Read For Read (Teen Horror) ✔

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        I walked like a robot, my steps programmed and my mind unbelievably blank. I desperately wanted to scream for somebody but I couldn't make a sound.

        Aspeth did look dead, but not dead enough. What was the meaning of that even?

        I dropped to my knees -- involuntarily-- and gnashed my teeth as the burning hot pain from the collision seared through my veins.

        She wasn't breathing. And yet still, I wasn't convinced enough. It wasn't possible. She couldn't have just, well...died.

        "Aspeth?" I heard the tremor in my voice. I wasn't scared, I was terrified. Terrified so much that I suddenly was feeling sick.

        I couldn't rationalize, I couldn't cry and I couldn't shout. For that moment, it seemed to me that nothing else mattered in the world.

        I heard the front door open and shut, then I heard Emily call my name. But I didn't respond.

        "Aspeth?" I touched her arm. It was cold, stiff--dead stiff. I still pretended to not believe.

        I frantically searched for blood, there was none.

        I looked around for poison too, any damned thing that could have hinted at suicide. There was nothing.

        "My God." I trembled backwards and aimlessly fanned my eyes over the bathroom.

        Then had been the moment to shout myself hoarse, to scream for somebody to come. To rush out, cry--

         Aspeth sputtered and coughed, a violent rattling cough.

        My heart twinged. Horror concentrated the air like a smog.

        "Aspeth," I barely whispered and crawled back to the tub, with a speed so fast it couldn't have been humanly possible.

        Her body jerked and went limp, as if a cardiologist had attempted to reboot her heart and failed.

        "Aspeth?" Trembling, I took her hand.

        The coughing started all over again, her whole body shaking like a dying asthma patient.

        "C...C..Cl..." she tried to get out. "C...laire." She hiccuped.

        "Oh My God Aspeth." I helped her up, and when she opened her eyes, I let go and shrunk away from her.

        Her eyes weren't their original shade of green, they were still black, like how they'd been when I'd found her at first.

        The bathroom door clicked open. In my peripheral vision, I saw Peggy step in. She was full of smiles, so oblivious to what was happening like a naïve child unaware of the death of her Parents.

        I didn't take my eyes off Aspeth.

        "What the hell is going on here?" Peggy asked. I didn't know where exactly she stood, but her voice sounded close.

        Aspeth opened her mouth to talk, but Peggy's voice interrupted it. "I don't know what's going on--"

        "I...I think..." Aspeth started and took a while before continuing, blinking sleepily at us. "I think I died." Her voice, like her face, was quiet and distant, almost as though she were talking to herself.

         "Huh?" Peggy touched my shoulder and I shuddered. "What in the Heavens is going on here? Why's she looking at you like that Claire? And what's up with her eyes?"

        "You," Aspeth pointed a weak finger at me and stared straight into my eyes, her mouth twisted in a frown so ugly she didn't look like the same person. "You're the one who made the deal," she said, her intonation frighteningly foreign. "And now all your friends are going to pay."

         She jerked her neck back, her bitter expression softening. "What did I just say?"

  

***

        It was official, Aspeth was sick. Physically, mentally and perhaps, spiritually.

        She said she couldn't remember anything, how she'd ended up in the bathtub. According to the story she'd given Matron and the doctor, she'd gone into the bathroom to wash her mouth and that was that. It ended there.

       Some of the girls said she had gone mental, the extremists claimed she had been possessed by an evil spirit. I didn't fall into either category, I said Aspeth had died and resurrected.

        I had been there, and I had seen everything. Aspeth had been dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

        "It's alright Claire, Aspeth will be fine." Mrs. Du-Bois rubbed my shoulders.  "Peggy, sleep in her room tonight. Aspeth will be spending the night at the hospital."

        As we walked down the hallways, girls stared. Before, I would have cared, but that night I didn't.

        Peggy hadn't said much to me, only tried desperately to create jokes about the situation. I'd appreciated her efforts, really. But they'd done zero to calm my spirit.

        When we entered my room, I rushed into my bed and emptied the tears in my heart. I was so confused and afraid that it just felt like the right thing to do.

***

        At 11 : 00 pm, I woke up from a nightmare.

        At 12 : 17 am, I woke up from another nightmare, screaming about bombs and guns and serial killers.

        At 12 : 59 am, someone knocked on the door.

       

Hey guyysss, how's everyone doing? This is a very short chapter I know, but the next chapter might be longer. No promises though lol. Thanks so much to everyone that nominated me for the fiction Awards, Nuella_17  FatimaFiscian starless-  xxstrawberrygirlxy @ex_thinker and everyone else❤. I love you guys with all of my heart❤

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