Every night, when I closed my eyes, his image would be branded to the backs of my eyelids. That same smile, so gorgeous yet so deadly. Those deep blue eyes, like the treacherous oceans you find, the ones which sometimes have those desolate lighthous...
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Silence.
Grace glanced around the room again, wondering if she should speak and try to break the tense disquiet.
Corina, unable to take the thick atmosphere, had announced that she was going to take a short shower. It had been ten minutes. She wasn't out.
Grace had, admittedly, received small stabs of anxiety about how long Corina was taking, but every time she imagined Corina somehow getting murdered in the bathroom, Grace would hear her humming a tune of an eerie song as the water ran. So Grace would tell herself to relax and instead contemplate the situation and how to get out of it.
Simon and Lorelei sat on the sofa, staring into space. Lorelei's eyes were focused, as if she were imagining every possible scenario of how they could stay alive — but then they would cloud up, suddenly troubled, as if every scenario ended in death.
Xander slowly paced around the room, tracing his graceful hands across the orange walls as if feeling for an escape door. He looked determined yet lost; his desire to find a way out mirrored that of a fish hiding from a shark, frantic between its temporary refuge amongst the orange coral.
Grace found her eyes travelling back to Simon. His hair was mussed because he'd run his hands through it multiple times and his brown eyes were unfocused, spaced out as if a thick haze of fog had drifted across his vision. She'd only seen him like this once before, and he wouldn't say why. He'd called her immediately, and his voice was shaking; Grace had picked up, and within minutes she was on her way to him. She'd sat with him in silence, music playing quietly in the background, while he had that same expression on his face. To this day, she didn't know why he'd called her, but he made her swear not to tell the others. So naturally, Grace kept it under lock and key.
But now, it worried her. It worried her like a forest fire would worry an ant. As if she could see something disastrous coming, and feel its furious heat, but she couldn't do anything about it. She couldn't even run; she would have to watch everything and everyone around her burn as she tries to accept this unjust death.
It wasn't the first time Grace imagined climbing onto the sofa and into Simon's arms — but she stayed standing, her back against the wall, her desire for his reassuring arms around her going unnoticed.
"I'm going to check on Corina," Lorelei suddenly broke the silence, her tone failing to hide her underlying anxiousness. Grace's eyes widened slightly and she stood straight; she hadn't heard a noise from the bathroom in a while, although the water was still running.
Lorelei got off the sofa and walked to the bathroom door. Xander's observant eyes followed her across the room, narrowed slightly.
"Corina?" Lorelei called, knocking on the bathroom door.
Nothing.
Grace gulped, then cautiously walked to Lorelei, her eyes fixed on the bathroom door where the shower was still running. Fifteen minutes. Xander and Simon made their way over too while Lorelei knocked again. "Corina!" she yelled, putting her ear to the door.
