The Prodigies [First Draft]

Twenty

Kenny couldn't believe it. She refused to accept the fact that Tellie was gone. The young girl, now fully awake, counted the number of people in the room several more times. After the sixth or seventh time around the room, she threw her feet over the edge of her mattress and stepped onto the floor.

Kenny crept over to Metal and Tellie's shared bed and peered into Tellie's bunk. The sheets were bundled up in a heap as though someone had picked them up from the floor and tossed them onto the bed. Tellie wouldn't have done that if she was simply getting up from the bed to go to the bathroom, would she? Perhaps the sheets had fallen off of the bed. Then Kenny realised that perhaps Tellie had tumbled from bed along with her sheets.

That could have been the thumping sound from before, the young girl surmised, and she was almost certain her inference was correct. Tellie probably fell off of her bed, then took a visit to the restroom, and she would be back in a few milliseconds. But...what if that wasn't the case? What if something had happened to Tellie? Kenny began to pace the floor, thinking of all of the possible causes and outcomes of her roommate's disappearance.

However, Kenny found herself ruling out possibilities as fast as she could think them up. If Tellie was in the bathroom, she would've been back by the time the young girl had finished pacing the floor and went to sit on her bed. Kenny checked the clock once more. It was 2:30 now, and Tellie was still gone.

At 2:31, the young girl found herself walking to the door. She stared at the doorknob, debating whether to go to the bathroom to look for Tellie. She turned away after a moment, only to stride back to the door a minute later. Kenny touched the knob on the blue door, recoiling at the cool temperature of the metal. This alone sent her back to her bed, deciding for a second time to wait for Tellie to return rather than go after her. After all, what if Kenny left just to have her friend—could she call Tellie that?— return while she was gone? Then again.... Kenny was back to her feet.

The young girl knew she couldn't keep this up for much longer. Her eyelids were beginning to close when she wasn't paying attention, and with each minute, it was getting closer to three in the morning. Before something else could prevent her from the leaving the room, she grabbed her ID card, stumbled to the door, and opened it.

Cool air rushed into the warm dorm. Kenny shivered in her thin pajamas. She let the door click behind her, a noise that was as loud as a sonic boom in the silent corridor. Her heart pounded in her chest, and her breathing was heavy enough to wake the girls sleeping in the room next to Kenny's dorm. She took a step, glad for the carpet that lined the floor, and began to make her way to the bathroom.

Kenny's heart was still pounding as she entered the restroom. She shivered once again when her foot touched the cold tile floor and quietly tiptoed into the room. The door closed louder than Kenny had expected it to. She froze in fear. Certainly someone had heard that out of all of the noises she had made while she was breaking curfew.

However, no one came after the young girl. After a still moment of letting her eyes adjust to the darkness surrounding her, she began to look around the bathroom.

Kenny took another step toward the stalls. She continuously turned around to see if anyone (or anything) was coming up behind her. She knew demons and other monstrous creatures were fictional, but that didn't stop her from imagining being ripped in several pieces or gruesomely murdered by them in the dark bathroom. She walked faster, checking all of the stalls and showers for Tellie. However, Kenny knew before the restroom door had fully closed that her friend was not in the bathroom.

Tellie had truly disappeared.

Once Kenny finished checking every compartment and corner in the dark bathroom, she tiptoed back to her dorm. She was more than halfway there when she noticed a light at the end of the hallway near her room. It appeared to be getting closer to Kenny, and it was only when she heard the shuffling of feet against carpet that she realized what the light was.