Villains ➵ bill skarsgård a.u.

twenty

I wake up to the sound of banging on my door, my senses immediately getting dragged away from slumber to check what the fuss was about. I jolt up sideways from my bed, the tangles of my hair blocking my vision. "Adrianne! Wake up it's eight!" Uncle Ron's voice boomed behind the wooden door and I wipe off the hair gathering on my face to see. Nonetheless, I couldn't see anything the entirety of the room remained in darkness, the only source of light pouring in through the drawn curtains of my window, adding to my disorientation.

"Adrianne!" He calls again. "Are you going to school?!"

"Yes, I'm up!" I reply, slumping my head back into the cold fabric of my pillow case the strands of my hair tangled in all sorts of knots. I lazily creep my hand through the sheets, seeking for the cold metal of my phone, seemingly unbothered over Ron's statement that it was eight. When I finally find it I press open the home screen, the time displaying eight twelve. I've only been asleep for two hours and I felt like shit. Utter and complete shit. It was like I just got home from running a mile. For the first time in two years that I have been friends with. Georgie, I didn't want to go to school and face them after what I've done yesterday.

My sore throat have accumulated over night, and my jaw pained, accompanied by the swelling of the wounds under my cast. Even so, I couldn't skip school today. Not right now that we needed to find Sarah. Not right now that I had a million things to explain Georgie and Jumper. Other than that; we've come to the agreement that we'll go around town to distribute flyers of Sarah today, and I've already missed a lot of things from their discussion yesterday before I ran off to the woods, I couldn't miss more. I can't just always run away from my problems unfortunately, and I already assured Jumper that I'll talk to Georgina last night and still didn't do it. It's only a matter of time before they personally visit me in this home, and since the incidents of Ericka's foul gossiping mouth, I've been trying to distance my friends from the judgement of Ron and Marianne.

I kicked off the piled blankets from my feet, cautiously pulling myself up from my bed despite not wanting to. As I get up, a twang of pain like something had snapped under my cast morphs my face into a wince, my eyes threatening to leak. I hold onto my arm gritting my teeth, caressing it to bring relief but it didn't do anything. I stand up against my will and spread the blinds from my window, thick grey clouds greeting my eyes outside as white crystals flooded the grass of our backyard. It was still hailing, the cold sending goosebumps across my skin. I walk over to the door and switched the lights on, illuminating the entirety of the room. As I turn back around, my heart falls out of my chest, a gasp audibly ripping out of my throat.

He sat there frozen on the makeshift bed, his brown hair a tangled mess as it hung on either side of his pale face, his green eyes alert like he had been awake long before I had, and something about that sent chills down my spine. I remind myself repeatedly of last night that I wasn't alone anymore and there was someone else occupying my room. I take a deep breath, mentally calming the impending panic attack solidifying in my chest as I stood there, my heart pounding through my ears.

"H-how long have you been awake?" I stammer, my voice cracking.

"An hour. I'm sorry for not waking you up, I didn't know you needed to get up." he says, looking down in embarrassment, but I was too busy reasoning inside my head on how I should feel about him being awake an hour while I slept.

I didn't even get proper rest, I couldn't drift off from the constant fear that something bad would happen. Or moreover, I was waiting for something bad to happen. Thankfully nothing did, but I still couldn't sleep. I listened all night to the hail. For some reason I was terrified of the idea of sleep from the previous nightmares I have been getting which was ironic. I shouldn't even be scared of that now, I had a whole lot different things to be afraid of. My head couldn't help but picture the sight of him looking at me with wide eyes through the dark while I was unconscious and I had no idea. It was a little far-fetched, but I've already seen demons with my own eyes. At this point, anything is possible.