Beyond The Realms

Chapter 1

In the middle of the night, I sense a presence in my bedroom.

Standing eerily silent beside my bed is a person glowering down at me. Unblinking and unmoving.

Shock overriding fear I let out a scream that is loud enough to bring down the entire roof.

Mom hurries into my room looking wide-eyed and disoriented from sleep " What? What is it ?"

" I saw someone ...." My voice trails off when I see nothing but emptiness in the direction I've been pointing towards "I swear someone was over there! "

Mom rolls her eyes groggily muttering " Seventeen years old and my kid is still scared of monsters under her bed "

" I--"

" Scoot," She says moving to lie down beside me" Relax get some sleep, and don't ever watch horror movies again"

I'm grateful that she isn't angry at me. I would have been furious if I had woken up to someone screaming like crazy in the middle of the night," Thanks mom". Lying down beside her, I don't care if I'm a grown-up girl and a high schooler who is seeking out her mother's company like a toddler.

What I have seen had terrified me.

" It's alright " Mom mumbles already close to snoring.

" Mom I haven't watched any horror movies in the last six months " I doubt she even hears me as lost in sleep as she is.

But it is true.

I'm not a jumpy person or a person who gets scared easily but recently I have been seeing things.

Things that I have initially dismissed as a figment of my overactive imagination. But seriously, there is a limit to how creepy my imagination can be.

I'm pretty sure I hadn't imagined the presence I felt behind me a few days ago when I was alone at home or the feeling that someone was following me in the shadows at the empty subway after school. I don't even want to mention the long-nailed hand I saw emerge out from one of the walls of the kitchen yesterday.

Lately, I have been feeling like someone is watching me. Always watching. Waiting in the shadows, their malicious presence hidden from my eyes but never gone.

Unless someone is planning for Halloween which is like a good four months away, I would say I have earned every right to be scared.

A week of such continued creepy incidents later, I'm officially a scaredy-cat.

I try to appear as normal as I can in school but it's hard because sometimes I get scared of my own shadow. I swear I have seen it eerily move away from my body a couple of times.

A long time ago, when I was a kid mom had told me that I had a twin sister named Amy. Nobody knows where she has gone or who took her away. 

We don't know if she is even alive.

Like every other person who experiences tragedy we mourned her absence and tried to move on with our lives.

Though sometimes I still catch myself wondering how my life would have been if I had my twin sister beside me.

Would she have been like me in school?  Silent and nerdy?

Or the polar opposite? Bold and outgoing?

I wonder just like I have a thousand times before as I sit on the high school bus this morning forcing myself to look enthusiastic as I wave at Naina Patel, my best friend. Actually, she is my only friend in the entire school.

Not that I'm complaining, because Naina is fun to hang out with if she isn't obsessing over the latest boy bands.

Recently she had introduced me to a very nice Korean music band of seven guys. I don't understand the language but I read the subtitles of their songs and we both collectively swoon over their amazing dance moves and fangirl like maniacs over their stunning good looks.

" Check out their latest interview," Naina says giggling excitedly as she sends me the link.

I look down at my phone screen ready to click on the link but my face lights up when I see the name of one of my most favorite persons on the planet pop up.

'Aunt Victoria' 




My too-practical mom who believes in solid facts and science doesn't exactly encourage my interactions with her because  Aunt Vic sees visions of the future in her dreams and more often than now her visions are downright bizarre. It goes without saying that on occasions when all my relatives get together the dinners are pretty hectic as half of them believe in Aunt Vic's abilities while the other half support my mom who says it's all rubbish.

The smile drains from my face when I read the single-line text message from Aunt Vic.

' I had a terrible dream. Beware of the wrath of the Pheonix '

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