Sinking

Chapter 4

         (just a quick heads up, this chapter is unedited)

    I closed my eyes tightly as a wave of nausea washed over my system,only relaxing when I heard hushed whispers surrounding me. My shoulders tensed up as I heard their words.

"Is she the one?" Someone asked, the voices seeming too close.

"Shut up, he warned us this would happen one day! The thing can hear us, do you not remember what he told us?" A voice responded, the sound a hand smacking skin echoing off the walls. I cracked my eyes open ,the room seeming to swirl a bit before stilling.

"Emma, you can open your eyes all the way now." The boy responded yanking his hand away from my iron tight grip. I breathed in slowly before opening my eyes all the way, earning multiple gasps and screams.

"Get that thing out of here!" A woman shrieked crossing the room at an oddly fast pace. Her eyes were a still milky white, plastered blood cascading down her face from a bullet wound in her forehead. She came a bit closer, taking in my appearance before leaping back as if I had burned her. I knew I didn't look that good, but damn these people were brutal.

Another woman approached, giving me a side glance as she approached the boy, glaring up at him. "Michael, what is this creature you have brought us?" She asked returning to me, keeping a safe distance between us.

"Well, she's dead. Somewhat. This is what the prophecy said, am I not wrong?" He asked sending the woman a glare. She hissed at him before a man entered the room, the hushed whispers and yells suddenly growing quiet.

"Michael? Is this the girl?" He questioned approaching us. His face was worn with age, wrinkles covering his entire body. A few thin wisps of hair covered his bald head, but a huge white beard ran down his face.

"Uh, yes sir it is." Michael nodded, looking at me for a second.

"Good. Now let me reverse this mortal state you're in." The old man responded, Michael's eyes seeming to grow large.

    Michael's skin began to flick away, revealing several burned patches of flesh, some places you could see the bone through the gaping hole. Michael breathed in sharply as the rest of his skin fell away, leaving a charred body in front of me. His eyes were a still milky white, and he met my gaze giving me a tiny smile.

   "Ok, what the heck is going on?" I asked, suddenly creeped out. I gazed at the dead people around me, waiting for anyone to respond. They all seemed to flinch back from me, causing tears to rise into my eyes.

"You'll learn soon child, alright? Let's come to my office,ok?" The old man asked, holding out a wrinkled palm. I slowly took his hand, earning hushed whispers from the crowd as the man dragged me from the room. I let him pull me through the cool corridors, goosebumps rising on my skin. Maybe he would have a jacket?

"Can I go home?" I asked looking up to him. He glanced down at me warily, letting go of my hand as if he had realized who he was with. I awkwardly followed him waiting to see if he would reply.

"Well—uh.. I'm not sure." He finally replied with a tiny sigh before turning abruptly to a crisp white door. Could a door even be crisp? He turned the knob, swinging the door open and gestured me inside warily, placing his wrinkled hand across my spine.

   The old mans office was filled with bookshelves, a tiny oak desk in the middle of it. He shuffled quickly over to the wall, dragging a school desk back over. That's right, you heard me. A school desk. What the heck was this, language arts? He looked up at me with a tiny grin motioning his hand towards the desk.

    "Please, take a seat. Would you like some tea? Maybe apple juice?" He questioned as he circled his desk, planting himself in the office chair.

   "Uh..I'm good. Thanks though. I just want to know if I can go home?" I asked again, taking a seat on the cold metal chair.

   "Well, of course you can go home! You were there before you came here, were you not? It says in my little folder here that you died in the lake. Is that not correct? Perhaps Betty messed up the paperwork again.." He ranted, trailing off at the end. I glared down at his wooden floors, blinking quickly before shifting my gaze to his eyes.

He flinched, opening and closing his mouth like a fish. I cringed, thinking of Cleo's and Haley's bodies still laying on the ice.

"My friends, where are they? And I want an explanation!" I screamed slamming my wrinkled palm onto the desk. He nodded quickly, patting his sweating forehead before clearing his throat.

"Your friends are in another place. You're soul is stuck, like the rest of ours. Well, mostly like the rest of us. But it seems your soul is still living somehow, inside your body. There's a tiny piece of your soul left in your sunken body, is this making sense so far?" He asked, explaining everything with a gesture in his hands. I gave him a tiny nod, wrapping my arms around my torso, waiting for the rest of his explanation.

    "Right, so. Your piece of soul is stuck in your body, and to return or move on you need to find said piece, and—" He seemed dazed for a moment, his eyes going blank.

  "Um..are you ok?" I questioned, watching helplessly as he remained sitting there. I slowly inched off of the cold metal seat, my bare feet sliding across the floor as I crossed behind his desk.

  "Hello? Mr. er—" My mind drew a blank as I tried remembering his name, before I came to a stop right next to him. I twirled the chair around so that he was facing me, before I smacked his face lightly trying to wake him up.

   I watched helplessly when the door swung open, the doorknob slamming into the wall.

    "What the...what are you doing?" A woman screamed, sounding like a banshee. I realized how bad this scene looked. The newcomer standing over the 'leader' , with said leader dead?

   "This isn't what it looks like, promise." I quickly explained backing away from the desk. The woman's face remained blank before her eyes narrowed into slits.

   "You killed him?!" And with that, she released a piercing scream.

                                  ***

    heyyyy
i'm going to kind of make this one short, because i really don't have anything to say, except here's the next chapter!

thoughts? what do you think will happen next :)?

sorry about the late update, i'm currently going through my other two books and editing them, and rewriting some parts, so updates may be a little slow!

anyways that's all i have to say for now, so have an amazing day!

-maegan❤