Broken timeline - Part One

Chapter Six - Hever to London

Since we where supposed to be visiting Hever Castle the next day, we decided to spend the rest of the day and night at Edenbridge, a town next to it. We had looked for a hotel during our ride and booked two rooms. Kate and I were going to be roommates for the night. I figured that staying with someone would keep me from having another weird night.

After such a long drive, we had agreed to stay in and have dinner at a small tavern next to the hotel. We ate, laughed and went to bed early.

Kate and I chatted a little before sleeping and I took advantage of that time to get to know her more. She was a very interesting person and had so many stories to tell about her different experiences. Her father was a travel photographer, and that meant that she had to move a lot as a child, which explained a lot of things. For a start, her strive to meet new people everyday and her passion about our planet. She was a fervent believer in ecologic energies and wanted to make our world a better place. I loved listening to her and she obviously enjoyed sharing that part of her life with me.

I then took a few minutes to send e-mails and keep up with my Insta stories. I decided to start a journal to record every little moment of my trip and included several pictures of James and Kate. We had bonded so much for the past three days, that I thought of them now more like friends than simple tour guides.

I showed my pictures to Kate and asked her thoughts. She liked them, especially the ones where we were making funny faces. Weirdly, she didn't seem to notice the ones that got messed up, as if she couldn't see it. After a while we both felt really exhausted and decided to call it a night.

"Miss, do you want to wear the red dress or the blue one ?", asked the voice of a young woman.

Oh no not again ! What the hell was happening to me ?!

I suddenly rose up and sat down on my bed, half asleep, barely able to see anything in the darkness that filled the room. What time was it ? I started look for my phone in my bed but couldn't find it. I squinted my eyes, trying to see if anyone was in the room with us, but I couldn't see anything.

"Who's there ?!", I asked, whispering hesitantly. I was shaking and could barely stand up.

"Miss, I believe the red one is a bit more appropriate for this sort of gathering, I'm sure that it'll please him very much", continued the unseen voice, who then felt much closer to me.

I could hear that unseen person footsteps as she was pacing the room and after a few seconds I felt her next to me.

"Kate ! Kate ! Wake up ! There's someone in the room !", I screamed at the top of my lungs and jumped off of my bed.

I then felt a warm liquid coming down my face and my vision was suddenly blurry. I hadn't realized that I was crying. God I was seriously creeped out.

Kate turned up the light and had a horrified look on her face. She looked confused and scared at the same time.

"For God's sake Emma you scared the lights out of me ! What's wrong ?",  she asked, still looking confused. I tried to gather my thoughts, stood up and looked around the room, behind the curtains and under our beds. But there was no one with us.

"Kate I swear to God I heard someone speaking to me and it got closer. I swear I'm not lying ! Someone was in the room with us !", I said with a shaking voice.

Kate sighed, stood up and started looking around, "Emma... seriously you obviously had a bad dream, go back to bed and try to sleep. No one's in here, see ?", she said while walking around the room.

"Yeah... must've been a nightmare. Sorry it felt so real... I'll go back to sleep", I said. It wasn't a nightmare and I had not imagined it.
I wasn't oblivious, I had distinctively heard someone, and I knew that it wasn't the end of it. As I was walking back to my bed, I stepped on the book that I had borrowed from the library in Oxford. How in the world did it end up on the floor ? I didn't remember taking it out of my bag. I put any weird thoughts aside, shoved the book back into my backpack and went back to sleep.
That night I had another dreamless sleep.

Kate woke me up at 8 a.m and after getting ready, we both went downstairs to get some breakfast.

James was already there and was sipping on his coffee while looking at something on his phone.

"Hey James guess what ? Emma pulled a Linda Blair on me last night !", said Kate, amused.

"What are you talking about ?", asked James raising one eyebrow.

"It's nothing, I had a nightmare that felt a little too real, that's all....", I said, a little bit annoyed.

"Yeah, and you dragged me into it ! I swear Emma, I thought that someone was murdering you ! You really scared me",  she joked.

"Okay Kate I got it... You found it funny, ha ha ! Can you please drop it now?", I snapped.

"Hey... I'm sorry I didn't meant to upset you I just wanted to lighten the mood, I too have nightmares sometimes. I can remember this one time, when I thought that I was being chased by this massive dog, but I couldn't run away from it because my feet were somehow tangled. Believe me I couldn't sleep for days after that !", she said trying to empathize.

"Yeah we've all had that dream. But last night, I didn't feel like I was sleeping. I swear I really thought that I was awake, and that someone was speaking to me..."

"What was that person saying ?", asked James, with a concerned look.

"Nothing much, it sounded like a woman, and she was asking me to pick the color of the dress that I wanted to wear..."
I realised, now that I was saying it out loud, how stupid it sounded.

"Doesn't sound scary to me !", he joked, "But you know this place is old and the walls are not very thick, it's possible that what you heard came from the room right next to yours",

"Yeah, possible...."

I was seriously starting to feel like there was something wrong with me, but little did I know that it was only the beginning.