Paranoia

Chapter One

Chapter One

Her feet dragged her to a door she'd seen a million times and found herself back in their old room. Between watching and prying around, a hand suddenly appeared, and Raven realized she was there. What was she doing here? The last thing she remembered was walking up the stairs of an isolated gloomy house.

On each end of the room was a canopy laced bed with a white dresser beside it. A dollhouse stood before an ajar French window, with a few stacked cushions and a neatly folded quilt sat unmoved on the window seat. A small hint of summer light pierced through the glass, and a gentle summer breeze rushed in, melting into the room, swaying the white laced curtains.

Her ears started tingling as the sound of echoing laughter  filled the air. She scanned the room . . . no one. She walked towards the door but found it lock.

'That was odd', she thought.

She heard the laughter again, but this time, from behind.

'What are you doing Raven? You weren't supposed to hurt the butterfly,' a voice said.

She froze. She knew what was going on. She knew what happened that day. It's starting all over again.

She slowly turned around, her sweating, trembling hands wrapped around herself. It felt cold and hot at the same time. Slow strides towards the window, blinking against now a wild summer light.

The window overlooked the side lawn of the house, and two kids played under the oak tree. It was nearing noon, but the summer heat didn't seem to bother them.

A drop of sweat streamed down her nose as rolls of giggles filled her ears.

"Oh no," she thought. "No, no. not this".

She backed away from the window, teary eyed. She covered her mouth with her hand, trying to fight off a whimper. She fumbled to the ground as she bumped into a hamper that wasn't there before.

She folded her knees to her chest, cradling herself. Darkness slowly consumed the summer light and the hairs on the back of her neck stood, as a gust of cold wind blew behind her.

Chills ran through her spine as an inhumane coldness rested on her shoulder. She shuddered, her teeth gritting. She bit her tongue to fight back a scream raging to come out from her throat.

"Raven, why did you hurt the little butterfly? How selfish could you be?" a voice whispered in her right ear, sending an electric wave through her body, and her mouth went dry.

The cold weight on her shoulder disappeared, as did the gust of wind from behind. She let out a sigh of relief but her gut said something more. Her stomach lurched as more hairs of her body stood up.

"Why'd you kill it Raven?" she was seeing her face to face; Rebecca, cold, dead and bloody. Shock ran down her system as she closed her eyes and cried out in horror.

Raven sat up sweaty, eyes wide open and gasping for air. It was just a nightmare, she thought to herself. Just a nightmare, she closed her eyes again and lay back down. She hadn't had that dream for a long time and she never wished for it to come back.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed.

It has been six years since the car accident and all the time people kept treating her like a child. Damn, how she hated that. She doesn't see things, it's just there.

God, how she hated her life and how many times did she try to end it, but every time she did, she kept seeing her sister. There was non-stop façade of her sister and that's when she started to have nightmares of the same.

She looked at her clock, it was still 3:00 in the morning. She exhaled deeply. Today was a Saturday, her sister's sixth death anniversary, June 6. What were the odds? She closed her eyes and let sleep carry her.