too, but they have a different feeling, I guess.”
“Yeah, I know. You've told me before.”
“Should we go check it out just in case?”
“Would it make you feel better?”
“Yeah, to some degree.”
“Alright. Let's go, then.”
We leave the kitchen and while he puts his shirt and jacket back on, I try to cover as much of my skin as possible. With my sleeves pulled down around my hands and his clothing finally back on his body, we open the door and slip out of the house as quietly as possible. If someone really was out here, we didn't want them to hear us. We inch along the side of the house, towards where the kitchen window is. When we reach it, Denzel points at the ground.
“Look. Our two sets of footprints. That's you and me. If anyone had been out here, another set of footprints would be visible,” he yells over the howling wind. I nod, slightly disappointed. I had an ambivalent relationship with my disorder. When I was younger, I loved the company of my invisible friends. I thought I was special. These friends, of course, were occasionally a bad influence. They could get pretty frightening. Over the years, I've managed to get used to the fear. One thing I can never get used to is the pity that comes from all directions. The knowledge that I am classified as insane. I am different, and everyone around me is normal. They will never see what I see, no matter how hard they try. Just once, I wish that what I saw was real. Simply so I wouldn't be considered crazy.
“Ariel?”
“Yeah?”
“Lets go back inside.”
I let Denzel lead me back inside by my hand, like I'm some sort of toddler. I feel defeated. I swear that I saw something outside, and I was almost positive it had been real. So why couldn't he see it?
“Did you lock the door?” he asks, jiggling the door handle. I shake my head back and forth. He stares at me for a moment, then looks back at the door. “Alright, well... do you have the key? Because it seems to have locked when we closed it.” He turns the handle and presses his weight against the door in a failed attempt to open it. I search my coat pockets, and even the pockets on my jeans. I already knew that I didn't have the keys, but it was worth a shot.
“I left them in the living room. It's fine, though. We can break a panel of glass out of the picture window in the kitchen. It's already cracked and needs to be replaced,” I say, turning around to go back the way we came.
“But the rain will get inside,” Denzel argues, following me.
“It'll be fine. I can just put something over it. Do you see any rocks?” I ask, scanning the ground. It was incredibly hard to see due to the pouring rain and impossible darkness. I crouch down and brush my hand along the ground. My hand hits something and I grab it.
It grabs me back.
I scream and jump backwards. It had been a hand. It was extremely cold, practically freezing. Almost as if it had been made entirely of ice. It hadn't been made of ice, though, because it was soft, like a human hand. Denzel pulls me up to my feet and grabs my face. His eyes meet mine, and I can't help but notice the pity in his eyes. It's always in everyone's eyes when they look at me.
“What was it?” he asks softly. The storm is incredibly loud, but he's so close that I can hear him almost perfectly.
“You won't believe me,” I spit. His eyebrows draw together. He's obviously confused. I'm confused, but I'm also angry. I feel so helpless. “Did you find anything to break the window with?” I ask, pushing his hands away. He hesitates for a moment, apparently not wanting to change the subject.
“Yeah,” he answers simply, holding up a piece of brick. I take it from him and throw it directly at the window. It shatters, and I use my sleeves to break the pieces of glass that remain. Once it looks safe, I climb through the window.
Then I see it. A figure, standing by the kitchen entrance. It looks like a human, but it's completely black and somewhat deformed. It's legs are too long and skinny for it's body, and it's face is mostly taken up by it's huge, horrific mouth that makes it look as though it's screaming. It's eyes practically blend in with it's skin. I then realize that there aren't any eyes- only empty sockets. It's fingers, nearly as long as a normal persons foot, reach up and curl around the archway of the entrance. It's only then that I manage to find my voice.
“Denzel look!” I shout. He pulls himself through the window and tumbles to the floor. He sits up and stares at the spot where the thing had been.
“What was that?” he whispers, looking absolutely horrified.
“I don't know. But I'm glad you saw it too.”

A/N:
Unedited. Again. XD
Thanks for readinnnnng